The Spiced Tea Party

On Not Going Gentle...

2008-09-10T17:30:00.001-05:00

I received a recent email from my friend Doreen deSalvo (romance writer and one of the founders of the erotic romance publisher Loose-Id Books -- that's their logo over on the left) with this parting quote embedded:

What do you have now, and what do you covet, that you would not gladly trade for, say, five extra years?

It's from the journalist Michael Kinsley (past and founding editor of Slate.com), who was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease a few years ago, and who wrote about life expectancy and other related issues in a wonderful piece called "Mine is Longer than Yours." Kinsley's condition is controlled right now, and he continues to write beautifully and with great urgency.

As one always ought to do, with the end in view.

Inspiring me to try and do likewise (at least qua the urgency) at the end of the life of this blog, while bidding my bloggies -- Jane, Celia, Kate, Lacy, Colette, and Sharon -- a tearful and grateful farewell.

We never really stated our common theme, and I don't know if we'd even agree on one -- not to speak of what any of us meant by "erotic historical."

But my guess is that there has been a consistent concern pumping through the heart of this blog (pumping, mind you, do let's give throbbing a well-deserved rest, okay?) And this constant concern has probably been something like "how do you write from the heart of your obsessions and keep yourself real and grounded at the same time?"

Starting with the obsession thing. I loved the fact that on this blog we wondered out loud what caused us to look deep within our fantasy lives and not blink at the surprising things we found there. Things no one told us were sexy (isn't it weird to live during a period where erotic taste is always being dictated, as though it were fashion or politics or morality...-- though who knows, maybe it does reflect aspects of them).

We brought words and objects back from the past, we ventured into the paranormal, and we weren't afraid of that other p-word, the pornographic. (Pausing for a brief message from the sponsor: you know I'm going to keep trying to understand where the boundaries of the erotic, the pornographic, and the romantic lie, and then do my best to confound them -- check my blog from time to time, and just about anything I'm likely ever to write for more wonkery on the subject).

While as for staying real and grounded: while we were testing boundaries, we were also trying to make deadlines, get kids to school, negotiate the erotic romance biz. We were distracted, exhausted, exasperated. Sometimes we were late to post.

We had fun -- well, I did anyway. But then, I've always believed that erotic writing is its own reward (which in the ups and downs of a career has to be a good thing), and that writing about erotic writing can be too.

And so now I'm tiptoeing away to turn off the lights.

And close the door. Because that's all there is (as they say in one of my all-time favorite children's books).

There isn't any more.

Good night, ladies.

Sad Sad Day…

2008-09-08T12:35:00.005-05:00

I have been thinking about what to post today for the past week. First, I thought I should do one more post on some historic bit of information. Then I thought I should just for fun ask everyone what their favorite sex word off of my website list was. Then I simply wanted to let you all know what how very much I have appreciated being apart of this blog and the readership that we have shared. The last one won out.

I want to thank you all Celia, Pam, Janet, Kate, Sharon, and Colette for allowing me a glimpse into all of your creativity, lives, and minds. You are all beautiful, wonderful, human beings and I was honored, humbled, and inspired to be included in a blog with you all. I shall miss each and every one of you.

Readers, Thank you for you comments, laughter, questions and support of all of our kinky creative minds! I shall miss you all.

Sniffle... Sniffle... Sniffle.

Oh, what the heck, just for the fun of it, what is your favorite word/phrase off my dirty words list?

Mine is bald headed hermit used for the prick of course. Grin.

Hugs and Kisses,
Lacy.

Reflections (on Spiced Tea and Strumpet Crumpets)

2008-09-05T07:35:00.004-05:00

It’s funny that we’re saying goodbye to the Spiced Tea Party blog just as we’re also saying goodbye to summer (verrry sad up where I live, where the good weather doesn’t last long). School just began for my wee ones, with my son heading off for his very first year. He loves it, but I definitely had some teary eye moments as I watched him go.

I’m going to miss blogging here. It’s been a year of changes for me—some health issues in the extended family, the writing my first book for Bantam Dell (The Club), and then the revising :-). This week brought good news—author copies of Hot Silk (my next Aphrodisia) and coverflats for The Club. Much loving caressing of the embossed title on The Club's cover occurred. And also sadness, this week, as I chose my day to say good bye here.

One of the main things I’m going to miss, as Kate mentioned, is the chance to read the posts of my fellow strumpet crumpets—Celia, Colette, Jane, Kate Lacy, Pam. I loved having the chance to learn, to discover a new book (or an interesting invention of human sexuality) I’d never heard of before. I loved to mull over the posts for a few days after, then apply the thoughts they inspired to my books. When it was my turn, I’d sit down at the keyboard and wonder what I could share…

Kate and Celia did a wonderful job of pinpointing what was unique about we crumpets’ posts. And I appreciated the times I got to meet my fellow crumpets, and having the chance to form friendships.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a photo to top Jane’s photo of Prince Harry. (Honestly, I doubt I could ever find one!) But I wanted to post an excerpt from Hot Silk:

Damnation.

She had stood there and listened to the twaddle his bloody titled brother had fed her, but she ran away from him.

Devlin would not stand for it.

All he wanted to do was help her.

Heedless of the wet rock, he took the steps three at a time. Grace reached the small terraced plateau before he caught her.

Not there. He was not about to have a confrontation in this place—so he scooped her into his arms. She squealed and pushed against his biceps. "Don’t struggle, love. If I drop you here, you’ll roll down the steps."

God, she was a delicious weight in his arms. Her lush bottom rested against his forearm and his hand splayed over her shapely back. Instead of taking the path down, he took a narrow track away from the edge of the ridge and found his father’s folly. Bushes now obscured the path, but the branches were only budding and the white columns and oriental roof peeked through.

Slowly, Grace slid her hands up to his shoulders and held on as she twisted in his arms. "What is this?"

"Where I was conceived," he said with wry humor.

Pushing open the door with his boot, he gave a sigh. The daybed cushions bore stains and mildew, and dirt and dust coated everything. "Apparently my father hasn’t been trysting with the same regularity he used to."

"You are not taking me in there. It was bad enough that I went to the summerhouse at his lordship’s summons—I will not be carried in against my will."

Her breath brushed his face, warm and sweet.

"Is it against your will, Grace? Is that the truth?"

God, but her scent drove him mad. Rock hard, aroused to the point he could barely think, he refused to press his interests. He was not going to seduce her. He was not going to act like his damned brother.

"You thought I would be willing to become his mistress. After what he did. What he said. You think nothing of me—of course, you don’t—"

Putting her on her feet stopped her words. He touched his thumb to her lips in the doorway of the once sumptuous room where a hundred women had fallen in love with his randy father. Even through the leather of his glove, he caught his breath at the softness of her mouth, the sheer velvet perfection of those rose-pink lips. "I was afraid you felt forced to accept, love."

Her breath hitched—he heard it—and she brushed a soft kiss to his black gloved thumb. "I turned down your offer, Mr. Sharpe. I would never accept his."

From "Hot Silk" by Sharon Page ©2008. Coming October 2008 from Kensington Aphrodisia.

And in the end...

2008-09-04T11:15:00.003-05:00

I'm going to miss this blog. I LOVED reading everyone else's posts.
Jane made me laugh and snort tea on my keyboard on more than one occasion.
Lacy made me want to a) look like her and b) go to all those interesting places.
Colette inspired me with her rewriting of the classics.
Sharon's excerpts and thoughts on writing encouraged me to write better
Celia May Hart's dry wit and posts on her own writing challenges were inspirational.
And Pam? Pam's fascinating posts made me think-often for days until I could formulate a reply that made sense.

So thanks to everyone for inspiring me and thanks to our readers as well. Please come and find us at our other hang outs!

love Kate x

Waving goodbye...

2008-09-03T05:41:00.001-05:00

Well, not really. I'll be around like a loudmouthed bad penny here and there on the internet. You can catch me on Thursdays at Risky Regencies and occasionally at the Wet Noodle Posse, and dropping in at various places.

To be honest, sometimes I don't feel like an erotic romance writer. I'm not that interested in obscure sexual practices, because so many of them sound just weird. I'd be the person at the orgy wandering around asking if anyone wanted a cup of tea after they'd finished doing that. My characters don't have extensive collections of sex toys but they do drink a lot of tea.

I've loved being here, snarky or otherwise. I hope that what we've written about here has inspired, entertained, or educated you. And I've loved finding photos like this gem of Prince William waving goodbye and really meaning it.

And now, the end is near....

2008-09-02T00:01:00.006-05:00

A number of us crumpet strumpets caught up with each other at various points of the RWA National conference, and the subject came around: what can we do to keep this blog fun and bring readers to it?

We had plans, grand dreams, but alas, we also had deadlines, and were beginning to run out of ways to talk about historical sex (although who knew that could happen?). I’m going to miss Pam’s erudite posts, Janet’s snarky ones, Lacey writing from far destinations and always looking stunning, Kate's blurring the lines between erotic romance and erotica (with really neat historical pics), Collette's rewriting of the classics, and the "behind-the-scenes" of Sharon's writing process and her characters.

It’s been great forming friendships with my fellow crumpets, and I’ll miss them, but you’ll catch us around on various blog traps. And who knows? Maybe there’ll be a reunion somewhere down the line.

I’m not going to end on a sad note, or indeed, share my idea of who would be the sexiest man on legs (first, it varies, and currently, it’s Jeremy Irons), but on a note of hope.

Unleash Your Story: Make A Difference started yesterday. It’s a group of authors and readers with writing and reading goals for the month of September and raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The aim is to raise $10,000 during the month of September.

Leanne Shawler is one of the many authors who are writing and raising funds for this cause. (Wish I could, but this is my bit to help her out.) If you wish to make a donation to CFF as part of this event, go here.

We've decided to keep this blog online at least for the time being. Thank you everyone for reading and participating in this little corner of the bloggy world!

We're in San Francisco!

2008-07-29T11:55:00.003-05:00

Back next week...we're at Romance Writers of America's national conference.

Look out for us at RWA's Readers for Life Literacy Autographing, Wednesday July 30, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the San Francisco Marriott. Open to the public--more info here.

See you later!

The Club

2008-07-27T15:49:00.003-05:00

Hi all,
It’s been a busy week. My four-year-old came down with viral hives on Thursday—I had him halfway to daycare in the stroller when my daughter pointed out that he was turning red. And on Friday, I thought that I might be expecting baby no. 3. (A surprise and it turned out not to be the case.)

I also finished revisions on The Club, my sexy February release with Dell books, and made much progress on Blood Deep, my wip for Aphrodisia. Research for The Club has proved to be interesting, giving me the chance to read up a little on harems, the Kama Sutra, and India. I became completely addicted to a book that detailed how India was surveyed in the early 1800s. Enormous spiders, tigers, and disease proved to be very problematic, and ultimately the lead of the surveying team died, leaving a last journal entry that was the date and a dash—he never completed it.

The cover I’ve shown is obviously for The Club, and I’m thrilled at the elegant look Dell has given me. Plus, I’m in love with the hero’s shoulders. This will be out in February 2009. Here is a small excerpt from The Club (unedited):

"How am I going to explain to a man I’ve paid that I do not actually want him to make love to me?"

Jane asked the question of her image in the cheval mirror, but her reflection could provide no answers, obviously, that she could not think of herself.

So speaking aloud to it was quite pointless.

Groaning, Jane stalked around the brothel’s bedchamber, biting her thumbnail, and dreading the knock that was soon to come.

She had come here for Delphina, had come for answers. She’d paid a veritable fortune for the services of one of the young men employed by Mrs. Brougham, the woman who ran this Georgian house on the fringe of Mayfair, known simply as the "The Club". But since it had been a ruse, she now had to convince the man to leave without touching her.

Would he be angry?

She shivered.

Would he come to her aroused? Fear coiled, tight and cold, around her heart. She knew—though she had never experienced it with her own late husband—a man could become belligerent when he was aroused and the woman refused to play.

With Sherringham, she’d never had the courage to refuse to play. He had now been dead for thirteen months, and she no longer had to endure the nights he came to her bedroom. She no longer had to fight to find the courage to send him away, then despise herself when she couldn’t.

Jane paced, hugging her chest.

Surely a large bribe would soothe any ruffled…well, whatever might be ruffled on a randy young man. The man she’d hired had intimate relations for money, so wasn’t money the most important thing? And there were dozens of society ladies in attendance. Any reasonably attractive, healthy, and erect young man wouldn’t be frustrated for long.

Oh dear God, she thought, and she took hold of one of the bedposts for support.

Excerpt From The Club, © 2008 Sharon Page

Fan Fiction for Beginners (or for snobs)

2008-07-24T10:03:00.008-05:00

Years back (in June 2006, actually), I wrote a piece on my own blog called The Snape Theory, finally, wherein I correctly asserted before it was revealed at the end of the series that Snape was a double agent working for good, and that it was for the love of Harry's mother Lily.

Of course, getting the Snape Theory right by the end of the fifth Harry Potter (The Order of the Phoenix) was hardly a stretch for a romance writer, it being our business to discern and delineate secret smoldering passions. Still, it got me much cred with my then-eleven-year-old niece, who could horcrux me under the table when it came to minor Harry Potter details and characters, but hadn't figured out the Snape thing yet.

And it also got me a fascinating piece of fanmail, directing me to some down-and-dirty and really rather well-written Harry Potter BDSM fan fiction -- about an intellectual relationship that (just as she becomes chronologically old enough) becomes an erotic one between Snape and Hermione.

I kinda enjoyed it, and was grateful to be pointed to it. I liked the idea of Snape wearing tight black jeans under his robes (not what Rowling intended, of course, but certainly a compassionate compensation for that heart-rending scene in the pensieve at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). And everybody who plays for the smart girl team will be gladdened by Hermione having an erotic partner who matches her in intellect. And then there's the strange point, which I have never quite understood, but which I feel to be absolutely true -- that BDSM is a kink often preferred by wonky types (I'll write more on this someday, I promise, but if anybody has any ideas I'd love to hear them now).

Anyway, I searched around in this fan fiction site, and followed links for a while... but then I went back to the book I was trying to write at the time and didn't think of fan fiction again until recently. Partly I was reminded of it when I read this quip from the supersmart lit-and-culture blogger Caleb Crain, who said he couldn't claim "to have read much fan fiction, but I feel as if I've been reading academic papers about it since I was an undergrad."

It's true -- particularly in the 90s, hip lit critics adored fan fiction, because it seemed to point to new and interesting aspects of the reading-writing continuum -- and perhaps also to point to a truth not generally acknowledged about a certain kind of reading, the adoring fans' desire to imagine characters' untold stories. We like to give them the breaks their authors never gave them (for Snape, something a whole lot better under his robes than the "skinny, pallid legs" and "graying underpants" Rowling gave him in the pensieve scene).

Sometimes, in the romance world, minor characters get their own books (sometimes this is sincere, sometimes market-driven, c'est la vie capitaliste, I guess). Sometimes, perhaps, it's the urge to continue a job well begun -- read the tough-love justice meted out on the final page of Pride and Prejudice: perhaps (I suppose this series assumes) England would be a better place if Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were solving all the unsolved crimes and dispensing rewards and punishments a la Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey. (I haven't read any of those Darcy mysteries -- have any of you? -- but I'll confess to a real adolescent wonky romantic thing for Peter Wimsey.)

And sometimes, as in the case of our own Colette Gale, the ending of The Phantom of the Opera just can't hold without the real lovers getting together. Colette, of course, writes in a "classics retold" subgenre. Retold and re-eroticized. Or perhaps (this is the fan fiction connection, I think) picking up on hints of eroticism in the original...?

Sometimes the eroticism really is there in the original -- or almost. The first time I read about fan fiction, it was (possibly like Caleb Crain) in the 90s, in the work of literary scholar Constance Penley. I think the word was slash fiction -- though I'm not sure what that meant. But in any case, Penley was gaga (her word) over stories of sex between Kirk and Spock by Star Trek fans. And whereas I don't believe that Gene Roddenberry had intended a sexual relationship, certainly there's an erotic vibe between two polar modes of macho -- Kirk the impetuous and Spock the remote, repressed, and contemplative. Which probably has something to do with the popularity of m-m couplings today (crumpet strumpets who mine this vein, please comment!)

Which brings me to the real reason I'm writing about fan fiction, because what I'm playing with right now is my own retelling of a classic novel -- to tell the "real" story that it's my pleasure to propose that the author was too proper to reveal. Perhaps like Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead -- well, that's a literary and hifalutin example. Or perhaps more like fan fiction. Where are the boundaries?

Boundaries or not, right now for me it's a journey and a challenge. The sex parts are pure pleasure. Righting injustices that I perceive in the original is a delight. Knowing how much to reveal about the "original," ostensible plot is a headache -- because some readers will have read the original and others will not have. I want it to work for everybody.

And I also want to know what you think about this farrago of partially digested ideas. I know that at least one of the crumpets (Celia) has written fan fiction. And that others of you have written m-m erotica and classics retold stories. Readers, what do you think? Writers, what have been your experiences?

Ten things

2008-07-16T06:45:00.004-05:00

that are almost as good as sex:

1. A Cadbury's flake stuck in a vanilla cone (soft English ice cream).

2. The scent of rain when it first falls on dry ground

3. Favorite words: island, farthingale, celestial, wondrous, celandine, fathom, jewel, darkness, velvet, lustre, piglet, ragged, pagoda, marmoset, sandalwood, counterpoint, cantilever, sultry, orange, wilderness

4. That wonderful feeling of anticipation you get when you open a book for the first time by a favorite writer

5. Meeting an old friend after years apart and finding that you pick up where you left off with no awkwardness

6. Eating a mango

7. Werner Herzog's production of Tannhauser

8. Ingmar Bergman's movie of The Magic Flute

9. Starting a new book and knowing anything can happen, but you're not yet sure what

10. Writing the last page of a book and realizing you're going to miss your characters

What are yours?

Writing Again

2008-07-11T23:16:00.001-05:00

About a month ago, I talked about how I’d gotten back into the writing groove and had written 30 pages on vacation!

Well, they were the last pages I wrote for a while.

However.

I’ve turned over a new leaf (yet again) and this month I’ve finished and turned in a novella, and am working on finishing a really fun proposal. I’ve given myself until the end of next week to write 30 pages and thus complete a first draft of the proposal. Which meant 2.5 pages a day. A cakewalk for me when I was under contract and writing 5 to 6 pages a day in order to meet the deadline.

As of today (Friday), well, I’m 3.5 pages behind my goal. But that’s okay. I know what I want to write next and I’m rather looking forward to it. There was supposed to be writing time tonight, but the hubby got good news at work and so we went out to a swanky restaurant to celebrate.

Yep, that kind of real good news.

So the writing is going well again, and I’m having fun doing so.

By the way, my husband is going to London. And no, I’m not going. What should he bring back for me?

Besides Cadbury’s, and possibly tea.

Cheers!
Celia

The Hidden Stuff

2008-07-10T14:10:00.003-05:00

Contest!
This month I’m doing a cross contest with fellow Aphrodisia author Elizabeth Amber, who writes the Lords of Satyr series—sexy historical paranormal.

Check the contest page at my site http://www.sharonpage.com/contest.htm for a chance to win a copy of Elizabeth’s latest book, LYON, THE LORDS OF SATYR.
For a chance to win my latest, BLACK SILK, check out Elizabeth’s newsletter group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ElizabethAmber

I’m editing my first Bantam/Dell book, THE CLUB, right now, which has been making me think about the things we take out of stories, or "Outtakes".

Every writer has them. Some are even brave enough to post them on their websites. On her site, author Kelley St. John has a page called The Cutting Room floor, where she has posted deleted scenes and extra material. I love the idea—I love to see all the "behind the scenes" process that goes into creating a book. I also love to watch the deleted scenes on DVD—I find it really helps me think about storytelling to try to understand why the scene was removed, and how the movie is stronger because of it.

When I wrote the synopsis for Sin, I thought that it would be a great idea to have my artist heroine Venetia draw a portrait of Marcus, the hero. And so I wrote the scene. But through later drafts I realized the scene didn’t advance the plot, and even though I loved the idea and the scene made me smile, I had to let it go.

It’s always tough to make that decision to cut paragraphs or even an entire scene. I can never force myself to do that right after the first draft. It’s usually when I reach the third draft that I am cold-hearted enough to slash where needed!

Here’s a peek at a scene that didn’t make it into the final, published version of Sin. But I loved the scene, so if you’ve read Black Silk, some of this may seem familiar…

Fully clothed and he’d never felt more naked in his life. Marcus shifted his hip against his desk. What was she staring at? Why had he struck this pose where he was gazing off into the distance at not at her?

What part of him was she looking at now?

His shoulders? His chest? His thighs? Or worse, was she painting his groin, which of course at some point she would have to do. He couldn’t ask her to leave a blank unpainted hole where his hips and crotch should be, but his erection was tenting his breeches. Thankfully he’d worn black, so the bulge wouldn’t be so blasted obvious, but if he stood here knowing she was scrutinizing his family jewels to record them for posterity, he might just ravish her on the spot.
Hell and perdition, all he’d done was kiss the woman and now he couldn’t put her from his mind. He’d lost a thousand bloody pounds at the tables today.

How many women had he kissed? How many women had he made love to? He couldn’t remember the last, but he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Venetia Hamilton.
Expecting an admonishment, he turned his head just a bit and glanced at her.

She wasn’t looking at him. Good lord, she was sucking on the end of her paintbrush. Her soft red lips pursued around the painted wood shaft and she studied her picture with a frown. Drenched in candlelight, her hair was a mass of flame. She was adorable as her amber brows drew together in concentration.

"No, indeed, that shoulder is not broad enough," she muttered in a breathy voice. Speaking to herself, she had a soft, kittenish purr. "Definitely his shoulders are broader…straighter…hips lean and narrow…decidedly trim and I haven’t quite caught the lovely line where they…ooh."

The soft little sigh at the end was almost his undoing. Blast, he should have posed behind his desk. Was it too late to pull a chair in front?

He was as hard as a pistol and she must be able to see it. He knew she was studying his hips. Which meant she would be working around to the front. Was she assessing him for length and girth? Did he make a good showing compared to her fantasies?

"Could we take a break?" His voice broke the stillness like a cannonball exploding.

She pulled her brush from between her lips and he fancied he saw the tip glistening. The tip of her tongue dabbed the very end, thoughtfully. He gripped the bullnose edge of his desk, tight enough to pop a seam of his gloves.

"You’ve not been posing for more than half and hour, my lord."

"I’m stiff—" God, had he just said that?

"But it will take weeks to complete the work if we stop every time you are…stiff."

For readers and writers, do you enjoy the "Behind the Scenes" sections where authors reveal the secrets behind the book?

Excerpt ©Sharon Page

Home Economics: Love, Sex, and the Marriage Ending

2008-07-07T09:15:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking out loud over at my own personal blog, about a new project I'm playing with, which I hope will be (as I say there):

[...a] thoughtful, highly literate and very smutty piece of writing, with[...] no monogamous ending; no ultimate sorting [of characters into happy coupledom]; no cozy, well-protected final retreat back behind the gates of Pemberley. And yet (I hope) no loose ends either[.... A] way of bringing together all the stuff I’ve been meditating on during my loopy journey from erotica to romance and now, perhaps, back.

A collaboration, as I see it, between Pam Rosenthal and Molly Weatherfield target="_blank" -- an exploration of mean(ing)s and end(ing)s, where we get to play close to the edge of the provocative margin between romantic and (if we must call it that) erotic (with a wink and a nod, here, to Celia May Hart and her funny recent post at this blog).

Is my collaborative idea saleable? I have no idea. I'm not far enough into it yet, and I'm not even going to try to shop it around to publishers until I know more about the shape it will take. So I'd be grateful for your comments about the distinctions between romance and that other thing -- and what role ultimate monogamy and the marriage ending plays in all of this.

And if you're interested in the topic, you might also want to go over to Tracy Grant's blog post about the popularity of courtesan themes in recent romance novels, which I think is related to this issue. What does the widespread recent interest in erotically experienced heroines tell us? Does it widen romance fiction's purview or does it ultimately domesticate the question of erotic experience? Also and always germane is anything our own Jane Lockwood has had to say on erotic pairings and happy endings (or not) in in Forbidden Shores. (What's a good post you did on this, Jane, from the vast archives of your web-hopping?)

Other examples from the huge mess o' online discussion would be appreciated as well... Links to other readers' and writers' cherished beliefs, prejudices, and finely (or even not-so-finely) drawn distinctions are all good. Monica McCarty's opinionated post about Romance and the One True Love a few months ago at the Fog City Diva blog is a great example of taking a position (not my position, but an enduring one), and stating it with impressive clarity.

Let me know what you think, if you've got a mind to.

And meanwhile, here are some closer-to-home messages from the material world.

Sending my thanks first of all to Lacy, whose post on dildos a while back has evidently been inspiring some action in my back brain, to surface in the scene I'm writing right now in the new collaborative project (I'm stealing one of her fabulous illustrations, but there are more where that came from).

And adding an update from my own real life and times. Because the little anniversary present my husband bought me at Good Vibrations last autumn (when I read there with Lacy, Eden Bradley, and Lillian Feisty) turned out to be of shoddy workmanship. No, I'm not going to tell you what he bought me, but I will say that -- for my birthday this month -- he replaced the shoddy original with a terrific little number from the Xandria Collection online. And that at least from our experience, Xandria seems like a pretty excellent site. Have you used it? Anybody else have some consumer info to share?

And... oh, this old illustration? Well, some of you may know a certain sex toy scene from Safe Word. And some of you may not. I may post the scene on my website when I have time for that, but it's not there now, so you just may have to employ some lateral thinking to guess (though I couldn't have). I will tell you that it does work: unlike some of the more farouche stuff in my erotic books, I tried this one at home -- and so did a happy reader. It's subtle, though. You might just have to read my Molly Weatherfield books...

Happy consuming, everyone (the inner nerd insists that I tell you that the word "economics" comes from the Greek for "household"). And happy theorizing . And do tell me what you think about the erotics (or not) of the marriage ending.

Intensifiers/Expletives

2008-07-02T12:39:00.003-05:00

I find when I write my first draft my heroes and heroines all have explanations that are similar… usually ones that I say often, smiles… By the time I finish writing a story I know my heroes and heroines so much better and they have developed their own individuality. I can then give them individual sayings that fit them well.

I have to admit though, finding intensifiers that fit historically can be fun. Besides the known ones of the time period, some listed below, I have the most fun with my heroines. Some of them have made up their own like “Oh poppydust!” and such. Having them use them and get all flustered is fun and well finding ones to use during the act can be an experience!

Some known Intensifiers around during the Regency are: (Of course there are many more)
Oh Monstrous!
Lud!
I dare say!
Phoo!
My Stars!
Take that!
Tally Ho!
That’s the dandy!
What the Devil!
What the Duce!
Zooks!
Egad!
Dash it!
Alas!
Balderdash!
Bloody!
Blow my dickey!
Dang my buttons!
Damn!
Fudge!
Good Gracious! (but not Goodness Gracious)
Hang! As in I’ll be hanged if it is not true!
~~~~~~~~
Huge Grin. Even reading some of them puts a smile on my face.

What are some of your favorite Expletives/Intensifiers?

Kisses,
Lacy.

Not exactly a historical but definitely spicey!

2008-06-30T16:06:00.003-05:00

or should that be spacey?

Yay! Finally the new cover for 'Secured Mail' my follow-up book to 'Planet Mail' from Ellora's Cave (yes, I do get around a bit) a scintillating tale of intergalactic viking love. It comes out in e-book form on July 30th.

I like writing these fun books occasionally after all the angst my Regency heroes put me through. These intergalactic vikings are honorable straight-forward sexy men who love women-who could ask for more?

Here's a quick blurb:

Sven Magnusson’s stuck on Planet Earth sexually serving his queen, Douglass and dealing with a culture where women don’t seem to want a man’s protection. As he struggles to understand Earth females, the queen encourages him to get laid. Of course, Thea Cooper, the only woman who appeals to him, thinks men are useful for one thing and on a one night only basis. Despite their clash of sexual cultures and the fury of their heated erotic encounters, can Sven find a way to convince Thea that her future belongs with him on Planet Valhalla?

And something else fun-if you are a writer-I got a mention in Publisher's Weekly! Here's the link

Erastes interview!

2008-06-29T12:56:00.002-05:00

Come on over to Risky Regencies today where Erastes is talking about, and giving away a copy of her latest book, Speak Its Name.

In praise of pretty boys

2008-06-27T04:42:00.001-05:00

Alpha males? Forget 'em. (And apologies in advance for having one of the posts I claim to despise, full of pictures of attractive men and my Youtube favorites.)

I like men who aren't afraid to wear makeup or silk or elaborate clothing that emphasizes both their masculine and feminine sides. As Jo Beverly says of Georgian men, the delicious thing is that all this fine plumage only disguised the hawks beneath ... most gentlemen routinely wore swords, and knew how to use them.

How about a man who ... isn't really a man? Or is he? How about the gorgeous Billy Crudup in a dress and out of a dress in Stage Beauty? Here's a wonderful scene where actor Ned Kynaston demonstrates what's beneath his magnificent skirts--you're much too beautiful to be a man--and an intensely erotic scene where he and Maria (Claire Danes) explore roles. I wish I could write something as sexy and beautiful as the weaving hands here.

The ultimate in sexual ambiguity of the eighteenth century was the castrato--an international superstar singer like Farinelli. Trained since childhood, and with the advantages of height and huge lung capacity, castrati could perform amazing musical feats of breath and control, rarely attempted by modern singers, although virtuoso mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux is one of the few who can handle this repertoire. When the 1994 movie Farinelli was made, his "voice" was digitally created using counter-tenor Derek Lee Ragin and coloratura Ewa Godlewska's voices as raw material--read more here.

And here's a gorgeous scene from Farinelli using that engineered voice--I love the way it shows the very stylized stage (watch for the erectile peacock) and the typical audience behavior at the opera. It's Farinelli's London debut, at which the crowd really did shout "One God, one Farinelli," although the movie uh, embroidered the history a bit (but who are we to point fingers?). The aria Lascia ch'io pianga is from the opera Rinaldo by Handel (the gentleman with the wig)--and you'll see why the words are so appropriate for a castrato to sing:

Let me lament
my cruel destiny
and yearn for liberty!

May grief, in its mercy,
shatter the bonds
of my torment

Who are your favorite pretty boys?

Summer Lovin'

2008-06-25T07:17:00.002-05:00

Margaritas are, hands down, the best summer drink. (And enough of them can lead to what I call 'summer lovin', hence the title.)

They're cool, they're pretty, they're sexy, and they can be sweet or sour.

And I'm here to tell you how to make super simple designer margaritas.

Ready? Okay.

All you need is sugar, ice, tequila...and Kool-Aid. That's right--Kool-Aid's not just for kids anymore. No sirreee.

Pick out your favorite, most intriguing Kool-Aid flavor. Ice-Blue Raspberry Lemonade, anyone? Swirling Strawberry Starfruit? Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade? You get the idea.

Make the packet of Kool-Aid (I usually don't add as much sugar as the packet calls for) as directed, and then simply use that as your margarita mixer. Add tequila and ice to taste...and voila!

Designer margaritas.

Let me know how it goes and how much of the pitcher you drink yourself, okay?

PS You can also do the same for martinis by simply adding vodka (flavored vodka works too!) instead of tequila.

Porn for Women

2008-06-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

Not only was that basically the topic at Wiscon a few weeks back (the true title was: “Porn Crushes the Patriarchy”) but it is the title of a book given to me last week.

I have never laughed so hard in my life.

Beautifully photographed with men in various states of undress.

Here’s an example: imagine if you will, a handsome, dark-haired man, his shirt off, showing nice pecs and abs but not anywhere near the over-developed man-titty we all giggle at.

His boxers are peeking out from the top of his jeans and he is barefoot on a white shag rug in front of a fireplace.

In one hand, he holds the handle of a... vacuum cleaner. And the caption reads: “I love a clean house.”

It was put together by the Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative, photographs by Susan Anderson, published by Chronicle Books and the ISBN is 978-0-8118-5551-8

And it kinda makes me think we’ve missed the boat in claiming erotic romance as porn for women. What it should be is romantic comedy with guys doing the things they should be doing, but never do, like putting the toilet seat down.

To say any more would give away the sheer delight of this book. And it was verily the most perfect gift for me.

So, folks, porn for women: does it crush the patriarchy, is it erotic romance, or should it be romantic comedy?

Hot Silk and Naked Shoulders

2008-06-21T09:14:00.002-05:00

I booked my flight to London yesterday, which means that my planned research trip to England this October is now a reality! It turned out that several members of my RWA chapter planned to go at the same time, so we’ve made it a joint trip and are renting an apartment. Now the real preparation begins! I have books on Jack the Ripper to read, and Regency locations to list so I can see them, and I’m also hoping to do some side excursions. Plus I’m looking forward to going to bookstores. What if I actually saw myself (i.e. a book of mine) in one of the stores? Boggles the mind. It’s like that scene in a Dirk Gently book by Douglas Adams, where a time-traveling professor claims that he hates to run into himself when he’s gone back in time. He never knows where to look.

I must admit it’s tough to follow up Pam’s amazing post of yesterday. I thought her comments on covers were really interesting. And I have to admit that I’m drawn to pick up covers like the one on The Edge of Impropriety. The elegant, historical female image is eye-candy for me—it looks like chocolate in a classy, lavish wrapper, and I cannot wait to delve inside.
I’ve also just received the artwork for my upcoming cover for The Club, my first book with Bantam/Dell. It took my breath away. Naked male shoulders were involved, and I do have a weakness for male shoulders.

I have to get back to the kids—I’m late posting and we have a truck-load of books to return to the library. The kids are antsy to replenish the supply, and I sure can’t deny them when they are so excited about books. So I’m posting an excerpt from my upcoming book Hot Silk. This one will be out in October—this excerpt is a little different. In Hot Silk my heroine originally makes love to the wrong man. Not a case of mistaken identity, but misplaced love. She thinks she is in love and discovers she’s not. How will romance readers react, I wonder?

Here goes…

"Touch me."
"Only if you take the blade from your heart."
"I will plunge it in if you leave me now. If you do not touch me. I cannot live without your touch. I could go to another woman. I know you are thinking that. I could bury my heavy, aching cock into her and fuck until my brain explodes and all the while I would be in pain because I wanted you. Do you have any idea what bloody torture that is?"
"I think I know."
"I want to marry you, Grace. All I need is a yes. One simple word."
"Yes." And there was no turning back. She hungered to touch him, and, once she did, she had to go forward.
If she touched him, she had to agree to do everything a husband and wife were intended to do. Slowly, she pulled off her glove—a white, virginal, and utterly irritating scrap of satin. She reached out, touching her fingertips to his chest, his skin hot and damp beneath her touch.
"Take the knife away," she breathed. He was drunk and his hand cupped her bottom—a place a man’s hand had never been—but she was afraid he would crush her to him and stab himself by accident.
He was young. Spoiled. Passionate. Wild.
Hers. With one simple word.
"Yes," she said again, to ensure there was no mistake, and she released a sigh of relief as he tossed the blade back to the desk. But in the next instant, he slid her skirts, petticoats and all, up her thighs. He pulled her drawers down before she could squeak, held her as she stepped out of them.
"You smell of lust, Grace. You stink of it and I love your smell. I want to cover my hands in it, my cock in it."
His earthy words made her more wet, more creamy and slick, and she could smell herself, flushing as she did so.
"Now, hold up your skirts for me and let me explore."
She obeyed and his hands slid around her naked inner thighs. His palms were strong, a little rough, and as he squeezed her skin she feared she’d fall to the floor.
"Stand up, Grace," he commanded in a growl and his hands skimmed higher, up and up to the juncture of her thighs, to her hot and sticky quim. "Part your legs for me a little more."
She did, aware of the wetness leaking down her inner thighs.
"Ah, yes, good girl," he murmured, and his look of fierce hunger softened with his heart-breaking smile. "Lovely, soft curls."
His fingers combed through them and she squirmed. Her quim felt tight and achy and hot and she was wriggling to ease the tension.
"Is your clit hard now? Would it like to feel my fingers stroking it? Would you like me to rub hard?"
She had no idea. A strangled, confused groan slipped from her lips. His bold erotic talk was what she wanted but not entirely what she’d expected. She was to be his wife—she’d thought he would be sweet. It would be sensuous and they would not speak—
Like a statue, she stood, unable to move, and his long, strong fingers slid into her cleft. It felt so good, it felt--

Excerpt from Hot Silk © Sharon Page

Sex or Science

2008-06-18T07:15:00.005-05:00

From the New York Times's Thursday Style Section of June 12:

...scientists at the frontiers of research on the eternal question of what women find erotic... [say it's]... not naked guys, or at least simply naked guys.

You can read the whole thing here. But for me the central point is the study by Dr. Meredith Chivers at the University of Toronto, wherein she "showed people video clips of naked men and women in various sexual and nonsexual situations and measured their genital arousal," and during which:

Heterosexual women... were no more excited by athletic naked men doing yoga or tossing stones into the ocean than they were by the control footage: long pans of the snowcapped Himalayas.

Whereas...

When straight women viewed a video of a naked woman doing calisthenics... their blood flow increased considerably.

On the one hand, this was hardly a surprise to me -- or probably to anyone who came up through the heady days of second-wave feminism when we discovered for ourselves that images of women could be hot. And that, in any case, what wasn't hot was a passive, objectified male body, no matter how gorgeous (at least short of St. Sebastian -- where passive makes its way to active) .

And when Dr. Chivers asked her subjects to rate their own arousal to the videos they watched, the women, whether gay or straight, tended to give higher ratings to films showing women.

My experience exactly, and those of my commadres who were beginning to write our own porn in the 80s and 90s. We simply weren't like the boys with their Playboy spreads, we congratulated ourselves, and que vive, we said as we went out to write hotter stories -- at least for the small press anthologies like Cleis, which has been publishing my Carrie's Story and Safe Word, through several years and through multiple reprintings now.

Fast forward to the current mass erotica and erotic romance market.

Well, the money doesn't lie, does it? Or so one must assume, from the constant prodding from romance marketers like BGI's Sue Grimshaw that male torsos sell? Not to speak of those repeated exhortations (I expect more of them this summer at RWA National) to cut the f-f episodes (straight women will be turned off) and double the testosterone, as though the animals on George Orwell's famous farm were bleeting in chorus two pecs good, four pecs be-e-e-ter.

But here I can see that I'm getting the covers confused with the prose. Only two pecs per cover, I believe is the rule -- even if I'd make a beeline for a book sporting this graphic, copped from a wonderful earlier tea party post by Kate Pearce.

Lord that picture's hot -- because, I think, of the emotionality implied, and the fascinating play of dark and light, likeness and contrast. To me, it's the extremes of activity and passivity -- the implied narrativity in a non-narrative form -- that's arousing, and that just might circle us back to Professor Chivers' study results.

Except that the cover thing's not supposed to be about arousal.

As a close reading of this discussion at Dear Author makes clear, it's about... well, I'm not sure what gets triggered in the three minutes you have in which to make a choice at an airport bookstore, but I don't think it's arousal. Something more like genre recognition, making sure the customer got the kind of book she was looking for. I don't think cover art is supposed to bewitch, bother, bewilder you or make you miss your train stop -- I think that's what the prose inside is supposed to do.

But the problem for me here is the implication that a customer knows what she's looking for. Because when I'm the customer, what I'm looking for is the unknown. Reading always has this yummy masochism for me: what I want is to be seduced by a new, confident voice and taken helpless wherever that voice might want to lead me. As the first page of Sarah Waters' lesbian Edwardian romance Tipping the Velvet did for me, when I opened it in Modern Times Bookstore several years ago...

Have you ever tasted a Whitstable oyster? If you have, you will remember it. Some quirk of the Kentish coastline makes Whitstable natives -- as they are properly called -- the largest and the juiciest, the savouriest yet the subtlest, oysters in the whole of England. Whitstable oysters are, quite rightly, famous. The French, who are known for their sensitive palates, regularly cross the Channel for them; they are shipped, in barrels of ice, to the dining-tables of Hamburg and Berlin. Why, the King himself, I heard, makes special trips to Whitstable with Mrs Keppel, to eat oyster suppers in a private hotel; and as for the old Queen, she dined on a native a day (or so they say) till the day she died.
Did you ever go to Whitstable, and see the oyster-parlours there? My father kept one; I was born in it. Do you recall a narrow, weather-boarded house, painted a flaking blue, half-way between the High Street and the harbour? Do you remember the bulging sign that hung above the door, that said that Astley's Oysters, the Best in Kent were to be had within? Did you, perhaps, push at that door, and step into the dim, low-ceilinged, fragrant room beyond it? Can you recall the tables with their chequered cloths? The bill of fare chalked on a board? the spirit-lamps, the sweating slabs of butter?

I'd like to quote the whole thing, the richness, the irresistible, unstoppable onward movement that took me past the sweating slabs of butter to our heroine Nancy, but it's too long already for a blog post. Read it here, though, at Powell's Books.

And then tell me if I should beg for a mantitty cover for some future book. (Or worry that the cover art of The Edge of Impropriety, gorgeous as it is, just isn't going to cut it sales- and display-wise, among all those hunks of meat that yell erotic romance.)

Or tell me what sort of response you have to a mantitty cover. Is it fleshy or financial -- ooh or ka-ching? Perhaps for you it really hits the spot (you know which one) even if it doesn't for me -- because anyway, it would hardly be the first time that a scientific researcher was wrong about something.

And then -- even though it's way too long and even though it's insane for me to put my own stuff in the same post as the sublime Sarah Waters -- here's a bit of f-f for straight girls (or for anybody else) from my erotic novel, Safe Word (w/a Molly Weatherfield), in which our intrepid heroine finds herself in...
.

..a nursery. Well, that’s what it looked like, anyway -- like that enormous Edwardian dormitory where Wendy, John, and Michael Darling had slept, in Peter Pan. I guessed that whoever owned the house had hired a decorator to create it for their kids, in a fit of upscale retro Anglophile whimsy. It wasn’t a fancy sort of room; it was big and clearly expensive, but the decorator had gone for a sort of shabby, aristocratic, cold-showers-and-beef-tea asceticism. All the more dissonant, then, as a setting for Sylvie and Stephanie and me -- naked in our collars and cuffs. Sylvie was lying on her belly on one of the small white iron beds, carefully making up her face in a mirror propped against the pillows. No smiles from her, not even evil ones. Just calm concentration on the mirror, a brief glimpse at me, and a determined glance at Stephanie, who nodded firmly, shutting the door behind me. The children’s hour, I thought, gulping.

The room was full of toys, too, though not the kind the original owners had imagined -- these toys were were made of leather and latex and brass and iron. There were big wicker baskets filled with whips and restraints of various sizes and shapes. There were high-heeled shoes lined up at the scuffed powder-blue baseboard, and black corsets and garter belts hanging from hooks on the wall that once must have held sweet little smocked pinafores from Laura Ashley and overalls from Baby Gap and OshKosh B’Gosh. There were latex cocks on harnesses, too -- a large selection of them, in all the colors of the rainbow. There were two-tone jobs, marbled ones. And some were translucent as well, with glitter embedded in the latex. All sizes and shapes -- I mean besides your traditional naturalistic ones, there were twists and bumps and spirals. I watched warily, as Stephanie chose a handful -- a bouquet -- of them, strapped one on, and tossed another to Sylvie.
“I’ll go first,” she said to her, blowing her a kiss, “unless you really want to.”

“No,” Sylvie answered, coolly, “you go ahead.”

But first Stephanie just walked around me, critically. “She’s really not all that terribly pretty, is she?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” Sylvie answered, “but, well, she does have something, you know. Even Kate says so.”

“Attitude, Kate says. Makes people want to hurt her.”

"Umm, well, I can see that, yes. Too bad we only have permission to fuck her.”

“Well, her ass is her best feature after all.”

I started to look around nervously, for the grease. I mean, they were going to grease that cock, weren’t they, before Stephanie stuck it up my best feature? And I wasn’t at all reassured when Stephanie positioned herself squarely in front of me, her voice icy. “Suck it, Carrie,” she said.

I hesitated for a heartbeat. Did she mean that the only lubrication I’d get was my own saliva? And then, just before she had to push me down to my knees, I got down quickly, opened my mouth, and inhaled the monster, watching its shaft, in its obscene fuschia color, disappear down my mouth to my throat.

Sylvie had gotten off the bed and was watching closely. “Deeper,” she said to me. She smacked my ass with the cock that she hadn’t strapped on yet. “Don’t imagine you can hold back on us.”

No, I didn’t imagine I could. And yes, she was right. I could open my throat a little more widely. I could keep from retching, if I tried, gave it everything I had. I felt the latex fill my throat, in hollows that nobody usually touched. My eyes filled with tears, but I kept going down on that cock as though were my life’s work. I was frightened, disoriented. I mean, I’d known I wasn’t their favorite person, but this didn’t seem like Sylvie or Stephanie at all—more like their evil top twins. It was like getting to see the dark side of the moon. And then they blindfolded me—in soft, thick black velvet—and I couldn’t see anything at all.

A hand grabbed the ring in the back of my collar (“silly-looking collar,” I heard one of them sneer) and dragged me to one of the beds. I scrambled onto it, banging my shins, and raised myself up on my knees. And I breathed an enormous sigh of relief when one of them shoved some grease up my asshole.

They took turns fucking me—speeding up and slowing down, squeezing and slapping my breasts, and commenting dryly from time to time on my form, my looks, my performance. “Well, she can do this okay, anyway,” I think that was Stephanie, very grudgingly—and from Sylvie, a giggled, “I should hope so, or I’d lose all my respect for Jonathan.” They tried different cocks, commenting on some of the more exotic ones, and giggling about how they looked in them. They kissed and stroked each other, too, I think, though I could only feel and hear it, rather than see it. I began to cry out—it was painful, and it was also arousing—but when I felt the tears soaking the blindfold, I knew I was crying because I was lonely. I wanted one of them to kiss or stroke me.

They didn’t, of course. They left me kneeling on the bed and I guessed that they’d gone to one of the other little beds, where I could hear them giggling and kissing, hugging and poking and playing. And then deep moans, and I supposed that they’d taken off the cocks and were happily eating each other, crying out, and then ending with creamy sighs of contentment.

And whispers, then. “Oh, well, she took that pretty well, anyway,” and [...m]ore ominously, “She’s probably not going to have an easy afternoon, after all,” and then lots of stuff I couldn’t hear, until Stephanie called out to me, “You can come into bed with us if you want, you know.”

I tore off the blindfold. It was difficult not to take a flying leap, and it was delightful to have them touch and kiss me. But, “Kate lets you make love to each other?” I asked.

Stephanie laughed. “Well,” she said, “not all the time. But for treats, yes, she does[.... She... says] it’s a male thing, that business of being so stingy with a slave’s sexuality. Because it seems to us there’s always enough to go around—well, we never have any problem with it, anyway.”

And Sylvie added, “And neither does Randy."
They giggled at that, and so did I. The evil twins had disappeared, leaving me rolling around in bed with Marcia Brady and Laurie Partridge....

Character Development in Erotic Romance

2008-06-16T12:40:00.005-05:00

The sun is out for the first time in a month and I am thinking… Man I would love to be home cleaning my house and sitting on the porch, reading a good book instead of in my office at work, trying to look as if I am not staring out the window at the sun shine.

I know that many of us have day jobs and write and have families. But how do you fit reading into all of that?

I seem to only have time to read when one of those three important things above is not present… like now… I am not writing, so I am reading.

I have been drawn to people books of late… books about why people are the way they are. Such as Mating in Captivity… mentioned in my last post. I have really been enjoying this book. I have just gotten to the section about the different needs of intimacy vs desire… intimacy needs closeness… Desire needs separateness… and how that all works. I am a slow reader. Smiles.

I also have been reading other people books like The Loving Dominant and Finding Meaning In The Second Half Of Life.

I seem to go in spurts with my reading. Reading history books like crazy… then switching to fiction… then to people books…. Etc.

I am finding all sorts of inspiration not only for my own life in reading theses books but in developing deeper characters.

I always find myself asking my characters... what was their first sexual experience?
from there I ask all those questions... do they like oral? do they have kinks? if they do have kinks, where did those kinks stem from? They say... your early sexual experiences shape your desires for life... so pretty important to know for ones characters.

Then to go deeper... do my characters have relationship patterns? Do they have choice patterns? Are they following society rules? or following their souls?

So for you other authors: I am wondering how do you go about developing characters that have real life issues, sexualities, and lives? Do you base them on someone you know? A mixture of people? On people in history? Or do you read People books?

For Readers and Authors: If you read people books do they ever affect you? Do you find things in them to relate to or want to try?

I myself dove into the world of sensuality and erotica because of something i read that moved me and made me look a small piece of myself that I had buried... that was my sensual, sexual being. I read and I looked deep, and I have yet to turn back.

Lacy.

Tell me, gentle readers...

2008-06-14T17:37:00.003-05:00

Lord Granville Leveson Gower, a portrait after Sir Thomas Lawrence-The Regency Collection

Seeing as I'm late posting this blog, I thought I'd really be lazy and ask you all a couple of questions that have been buzzing around my brain recently. The reason I'm asking is because I made the mistake of reading my reviews for "Simply Sexual" on various sites recently and found that some readers were not happy with me at all...

Apparently, for some readers I don't stick to the rules of romance and go off and complicate things by introducing other men, m/m elements or other way too kinky unrealistic stuff into my romances. For those readers, they feel cheated when the HEA they were expecting turns into something else entirely. (I write about characters who love and accept each other despite the rigid lines of sexuality). And I can understand that-to a certain extent. Reader expectation is the basis of the success of all genre-fiction-you expect to get what you paid for, right?

I think some of that problem about expectation is because the lines between erotic romance and erotica are blurred and publishers don't always want to alienate their core audience so write back cover copy that might um, 'fudge the issues' a little maybe? On the other hand, introducing risque elements into mainline romance novels gives me a vicarious thrill. So should I be voted off the romance island or am I simply expanding its horizons?

So does anyone have an opinion on this or have you all gone on vacation already?

And just in case you haven't-check out this awesome video of Regency heroes on YouTube

Too darn hot

2008-06-11T05:36:00.002-05:00

It's always the same here (Washington, DC)--the temperature shoots up anytime between May and October and we shake our heads in disbelief and claim that it never does this usually...

We've had heat indexes of over 100 for three days running. Yikes. The heat has made me very aware of my body in the worst sort of way--parts of me sweat that normally don't.

But there are also the small pleasures of dealing with the heat, too, the sort of experiences that you want to store away in your mind to use later when you're writing: the delicious sensation of fresh cotton sheets on your skin and the textures of linen and silk; drinking cold water from a bottle of melting ice and letting it spill down your neck; the first few minutes of a cool shower after you've peeled off your sweaty clothes; wonderful drinks and watermelon and other summer treats.

What do you like about the heat?

What summer experiences do you enjoy?

Or, as Cole Porter put it, do you find it just too darn hot?

Hanky Panky

2008-06-09T20:41:00.002-05:00

Absolutely nothing to do with writing or historicals, but a lot to do with capturing your audience and building tension... enjoy!

via videosift.com

absolutely not work safe!

Jane, posting today because Colette is off on the road...somewhere

I Had A Goal to Write

2008-06-06T00:40:00.001-05:00

Y’all might remember in my last post that I was bemoaning that my ability to write had more or less gone out the window but that I was aiming to get back into the saddle.

You see, once I stopped having that deadline, I stopped writing. Until that point, I had been writing regularly every week day and had a page quota that I usually met and often exceeded.

Well, we won’t go into my excuses again, except to say I heard most of them at a writing panel as Wiscon on my trip. Let us see how I did.

The plan was to finish the way-out proposal. This didn’t get done.

Instead, in the notebook I’d taken with me to jot notes during Wiscon, I found some notes from RWA National a year ago, I guess, and I spent my time turning an unpubbed full-length manuscript into a novella, and coming up with companion ideas.

And so I wrote 30 pages of new stuff on my first week of vacation! Go me! And boy, they were hot, smokin’ pages of stuff too! Now I just need to fold the old stuff in, edit it so it’s smooth, write synopses for the three novellas and ta da! I’ve something to show for it.

But wait, there’s more. Since coming home, I spent my first day off, well, I wish I could say it was all spent writing but that isn’t true. I spent most of the morning dealing with a sick dog and taking him to the vet. But I got some time to write in the afternoon.

The bad news is I’ve been swiped with a nasty cold. But as I’m apparently with it enough to put mostly coherent sentences together, I could do some more writing tonight....or catch up on Doctor Who.

Sorry for the delay, for some reason the post-ahead option didn't take, so publishing now.

Life in Disarray

2008-06-05T10:41:00.003-05:00

Finally, I am about to launch into a sex scene on my current WIP for Aphrodisia. I got a title for it this week—Blood Deep—and a release date. It will be coming out in June 2009. Honestly, this always freaks me out a little since quite a bit of the middle of the book is still just a gleam in my eye.

I had to spend the last two days doing computer clean up. Astonishing how you can run out of space on your computer. Well, not so much if you don’t delete an email for four years. Sigh. And unfortunately I had to do some tidying (against my will). The computer finally stopped letting me send emails—rather like a strict nanny giving me a few lashes with a cane.

And yesterday morning we (my hubby and I) inherited furniture from an author friend of mine who is downsizing, so we now have a dining table and chairs and a new sofa. The kids were stunned—they’ve pretty much ruled the main floor of the house. There just never seemed any point to getting furniture when we had toddlers—not for two kids who only scribbled faster with the pencils when you shouted "NO!"

So with all the upheaval, it’s been tough to find time to write. But I tried a new trick with "Blood Deep". I’ve decided to write the last line of the book first. I attended a terrific writing workshop given by Harlequin author Molly O’Keefe, and she pointed out that a story essentially rushes to its last line. So this is the way I now view "Blood Deep". It is hurtling toward that last line—the line that sums up the romance, the happy ending, the theme, and the growth of the characters. I’ve found that once I have that last line (or something hopefully close), even if I have nothing else on the story, not even a title, I suddenly "get" the story. Yesterday, I was thrilled because I also wrote the last line of my short epilogue. It may not be the final "final line", but it summed up (for me) what the series is about.

As a reader, do you get that sense of a story racing toward that one final line when you read? Are there any books that have left you remembering the last line? Do you ever sneak a peak at the last line while reading, or even while you’re in the bookstore?

And the image above is my cover for my next Aphrodisia, Hot Silk!

Guest blogging today

2008-06-05T08:33:00.002-05:00

I'm guest blogging today at Love is an Exploding Cigar (isn't that a great blog name?) and giving away a copy of a book--do come on over and say hello. You have to register to comment, but it's a harmless procedure...

Jane

Scents and Sexuality, part II: Lotus-Eating in the Late Regency

2008-05-30T08:53:00.008-05:00

When I was a very little girl, the final step in the ritual of getting dressed up was to “put on a little perfume.” I loved the romantic names of the scents, the sensuous shapes of the bottles on the dressing table, mysterious ritual of dabbing the stuff behind my ears – as I’d been taught to do -- and (particularly) on the insides of my wrists. And I adored the momentary shudder of the cold alcohol on my skin.

But why those places on my skin?

Why ears? Wrists?

I wondered but I never asked, as though not to tamper with something important. Because even the tiniest child doesn’t need to be told that some parts of her body are more special, more interesting than others.

I think – though I’m still not sure this is true -- that the point of the wrist thing is that that’s where the pulse is. Ears, I still don't know. But the truth is that I prefer not knowing for sure. I think what I particularly like is the ritual mystery, the bare, unexplained fetishism of it.

I like the slow attention to detail -- the primitivism, if you will, that we devote to body care.

And when body care is shared between lovers…?

When routine and ritual become the rules of the game…?

And when erotic power struggle roils just below the surface…?

That's when I like to write about it, as in this excerpt from my forthcoming novel, The Edge of Impropriety, available this November -- in which, gentlemanlike, my hero Jasper Hedges, has come to the aid of a person in need, to find himself and his sore muscles in my heroine Marina Wyatt’s bathtub.

The plumbing’s rather progressive for the late Regency era but hardly impossible.

And the scent rising from the steamy water?

It’s lotus. Ancient. Intense. A bit astringent. I bought a tiny vial of essential lotus oil to find out what it’s actually like and it turns out rather compelling.

As well it should be. For in legend it kept the classical hero Ulysses and his men lingering with the lotus-eaters when they should have been trying to get home to Ithaca.

And as Jasper is a scholar and collector of Greek antiquities (why fight it? I find brainy men overwhelmingly sexy). And as Regency Britons were nearly worshipping all things classical…

Well, anyway, here's a tiny taste of my take on eros and empire, in a lady’s bathtub at The Edge of Impropriety:

She resumed… probing and kneading… the knotted muscles and tendons.

It hurt a bit [he thought…]. It hurt quite wonderfully. As though the warm blood had once again begun coursing through his back and shoulders.

Perhaps it had -- as indeed the blood seemed to be coursing more quickly to other parts of his body as well. He opened his eyes, glanced down past his belly to his knees rising out of the suds. And then finally, to another perturbation of the water’s surface.

If perturbation it could be called.
[While…] on her knees […] at the side of the tub, Marina lathered up a large sea sponge. Pretty, she thought, all the little rainbow bubbles, a few of them floating upward until they popped from the heat from the candles.

She’d wash him slowly, beginning with his hands, lingering over the fine bones in his wrists […]. She moved the sponge up each arm in turn -- to his shoulders, and now down his chest, following the dark smoky line of hair down his lean belly…

The head of his cock showed itself above the water’s the surface. She watched it dreamily. Like a lotus, she thought, rising from the water where it grows.

She bent over to brush her lips against it. Her lips, and then the tip of her tongue. And then, not quite intending to, her lips again.

But -- she chided herself -- she needed to stop, groan as he might in protest.

All innocence, she sent him a mildly aggrieved glance -- I simply can’t imagine what might be troubling you -- and cleared her throat.

“Ahem. Let’s see to your feet, shall we? Of course you already know I’m rather particular as to a gentleman’s feet…”

He groaned again […].

She returned a suitably evil laugh. Fun to tease him, and in truth, she did rather like his feet -- long, narrow, with high arches and straight toes. Not too hairy, either. She lifted one out of the water, to wash it carefully, especially beneath the toes. One and then the other one, before she moved up to his shins, knees, thighs.

Eventually -- and happily -- she’d get around to where he wanted her to be.

But not before she worked a little at the muscles in his thighs. She though of how stiffly he’d stepped into her hallway and she remembered how he’d tensed his upper legs, yesterday when he’d lifted the cart. Surely he could use a little massaging there, to work out the achiness. She put aside the sponge, to use her fingertips.

The problem was that she didn’t want to hurt him by putting too much weight on the hurt places.

He was watching closely. “Careful,” he muttered.

She promised herself she would be. Wonderful, she thought, a man’s lean limbs, the finely defined shapes of the separate long muscles.

He grimaced. Oh dear. She rose higher on her knees, to get a better angle. Balancing on her haunches, she leaned over him, intent upon keeping her touch firm but even.

Careful…

But how could she be careful when suddenly she’d been immobilized? She tried to pull against him, to twist out of his insistent grip.

When had he grasped her forearms so tightly, one in each large sun-browned hand?

Why was he grinning, his blue eyes gleeful, alight?

And how -- with a cry of triumph on his part, some choking and sputtering on hers, and amid great, splashing tides of sudsy water -- had he managed to tumble her into the tub on top of him?

“Much better,” he told her, “but move your left leg, won’t you, Marina, over to the other side of me. Come on, climb up, don’t worry about squeezing me. I assure you that a little muscle ache is nothing compared with those well-intentioned discomforts you’ve been inflicting upon me. In fact, please squeeze, ah, yes, that’s right, that’s…”

That’s… perfect, she whispered, as best she could through her gasps and giggles. Perfect, he whispered the word back into her ear and crooned it against her neck, as he entered her and as she slipped and grasped and tightened herself around him, and then straightened her back to sit astride him.

And it was perfect, she thought. No matter if soapy water were in truth a highly imperfect lubricant of a woman’s private parts, she seemed to have done quite well for herself […].

But that’s it for now, and that’s where I’m leaving Jasper and Marina. And you, with the hope that you’ll want to read the whole book when it comes out this November.

And as for my question… Well, what scents – or even what names and myths and legends of scents – provoke your… imagination?

[apologies from Pam--she's on the road and will post pics later]

Research: Going deep.

2008-05-28T13:09:00.008-05:00

I currently do not have any writing contracts, and because I had two deadlines that overlapped each other, I decided to take a small break from writing and live a little. Part of that for me is reading… reading Non-Fiction as well as fiction.

Non-Fiction books give me inspiration, make my mind spin and swirl with ideas for new stories and life. I have a TBR pile on my nightstand that is a foot high… okay I have three stacks that high.

I know I have also talked in the past about music and how that inspires me. So I have been exploring listening to all sorts of new music trying to find something that gets me moving, makes me feel sexy, or brings tears to my eyes. The CD at the moment I cant get enough of is called Tribal deviations by Beats Antique. I can NOT sit still and listen to this band! My hips start to move on their own and I find myself twitching in my chair. LOL.

The book I am reading at the moment is called Mating in Captivity(Unlocking erotic intelligence.) The author Esther Perel. I have only just started reading it but OMG… amazing. She states in the opening of the book, her purpose… she wants to know if we can hold on to the sense aliveness and excitement in long term relationships. Is there something inherent in commitment that deadens desire? Can we ever achieve Security with out succumbing to monotony?

She wants to know if we can ever achieve what Octavio Paz calls the double flame of love and eroticism?

Octavio Paz’s quote: The original primordial fire of eroticism is sexuality: it raises the red flame of eroticism, which in turn raises and feeds another flame, tremulous and blue. It is the flame of love and eroticism. The double flame of life.

The chapters in this range from: The pitfalls of modern intimacy: talk is Not the only avenue to Closeness. To Sex is dirty; save it for someone you love: When Puritanism and Hedonism Collide.

The opening of the book has this lovely poem by D.H. Lawrence.
Wild Things in Captivity

Wild things in captivity
while they keep their own wild purity
won't breed, they mope, they die.

All men are in captivity,
active with captive activity,
and the best won't breed, though they don't know why.

The great cage of our domesticity
kills sex in a man, the simplicity
of desire is distorted and twisted awry.

And so, with bitter perversity,
gritting against the great adversity,
they young ones copulate, hate it, and want to cry.

Sex is a state of grace.
In a cage it can't take place.
Break the cage then, start in and try.

My questions for you: What are your thoughts on that poem? And the idea of sustaining desire in a long term committed relationship?

I am looking forward to hearing what Mrs. Perel has to say on the subject.

Hugs and Kisses,
Lacy.

Some historical research

2008-05-23T17:39:00.011-05:00

The Industrial Revolution brought about a dramatic change in Georgians' sex lives. At last, the power of steam could bring about sexual satisfaction, although early experiments had some refining to do. Take this early prototype of the famous Buzzing Jenny (1784); apart from the inconvenience of requiring several servants to add coals and make sure pressure remained at safe levels, it was necessary to operate the device out of door in case an explosion of the wrong sort occurred.

A generation later, Brunel's genius produced this elegant model, which could be discreetly installed in the boudoir or even tucked into the corner of the drawing room for post prandial delights. Even so, it was necessary to instruct the footman to stand by with extra fire buckets, just in case.

Regency pleasure seekers employed the Napoleon (short and stout) or the Wellington (long and skinny) but it was the Victorians, with their irrepressible instinct for pornographic activities who brought sex toys into their full flowering, even going so far as to install an oversized dildo in Trafalgar Square as an expression of national pride and patriotism.

Hidden away in the most respectable homes, you could find such delights as this collection of silver-tipped toys, and it takes little imagination to guess the function of this item at left.

Have you done any interesting research recently? Do tell.

The Saddle

2008-05-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

No, I’m not going to talk about kinky fetishes from Britain’s Regency era. The former madam story did not fly, and so that research has been set aside.

And that’s what I’m going to write about today. Setting things aside, and then getting back into the saddle.

When you read this, if Pam’s promises that it will post when I tell it to post turn out to be true, I shall hopefully be back in the saddle and writing again.

You see, I’ve been writing a bit here, a bit there, but really, have not been writing a whole lot. Why? Well, I let other things take priority -- it’s amazing what a complete lack of contractual deadline will do. I could launch into them all, but you’ve all surely heard the reasons ten thousand times from many a wannabe writer who just can’t find the time to write: back to work five days a week, needed time to play, intensive study course. Oh and the, “I’ll write during lunch time unless someone wants to lunch with me”, which was like, almost, every day, and when it wasn’t I was doing homework from the course.

Ahem.

The point is, I’m getting back into the saddle. I’m going down to four days a week pretty soon. The person I lunch with the most is moving to Virginia. My course is on a summer break.

And I’m gonna give my trusty (so far, it is rather new) AlphaSmart a good run.

I’ve the erotic romance story idea that needs another two chapters and a better synopsis than a set up and “Stuff happens.”

The full on fantasy novel that I started *cough* years ago because it wouldn’t shut up until a new contract silenced it, is making noises again.

I’m not sure which project I’ll take on first, but if it gets me writing again, I really don’t care.

And that’s where you come in, dear reader. The next time I post in a couple of weeks, I want you to ask me: “So how’s that word count, then?” or “Which story did you end up writing?” Make me accountable for my vow as blogged here.

I will get back in the saddle and write again.

I will get back in the saddle and write again.

I will get back in the saddle and write again.

Writers out there: have you ever fallen off your writing horse and needed to get back into the saddle again and start writing? What did you have to do to get there?

Black Silk Contest

2008-05-17T09:34:00.003-05:00

Like many of my fellow crumpets, I’m working to a deadline—trying to finish revisions for the end of the month. But I’ve had to take a "break" this long weekend to do galleys (in Canada this is a holiday weekend, the Victoria Day weekend. Since it usually falls around the 24th and heralds the start of cottage season, it’s often called the "2-4" weekend.)

That’s why I’m blogging late. Also, I had a day at the office yesterday and my daughter was invited to a "sports evening" at a friend’s house. I always admire people brave enough to extend an open invitation to an entire class of 7 year olds!

I’d like to give away a copy of Black Silk—it’s one of my favorites, and just garnered my first RT Top Pick, which I was really thrilled about. The question is from the following excerpt:
Maryanne watched her raven-haired Lancelot elegantly climb into the basket. Of course, he could do it easily—he had endless legs and wore trousers. Just as she stared helplessly at it, he scooped her effortlessly into his arms. In a froth of hems and petticoats, she was hoisted over the wicker wall and into the basket. As her feet touched the floor of the basket, it came up to meet her. "Ooh!"

The flame illuminated the sculpted planes of his face, his wicked grin as the balloon went up. The basket tilted to the right. She clutched the side. "Goodness."

Swansborough laughed. "But as you each take on orgasmic flight, you must remember to hold on tight," he quoted. He wrapped a hand around the stays that secured their small basket to the enormous balloon and kept the other near the fire box and the ropes that worked the vents. Below, illuminated by the torches, she saw the men gripping the tether ropes, feeding them through gloved hands.

A lurch to the left, and she tumbled back against his lordship. His large body pressed against her, his arm locked around her waist, and she felt safe—though if the basket tipped, they’d both fall. Why should the thought of falling to their deaths together, sharing disaster, make her feel better?

"Magnificent, isn’t it?"

With her hands gripping the basket, she stared down.

Far below, the torches looked like tiny candle flames, and she could no longer see the men. Men who thought she was going to rut with a viscount here. Men who thought her a courtesan.

The Serpentine caught the moonlight, water rippling in the sweet breeze. Dark trees bobbed and swayed, the leaves silver, and the park was a stretch of dark velvet.

She gazed up. Stars dotted the violet skies above the park. And London’s lights were spread out before her. "It’s beautiful." The basket swayed. "And terrifying."

The Question—Where are Maryanne and the hero, Dash, Lord Swansborough going to make love?

I’ll check in on the comments over the weekend, and select a winner on Monday. So on Monday I’ll post in the comments for the winner to drop me an email, just so you know where to look!

Excerpt from Black Silk © Sharon Page

Scents and Sexuality, Roses and Sweat

2008-05-14T12:01:00.002-05:00

My thirteen year old niece, aspiring writer and veterinarian, likes to ask me when I think she'll be old enough to read my books.

I shrug, demur, and tell her it's up to her moms...

Though in truth, I think the very best way to read a sexy book is as a teenage baby-sitter, finding it on the shelf after the kids are asleep and putting it back very very carefully in the exact same spot before the parents get home so that no one will ever ever know you were reading it... I certainly have no fonder hope for my books than that they be read by a generation (or two, if I'm lucky) of breathless baby-sitters.

But don't tell my niece's parents I said that, okay? Anyway, with or without me, one way or another, I have no doubt she'll read my stuff when she's ready for it.

What I really worry about is whether I'm ready for her.

By which I mean that I hope my books aren't too much of a letdown from some of the deeply, brilliantly romantic stuff she's read already.

I mean, how much more moving could any doomed passion be than Severus Snape's lifelong, tormented, ultimately sacrificial love for Harry Potter's mother, Lily?

And I may never have come up with any single detail as hot (in its squeaky-clean way) as the bit from Twilight, the first book in Stephanie Meyer's teen-age vampire series, where the dreamy good teen vampire Edward explains to our very human heroine Bella how he first became attracted to her, in biology class -- which was by her body's unique and particular smell.

In biology class. Of course. Meyer got it dead-on right. There's something wonderfully basic and biological about writing about smells -- it's the immediacy of them, the way that good and provocative smells are part of our animal nature, our preverbal, amoral attunement to what's safe -- or (even better) to what's so captivating and attractive that safety be damned.

And yet smells are also a deeply cultural link to memory and identity. Mothers and their babies can recognize each other's smells. As of course so can lovers.

Smells can be so overpowering that they seem to surround us. Imagine not wanting to lose any of those little atoms you and your lover's bodies are sloughing off, as though you want to short-cut the journey from desire to memory. And actually, if you don't change the sheets after a week or two... In the Japanese director Oshima's astonishing 1976 movie, In the Realm of the Senses, the sex-crazed couple don't allow the brothel housekeeper to clean the room they've spent some weeks in. It's as though they want to create an environment that's as much an extension of their own bodies as possible.

I've used smell in all my books, but perhaps most consciously in The Slightest Provocation, the story of a couple who've been separated for nine years, and who journey back to where they first fell in love. It's a book where memory and desire are intertwined as tightly as I could make them, as in passages like this one, where Mary, my angry, overwrought and very horny heroine, can only get to sleep by means of a combination of masturbation and laudanum (that ubiquitous 19th century remedy of opium dissolved in alcohol):

She swallowed it down, threw off the rest of her clothes, slipped naked below the quilt, and -- quickly and coldly, skillfully and purposefully -- touched herself until she cried out. Until the aching became a burning, a hard white light easing to a warm orange glow, until the trembling stopped and the candle guttered and died and the visions faded, of blazing eyes and strong tapering hands, of pain and anger, disillusionment and rivalry -- oh, and other visions, memories, from youth, of things they’d done and things they hadn’t dared to try. The smell of lemon oil, warm smooth cherrywood surface of a desktop, her face and breasts crushed against it. All subsiding now, to a dull dark red, as though dimly painted upon the velvet insides of her eyelids. Ebbing, waning, flickering. Until she slept.

Or this passage, no doubt unconsciously influenced by Oshima's movie, where my hero Kit thinks happily of sex and song and smells and dirty sheets:

Come live with me and be my love -- an old lyric she’d liked to sing -- words and cadence coming echoing back now, from behind his thoughts. Pastoral, a shepherd’s love song: giddy swain wooing his lady with promises of beds of roses, food served al fresco on silver plates, and absolutely no messes to worry about. Poetry, in a word.

While reality was quite a different matter, especially if you were accustomed to having servants clean up after you. Astonishing, Kit thought, how smelly a linen sheet could become and in how short a time, at least when subjected to such excellent usage as this one had been getting. The odor had been piquant at first; at this moment one might call it “earthy.” Give him and Mary an additional sweaty day or so of pounding each other so delightfully, and the only thing one could honestly call it would be “stinking.”

Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
On stinking sheet in chilly air . . .

I do smells differently in my forthcoming book, The Edge of Impropriety. And -- finally tired of roses and sweat, of leather and lemon and of the Provencal lavender and rosemary that wafted through my French-set Bookseller's Daughter, I found a new scent. Or a very old one.

But since this post's quite long enough already, you'll just have to come back for my next to find out about this most interesting, evocative, exotic, and ancient of scents.

While right now, I'll turn the discussion over back over to you readers and writers.

What role do you think the portrayal of smells plays in erotic writing? Writers, how have you used it? And readers, got any favorite examples you'd like to share?

The winner is!

2008-05-13T23:17:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone,
I want to thank you for all the wonderful suggestions.

Second the winner of the copy of Animal Lust is Lil.

Congratulations Lil.

Please email me at lacy@lacyDanes.com with your email addy and I will send a copy out to you!

Hugs and Kisses,
Lacy.

Apologies

2008-05-12T18:48:00.003-05:00

I have an excuse for not posting-I really do. I had a book to finish and so I did that instead of blogging or talking to anyone or going out to enjoy myself. On Mother's Day, I actually asked my family if they could leave me alone for 4 hours so that I could finish the book-I insisted that was the best gift they could give me. Of course, it went down very well with my teenage sons who are notoriously tight with their money :)

Oldest son did buy me a lovely box of chocolates and 2 bags of Bare Naked granola. The granola was because he 'liberated' the whole bag last week on his way out to college making me think I was going crazy when I couldn't find it to have my breakfast :) The chocolates were because he knows me and his girlfriend took him shopping.

The picture above is of me at the Romantic Times book fair and was taken by Sasha White. It was so much fun to meet up with some of the Crumpets, especially Sharon Page-and I got to listen to Collette on her panel-fascinating stuff!

The book I was finishing isn't even a historical-it's a cowboy contemporary entitled "Riding the Line' which in my usual fashion is nothing like the synopsis I handed in 6 months ago. I hope to God my editor still likes it. I'm hoping he'll be too busy to notice how bad it is and merely publish it anyway.

The NEXT book, which is due August 15th is an erotic historical "Simply Shameless" which is all about Madame Helene. Now, although time is tight, I enjoy writing the historicals a lot more, I think they are more suited to my natural voice. In no way am I an American cowboy :) Hopefully this one will flow more easily.

Wish me luck!

And here's my thought for the day: Readers love it when authors deliver books faster in a series but is there point when they can be too fast? Is there a sense that quality might suffer?

Starting To Breathe Normal Again.

2008-05-12T12:03:00.007-05:00

Hey all,
It feels like forever since I have blogged on here. I had a hellish deadline; two stories due at the same time… May 1st. One for Avon, one for Kensington.

I took a trip in April so that I would not be distracted by dishes, laundry, picking up kids toys, cooking, etc. I found that this works really well for me and will continue to do this in the future when I have deadlines. I suppose, who doesn't work better when you can sit in the sun and have vodka gimlets brought to you as you write! I did however gain 10lbs from eating too much chocolate and carbs. sigh.

I also had a release during this time… Animal Lust came out in March and because of my distraction and stress, I really have not had a chance to promote it/ hold contests. Etc.

I also had a site redesign during this time so if you have not seen it… stop by and take a look at my new site! www.lacydanes.com

I am starting to think proposals for my next book. I tend to get my best ideas when I am reading history books… Have no idea what I will be doing just yet.

If you have any suggestions on a good history book, social history or other, or if you have something you would love to see from me; paranormal dragons, paranormal bears, or straight historical, tell me in a comment here and I will pull a name to win a copy of Animal Lust at 9PM PST on May 13th!

The two stories I recently turned in were straight historical, but as always… erotic.

Hugs and kisses!
Lacy.

Sultry Climates

2008-05-07T09:51:00.000-05:00

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate's sultry.
Byron, Don Juan

Last month Lacy blogged about the erotic implications of travel, and I wanted to follow on from that. I've just read a splendid book, Sultry Climates: Travel and Sex, by Ian Littlewood, a study of how and why the English (mostly) went abroad, and their expectations of travel. And yes, sexual tourism was well and alive in the eighteenth century.

Take, for instance, the Grand Tour--the rite of passage that young Englishmen of the Enlightenment undertook to pick up some culture and polish, in the company of an older, responsible gentleman called the bearleader. It was generally understood that as well as viewing the marvels of antiquity, the young gentleman might also receive a sensual education with the right sort of aristocratic woman.

Invariably, the outcome was different. Evading the bearleader's leash, young men, dazzled with the sensuality and novelty of the countries they visited, consorted as often with the wrong sort of woman. In either case the intrepid travelers frequently took more than some bits of classical sculpture home as a souvenir.

But here's one of my favorite passages in the book, from the other side of the world when the good ship Dolphin visited Tahiti in 1767. A month after making land, Littlewood reports:

The Tahitians' high valuation of anything made of iron had quickly established nails as a currency for buying sexual favours from the women. By 9 July the gunner could inform Robinson [master of the ship] that 'the price of the old trades, is now fixt at a thirty penny nail each time'. Such was the popularity of the trade that by the time [Captain] Wallis left, most of the men had to sleep on deck for lack of any nails from which to sling their hammocks.

The prized nails cost thirty pence for one hundred.

Any other favorite travel books? Or books inspired by travel?

In your face

2008-05-02T09:51:00.003-05:00

No, I'm not talking about certain sex positions today.

I finally signed on for Facebook to figure out what all the hoo-ha is about. And found a whole bunch of folks I went to high school with. The amazing part is most of them haven't changed a bit! The other amazing part is, they say, "So, I hear you've written a book..."

Actually, that's the oddly scary part. The last time I saw most of these people was the last day of high school. And here it is, twenty-*cough*-some years later and I find myself caught in how to respond.

I rattle off a list of books to one, and offer a website link to the other (and then I deleted that post because Facebook will find the link and post it like a little ad and I wasn't quite ready to post ads to people's Facebook pages). Anyway, it's hard to explain, but it's just weird.

It's like the teen of *cough**splutter* years ago is competing against the me of today, who, um, is a little brasher, little more forward, than she was then. (Actually, I was the super-shy one.) Sort of "see how I've changed?" versus "well, no, I haven't really".

But it's given me some food for thought for the current WIP. It involves the reuniting of two childhood playmates (no, not that kind, ick) and I'd already added a level of her personality-slash-attitude occasionally slipping to that of the teen who had a crush on this older guy. I think I need to do the same for him though. And I think I can go deeper into their conflict as they can now struggle to reveal how much about themselves have changed over the years.

Never mind that I haven't written a word for about three weeks. The next scene is waiting in my head for me to get the time to write it. But see, messing about on Facebook is good for something.

Oh, and anybody know if it was possible to diagnose somebody with a venereal disease in the 1800s besides taking a look and seeing sores? I'm wondering if I'm going to need a private detective as well....

Back from Romantic Times

2008-05-01T10:46:00.001-05:00

Back from RT (okay almost 2 weeks now!), and hard at work on revisions for The Club, my upcoming book from Dell.
The Romantic Times conference was a terrific experience. I love meeting readers, and when they are thrilled to meet me, I am just so touched, astonished, and delighted. I’m glad to say I saw Colette and Kate Pearce at RT, and I loved Colette’s panel on the new directions for historicals. I think three members on the panel were writing erotic historicals, proving how popular the genre is.

I also had my picture taken with cover models Fabio and Adrian Paul, which was fun (I’ll be posting those on my website soon). The book signing was a blast—it’s always a little intimidating to be surrounded by hundreds of other authors. So it was a thrill to have so many readers stop by and pick up one or two of my books. And one of my favorite parts of the signings is the chance to chat with the authors around me. We’re in alphabetical order, so you get to meet authors who write completely different genres.

I was on an Erotica panel--writing first person point of view in sex scenes. Before the conference, I mulled over this for a long time. I’ve not actually been published in first person. All my books have been third person, with the heroine and the hero (or heroes) as narrators. But I began writing erotica in first person, with the narrator speaking directly and really intimately to the reader. I realized writing in first person helped me develop my voice.

I dug up one of my really early erotica manuscripts to take a look. It was intriguing to see how the first person point of view gave an strong element of mystery—after all the narrator (and reader) can only interpret the other character through action and dialogue. The readers never get to see in any other character’s heads, so they are as much in the dark as the narrator. Here’s an example:

"The screen sends blue light throughout the room; the undraped windows are black, blank. Jon's lying on the couch, wearing striped blue pajamas, and strangely, as much as I want to join him, I feel paralyzed. Reluctant to interrupt his privacy. And I decide to let him make the choice. I sit down on the carpet a few feet in front of him. If he chooses to, let him approach me. It never occurs to me that my action may set up a barrier—as though I don't want him to come to me. Watching the screen but not seeing it, I wait, enjoying the feeling that he is behind me, watching me.
After a while, I turn around. The couch is empty, he's gone."
—From "Brash", (a work in progress) © Sharon Page

It was terrific to be on the panel with such incredible authors—Cheyenne McCray, Angela Knight, Kimberley Kaye Terry (a fellow Aphrodisia Author). Author Barry Eisler was on our panel—it was cool to get the male point of view (and to see him blush now and again). And Renee Bernard was our great moderator.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you like your erotica—any preference for first person or third person point of view? Or do you like both? Do you feel erotic romance works just as well in both first and third person points of view?

Yo ho yo ho: Calling all bloggers.

2008-04-25T07:43:00.003-05:00

What a blast to meet those of you that I saw at the Romantic Times convention last week. (I'm still recovering. You?)

In the midst of all the craziness, it's completely sneaked up on me that I have a new book coming out a week from Tuesday!

My latest "seduced classic" is an erotic twist on Dumas' brilliant revenge story The Count of Monte Cristo. My count is tortured, sexy, and hell-bent on revenge....whew! Makes for some hawt scenes.

I loved the original book--all 1247 pages of it--and other than giving the story a happy ending and lots of sex, I pretty much followed the original storyline (unlike the deviations in my Phantom of the Opera book, Unmasqued).

I'm looking for a few bloggers who'd like to receive a free copy. All I ask in return is for you to read and blog about the book before May 15. If you're interested, email me at colette at colettegale dot com and I'll get one shipped off to you posthaste.

For those curious-minded folk, you can find out more info (and read an excerpt) on my site at colettegale.com. Here's the back cover blurb:

Edmond Dantés spent years imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. Now free, he has returned to Paris in the guise of the powerful Count of Monte Cristo seeking vengeance on those who sent him to jail. But his plan also includes a different kind of revenge on the woman he has never forgotten, the lover he has made it his mission to possess.

Mércèdes Herrera was devastated when the man she loved disappeared. Trapped in a loveless marriage, her passions are reignited by Edmond's return. She alone sees through his disguise...but this harsh, angry man sends chills down her spine even as his very touch reminds her of the passion they once shared. She realizes soon enough that his plan to avenge himself on the men who incarcerated him also includes another sort of revenge...on her.

From the seaside town of Marseille, to the exotic caves of Monte Cristo Isle, unfolds an erotic battle of wills in the most electrifying game of love ever played between man and woman, between master and slave.

Happy St. George's Day

2008-04-23T17:29:00.009-05:00

Yes, it's April 23, St. George's Day, and also by an amazing coincidence, Shakespeare's birthday, calculated by counting backward from the first known date in his life, his christening.

So who was St. George, anyway? He was the patron saint of England, demoted in modern times by the papacy when they were having a house clean, getting rid of dubious saints. No one celebrates his day much, although according to this article in the Daily Telegraph this year the English revived it as a celebration, but without any politically incorrect overtone of gung-ho patriotism--a bit of flag display, and a rather sweet Ode to St. George: The True Dragon by poet Brian Patten.
George's claim to fame is that he slew a dragon who was about to devour a maiden, as you can see in this rendering by Ucello, where everyone looks supremely well behaved. Yes, there's a bit of blood, but it should mop up quite well. At any moment the maiden is going to offer St. George something to read ...

So it got me thinking about dragons and who does dragons in erotic romance. I can't think of any, but then I'm an ignoramus. In another genre, there's Naomi Novik's brilliant Temeraire series (excuse me while I squee like a pre-teenager), which portrays the most wonderful intense relationship between Captain Lawrence and his dragon.

Dragons, I think, must be difficult in the wonderful world of -weres. They breathe fire, possibly when they get excited, which could lead to some unfortunate pubic hair depilation by fire. They are big and scaly. They are very interested in gold.

And, they eat virgins.

On the other hand, they are mysterious and sexy in a reptilian sort of way and might be more fun than George himself who'd need a can opener to do anything interesting. Or do you like the thought of a man in armor clanking into your boudoir, mighty lance readied for action...

Any thoughts on St. George or dragons? Armor fetishism?

A New Book, a Contest, a Dumb Mistake and Two Funerals

2008-04-21T09:30:00.002-05:00

It sounds like a movie with Hugh Grant in it, but it's actually a description of the month, more or less, that I've more-or-less just finished living through.

Because you may remember that at the end of February, I first posted the lovely cover of my November novel, The Edge of Impropriety, accompanied with some jittery prose to the effect that I was waiting nervously for my editor's instructions on how to revise the manuscript.

Now I'm not averse to criticism of my writing. I wouldn't say I actually enjoy it, but I do appreciate it.

I mean, computer programmers (which I was, for 25 years) don't whine and get all insulted when someone finds a bug in their code, do they? Au contraire, they're happy and grateful someone found the problem before the program went live and plunged the whole wide wired world into silent darkness.

So it's not the editorial tough love that bothers me. What makes me nuts is waiting to find out what bugs and glitches and just downright doesn't-work moments an editor has found in my manuscript. It's the waiting that gets me pacing the floor and biting my nails.

Cool it, I told myself. You have stuff to do.

Because I needed to post a new contest on my web page -- one of those read-an-excerpt-answer-a-question-enter-the-drawing-to-win-a-prize contests.

The prize would be an autographed copy of The Slightest Provocation, and I figured I'd make it a sexy contest, using the passage wherein my hero and heroine, Mary and Kit, play a sexy game wherein a pirate ravishes his captive lady.

Am I the only historical erotic author, btw, who portrays her characters sharing erotic fantasies?

I mean, don't the characters in erotic historicals already live in costume fantasyland?

Isn't it the reader who's supposed to be having the fantasies?

I'm probably not the only author who creates such scenes in her books. But I might be the only one who gets herself tied up into TheoryGirl knots by mulling over the meta of these meta-questions, instead of keeping her mind on the html as she constructs a web-based contest whose question asks, "In The Slightest Provocation, what does Mary wear for a hot, silly, rough-and-tumble game of pirate-and-lady?"

When I wasn't tying myself into knots worrying about what changes my editor would want me to apply to the manuscript of The Edge of Impropriety.

And I may be the only romance author (who are, by and large, a frighteningly competent, productive bunch) who got so distracted that she forgot to put the pirate excerpt up, leaving an entirely different excerpt, about a much younger Mary and Kit -- who were much too young to play pirate (at least the kind of pirate game I had in mind).

Or perhaps it was because I was interrupted by an aunt's sudden death and had to grab a red-eye flight to go East for the funeral.

I was glad I went, though. My family pulls together in hard times and I was glad to add my support.

When I got back home from the funeral, my editor's revision instructions had arrived. Smart ones. Thoughtful ones. Tough ones.

Oh, and could I turn it around in a little less than three weeks?

None of which left me much time to pay attention to the fact that no one who'd entered my contest seemed to know what Mary was wearing to play pirate.

I did make the changes to the manuscript, though the only time I got out of my pajamas during those weeks might have been the afternoon I delivered my talk to the Popular Culture Association -- with the help of two of the avatars who live in the mad attic of my brain, TheoryGirl and SuperegoGirl (that's TheoryGirl in the pic -- SuperegoGirl is camera-shy).

I wish, by the way, that I could have heard the other talks at the Popular Culture conference. If you're interested in romance scholarship, please check out Sarah Frantz's discussion here.

But I did made the changes to The Edge of Impropriety in the time assigned. And even had a little fun when I added a whole other sex scene (about which, more later).

And had a moment to enjoy the email from my editor saying she liked what I'd done...

...just in time to go East for yet another funeral.

But not in time to notice that there was still hardly any response to my contest question.

Until I got home from Funeral Two last week, to find a sweet, patient smart letter from a reader who was kind enough to clue me into the fact that there was nothing in the excerpt on my web page that would possibly tell anyone what my poor heroine was wearing to play sexy grownup pirate (because the excerpt that was still on my page had her as a twelve-year-old in pigtails and pinafore).

So apologies to all you contest freaks out there. Please come play -- it's fixed now -- while I take a long, red-faced nap.

As for the questions...

One of which you'll find on the contest page of my web site.

Except for those of you who like to mull, as I do, about the boxes-within-boxes paradoxes of characters in erotic romance novels who have their own erotic romance fantasies... Those of you who never met a metastructure they didn't like... I'd love to hear your thoughts too.

Am I allowed to say the P word?

2008-04-18T12:23:00.004-05:00

Well, sure I am! Read on...

I had a post and then my computer crashed. So you’ll just have to wait until I’m next rostered on for what I was originally going to talk about.

I’m going to my first SF/F convention in May -- Wiscon -- and I got on a panel! You guys will just love the title:

Porn Crushes the Patriarchy!

Here’s the blurb:

"Erotica for women is coming into the mainstream--novels from the pioneering Black Lace line are now available in trade paperback editions, shelved among the romance novels, which have long been described as 'porn for women,' and several major publishers (Harlequin, Avon, Kensington, etc.) have begun lines of women's erotica in the last couple of years. Publishers go where the money is, but what made the market favorable for erotica right now? Who's buying the books? Was the renaissance encouraged by online publishers such as Ellora's Cave? And does reading (and writing) porn really crush the patriarchy? "

Ok, I’m throwing this out to you -- where did the market come from for erotica and erotic romance? (and I’m sure I’m going to have to define the difference, I don’t know who the other people are on the panel)

Does reading/writing porn really crush the patriarchy?

Did I mention this is a feminist SF/F convention?

I am going to have so much fun!

Simply Sinful

2008-04-15T12:22:00.003-05:00

Now I 'know' it's not shouting Regency, but it is still beautiful, especially the guy:)

Simply Sinful comes out at the beginning of November this year. Here's the blurb:

A Wicked Proposition...

Forced to wed at a young age, Abigail Beecham is tired of living in a sexless marriage. She longs to succumb to the delicious pleasures of pure carnal lust that she has only read about. And if her husband James can't satisfy her erotic needs, he's ready to find a man who can.

A Wild Past

Peter Howard is accustomed to unusual sexual requests. His seven years as a slave in a Turkish brothel left his skilled in sensual delights. But there is little that actually arouses him-until he meets James and Abigail. Maybe now he'll finally experience that exquisite feeling of bliss he so desperately desires.

It was so much fun to write this book, mainly because I knew the characters so well. But it didn't turn out quite how I anticipated-you'll have to read it to find out why :) The best thing is, I get the opportunity to write two more in this series. So look out next year for "Simply Shameless" which is about Madame Helene, and another, as yet untitled, about Anthony Sokorvsky.

I'm off to the RT convention tonight, so if you're coming, please pop by the book signing and say hi!

Aphrodisiacs Galore

2008-04-09T15:34:00.002-05:00

My husband and I were invited to an Aphrodisiac-Themed Dinner Saturday night.

Yes, you read that right. An Aphrodisiac-Themed Dinner.

Crab, avocado, oysters (oh, the OYSTERS!), shrimp, arugula, quail eggs(!), passionfruit, nutmeg, cinnamon, chocolate, bananas, chilis…the list goes on and on.

We started our first course at about 8 and didn't finish till after midnight.

A couple who are friends of ours had six couples (for a total of twelve) over for dinner on Saturday night. Each couple was responsible for bringing one course for the meal, and one alcoholic beverage/drink. All had to contain food aphrodisiacs.

We agreed at the beginning of the evening that no one was to ask, "Hey, where did Colette and Mr. Colette go?" if we noticed someone was missing. And our hosts said if we needed to, we could bring A sleeping bag in case we needed to stay over. Only one, though.

This group of people gets together every other month for an event like this (not an aphrodisiac dinner) and they call it Cooking With Friends. They all love to cook, and they all cook well, and each time they get together, there's a theme.

We're not a regular part of the group, but for some reason, we were invited to the Aphrodisiac themed dinner.

Huh. Wonder why that was.

Anyway, the dish I made was fabulous and super super easy. So I thought I'd share it for anyone who's interested.

CRAB AVOCADO COCKTAIL

Can of unsweetened coconut milk (use only one-third of the can for 8 oz of crab)

1 Tablespoon honey

Juice of one lime

1 serrano chili, chopped fine

2 Tablespoons red onion, sliced thin

salt and pepper

8 oz lump crab meat

Mix the coconut milk with the peppers, onion, honey, lime, salt and pepper and then fold in the crab. Let it marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

Then fold in 1 diced avocado (or less if you like) and let sit for ten minutes. When you're ready to serve, scoop out the crab/avocado mixture with a slotted spoon and put it in a martini glass. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro, serve with a small fork.

Yum.

If I remember later, I'll share the recipe for the drink we made. Passionfruit Punch it was called. Lovely. Very strong. But lovely.

What's your favorite aphrodisiac?

Breaking In (Futter In) Transportation

2008-04-07T14:32:00.008-05:00

This week i bought a new car and of course that started me thinking of breaking in said car. LOL Isn't she pretty? British flags and all. wink.

I am currently writing two stories that involve scenes in carriages. One has not only sex in a carriage, the kind with two opposite seats, but a stole away. The other involves oral sex in a carriage.

Some of the carriages from the time could very easily accommodate moving futter and stole ways.

Others would be totally impractical. Though I have to admit a fondness for convertibles.

What I enjoy so much about writing transportation sex is the exhibitionism, the chance of being caught. Along with all the challenges of pulling off sex in a jostling, moving, coach. wink. One of my heroes becomes quite angry that he is denied his spend because a dog is in the road and the carriage comes to an abrupt halt. You certainly do need good balance and a lot of will to pull off moving futter.

Hope you are all doing well
I am working on two deadlines for novella's due May 1st. eek.
Hope you all enjoy the lovely spring weather.

Hugs,
Lacy.

The Book Signing

2008-03-31T12:54:00.000-05:00

I have to say that it was quite exciting to be doing a book signing. Mr Kate added to my nerves considerably by a) deciding to vacuum the lawn or something 15 minutes before we were supposed to be there and b)by telling me I'd got the wrong day just as we pulled off the freeway. I didn't laugh. He was lucky to survive.

Barnes & Noble even had a big poster at the from of the store with my name and the cover of "Roping the Wind" on it! Apparently, she had to down pedal the "Simply Sexual" one to avoid complaints from Saturday shoppers with kids, and I totally understood that. Debra, the B&N community relations manager loves romance novels and thank god for people like her-she was thrilled to see me, got me water and ice and even had a pen ready in case I'd forgotten to bring one!

So here I am, looking pensive as shoppers mill around me. I was strategically placed between the cafe and the new arrivals tables so I felt a little like a fish in a bowl, or one of those Victorian ladies waiting patiently at the side of the dance floor while being ignored by all the men.

And yes, people really do ask strange questions. My favorite was, "Did you write this?" Um, yes, otherwise why would I be sitting here? Of course, I didn't say that, I just smiled graciously and admitted it. I REALLY DID get asked where the bathroom was as well!!

Look! Real people in a line, for me! Okay, so I know some of them, but hey, they came out to support me and buy my books so I love them all.

Because of what I write, I expected a few oddballs as well, and yes, they turned up to say hi, every time Mr Kate wandered off to read Motor magazines. I 'think' they just wanted to see what an erotic romance writer looked like and I 'think' I probably disappointed them seeing as I wasn't dressed in black leather or brandishing a whip!

So,it was fun and Mr Kate took loads of photos, I felt famous for at least 5 minutes and that was quite enough for me :) Back to the writing cave!

Undressing for bed?

2008-03-28T14:06:00.006-05:00

Away with silks, away with lawn,
I'll have no scenes or curtains drawn ;
Give me my mistress, as she is,
Dress'd in her nak'd simplicities ;
For as my heart, e'en so mine eye
Is won with flesh, not drapery.

Lovely words from Robert Herrick, but it's quite possible that his naked mistress would have been, by our standards, quite well-dressed:

I drank bohea in Celia’s dressing room:
Warm from her bed, to me alone within.
Her night-gown fastened with a single pin:
Her night-clothes tumbled with resistless grace,
Her bright hair played careless round her face;
Reaching the kettle made her gown unpin,
She wore no waistcoat, and her shift was thin.

Yes, it was quite usual for women in the early eighteenth century to wear some sort of waistcoat as their night attire, and although Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1716 doesn't mention it, sexy Celia would almost certainly have been wearing a night cap.

Just to make things even more confusing, according to historical costume expert Cathy Decker, during the Regency period, "Undress" meant simply casual, informal dress. It was also called "dishabille" or "deshabille," the French word for the same type of dress. Another clue is anything "negligently worn" or "à la négligé" is probably either undress or designed to resemble closely undress. Undress is the sort of dress to be worn from early morning to noon or perhaps as late as four or five, depending on the engagements one had. Compared to half dress and full dress, undress was usually more comfortable, more warm, more casual, and much cheaper in cost.

In other words, clothes to slop around in at home, rather than some sexy little nothings for the boudoir.

You begin to suspect that there wasn't a whole lot of the full Monty in the Regency. For one thing, you didn't need to take your clothes off for any sort of sexual contact (drawers were to remain crotchless into the Edwardian period); if you did, you'd then have the problem of lacing oneself back into the stays, which were nearly all back-lacing, unless you'd had the foresight to wear side lacing or front lacing ones.

Where it gets really interesting, of course, is that you would only undress completely in front of your inferiors--your personal servants. So nakedness, or its absence, implied a certain level of power, and we talk quite a lot here about power and power shifts. But nakedness also implies vulnerability and trust. So was there an added frisson here, on the rare occasions when one or both (or all!) participants got their clothes off, that rules were being broken, the social order turned upside down?

What do you think?

Where's the passion?

2008-03-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

Since last I wrote here, I was struggling to find the ending to my current WIP proposal. I found it. And no, I’m not going to tell you what it is. You will have to wait and see (if it ever makes the light of day.)

I am in a hundred different places at the moment: the course I’m doing, the course I’m preparing to give (no, nothing nearly so sexy as Pam’s), the current WIP. Which strangely is not the same WIP as the one I’ve been writing about.

I was talking to my husband about both WIPs, one just a germ of an idea at the time, trying to figure out which way to go with it. And he said, more or less, you sound most passionate about #2, why not do that one? If WIP #1 isn’t appealing, why do it?

But that WIP has some kick-butt scenes in it, that’s why.

With a part-time job that feels like a full-time one, and study and limited time to write. I think he’s right on the money. Follow my passion. Follow my bliss. Make writing fun again. And I have been giggling over this idea -- which I did when I came up with ONE MORE TIME and we all know how that turned out. (That is, if you read it.)

So it’s an interesting thing--to turn from the obligation of writing and preparing a proposal for a difficult-to-write book, to the joy of writing something for fun. Figuring out real motivations hasn’t been quite so much fun, but I got there.

Enjoying my break in the middle of the day, and going off-campus to a deli and sitting outside and doing some brainstorming writing. And I have character names already. I never have character names this early.

Anyway, I suspect I’m rambling. So writers: are you still following your passion in your writing? Readers, can you tell the difference?

Black Silk

2008-03-21T21:30:00.002-05:00

It’s spring, which means that life in general is falling apart.

I’m in the midst of revisions, and rushing out some copy edits, in addition to preparing for RT, and clearing off a big report for the day job, so I’m not thinking too clearly right now. There have been times in the last few days when I’ve been a little uncertain what my own name is. And telemarketers beware. I’m not even trying to politely weasel out of your calls. You may just suddenly hear a dial tone if you call me.

I’m sure many of you out there are in the same boat. So much to do. No time.

Of course, Happy Easter to everyone who is celebrating, visiting family, eating chocolate, praying for spring (or actually enjoying it if you are seeing grass beneath the snow). We have about six feet of snow in the back yard. And it’s staying cold.

Black Silk releases this month. Actually in about 4 days, I think. I’m excited to see it coming out, and have been taking little sneak reads and enjoying myself thoroughly. When a book is done and ready to go out there, it always feels that it simply appeared by some mystical force and not months of pounding the keyboard. All the blood, sweat, and tears that got it there is long forgotten, and I’m just wrapped up in the joy of having a real book in my hands.

Since I can barely think tonight, I’m going to cheat and include a little excerpt from Black Silk. I’ve posted quite a few excerpts of late, but I really am incapable of brilliant thought right now, so I do hope you enjoy:

"I didn’t like Mrs. Master’s salon," she whispered, "before I found you there. There were eight men, and it was all very horrid."

He grasped her wrist. "Eight! You didn’t tell me about this. Did they hurt you?"

"No!" Maryanne remembered to drop her voice. "A courtesan exposed her breasts, shoved me out of the way, and distracted them."

"Thank the lord for that. And all this talk of crowded beds is making me hunger for our bed." He adjusted his trousers. "We could slip off behind a grove of trees—"

"We can’t make love out here. It’s freezing!" Maryanne cried.

A boyishly beseeching look lit up his eyes. "We would heat up quickly."

"It’s fine for you," she protested. "You only need one part of your body, and you’ll be sliding that into warmth."

Except from Black Silk, © Sharon Page 2008

Emergency Friday post

2008-03-21T12:37:00.002-05:00

Please vote for Forbidden Shores at dearauthor.com--you only have until 3:00EST and I'm up against some serious competition....Thanks!

Writing and Repression Redux: or, Just Kill James Bond

2008-03-19T08:00:00.002-05:00

Huh? James Bond?

Wrong genre, that.

Except that my hunch is that all genre fiction has common roots. Which lie in romance, as it happens -- originating in the fictions of second century Greece, which were highly disrespected, and which were the first extended stories (in the West, anyway) written in prose, which had to prove how disreputable and un-serious they were.

These proto-romances were always about lovers who were separated, abducted by pirates, sold into slavery, reunited at the very last moment. There was a lot of travel: the literary scholar Northrop Frye said that the chief mode of transportation in these early rudimentary romances was shipwreck.

I love this linkage of romance and travel because it also ties so neatly to those medieval quest stories, like the hunt for the Grail, which were also called romances. And because since then we've learned that if you're looking for something outside yourself you just might find it inside.

But the inside-outside quest-and-self-discovery thing is a relatively modern invention. In the Greek proto-romances, on the other hand, the lovers know they love each other from page one, so all the kidnapping, abduction, near-rape (and real rape too) are all just trials of their separation and their honor. My guess is that it isn't until Richardson's Clarissa that we get that hero writhing in his discovery of his own passion.

I've already written about how critical that moment of declaration is both to Pride and Prejudice and a generation of bodice-rippers. And my further guess is that it's that moment of discovery and disclosure that ties together any number of popular fiction genres and makes them cousins of romance.

Including BDSM, btw. I don't know if I've ever mentioned here that the Marquis de Sade was a huge fan of Samuel Richardson's, and thought he was rewriting Clarissa when he was writing Justine. Interesting, no? You can, and should, read more about that in Angela Carter's The Sadean Woman. Not to speak of my own Safe Word (w/a Molly Weatherfield). That I-have-you-in-my-power moment is so much fun to write exactly because as you write it you can feel the ground shifting -- and the fragility, the vulnerability and contingency of erotic power.

Which brings us from Richardson and Sade and Austen back around to James Bond (you did know I'd get there eventually, didn't you?) Well, anyway, to the villains in James Bond, and to an ancient Saturday Night Live skit that I've never forgotten, about a confab of villains -- sort of an evil villain consciousness-raising group, where the villains try to convince each other that the point is just to kill James Bond now, and talk later.

But they never do, do they? Because at the moment of the height of their power over James Bond (which was a naked Daniel Craig in the last one, as I'm sure I don't have to remind anybody), they have to talk. They have to brag. They have to give away everything. Which shows that they're incomplete; they're not so powerful at all.

Which has just enough family resemblance to those beloved writhing-hero-must-declare-his-passion romance scenes to be interesting.

Because who has the power in those scenes? And isn't it always the understanding of one's own incompleteness that blows the solid ground out from under a character? And if it's a romance allows for the possibility of finding completeness in the other.

In SM and in superhero/spy adventure fiction -- I'm going to go way out on a limb and say that in all the genres that are kin of romance -- it's this ambiguity of power that creates the important narrative hinges upon upon which the story turns. In SM sex (which always goes for the narrative element), the popular term for this is "power exchange". And in fact, the panel I'm going to speak on later this week at the Popular Culture Association Conference is going to be called something like Romance and Power Exchange.

But I'm thinking that "power exchange" might not be as good a term as "power slippage" or "power instability" or "power balanced on the fulcrum of its self-expression". Or whatever Colin Firth was acting so well that unfortunately he froze his face into those lines forever. (Be careful what you wish for, actors... or anybody looking for the big score.)

Still, isn't it interesting that the power slips into desire when the hunky object of desire (ie hero or villain) becomes a desiring subject through his (or her) own need to speak?

Which I guess is my question.

Along with: what do you think about any of this?

Or do you think about any of this? (With a wave to the other theory geeks out there)

Good news!

2008-03-14T11:52:00.004-05:00

First off-the good news. Kensington Aphrodisia offered me a contract for two more books! The best bit is that they are connected to the first two, "Simply Sexual" and "Simply Sinful". So I get to write about the Madame of the pleasure house, Helene and Valentin's half-brother Anthony Sokorvsky.

It will be interesting to write about Helene because most of my books are dominated by the hero, and in this case, things are different. I just hope I can make her sympathetic enough-she's had a tough life. But, as I explained to my editor, I have to write Helene's book first so that we can get to Anthony's, because characters have to be developed who will impact his life and his happiness. Anthony is seriously messed up sexually and it will take an exceptional person to sort him out.

I've no idea when these books will come out, although I'm thinking the first probably late 2009, we'll see how they go :) It is actually slightly easier to write books when you already have some back story to help you along, although it can get a little complicated at times :) Not sure what the titles will be either, whether we'll continue to 'Simply' ones or not-although I think the awesome Mary Balogh has used most of them already :) I picked a deliberately lame title for Helene's story in the hope that Kensington would choose another one. I didn't even try to find one for Anthony-I just called it "Anthony's book" :)

I should have a cover for "Simply Sinful" in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to that-I think!

Question-do you like linked books as much as I do or does it get old?

A decade of ....?

2008-03-12T11:15:00.006-05:00

I read this morning in the Washington Post that today is Viagra's tenth birthday, but certainly not the tenth anniversary of the deification of male arousal and the peddling of silly myths about female desire. That has been going on for far too long.

Consider another story that came out yesterday on yahoo news (I can't give a link because, well, yesterday's news, or even last hour's news online is old news) that men who did housework had more sex than men who didn't.

The implications of this made my jaw drop. Oh, I suppose there's a certain erotic quality to a man manfully handling the vacuum cleaner or thrusting the toilet brush into the depths, but ... we reward men with sex? Like handing out candy? How insulting is that, to both genders? Have we really evolved no further than ooh Ig bring home big mammoth steak, must now assume mating posture?

When the media, or anyone, insists on sex as a favor women grant to men it's a denial of female sexuality. But back to that Washington Post article, which is really about the search for a female equivalent to Viagra, led, naturally by the pharmaceutical industry. The industry argument is that erectile dysfunction used to be considered to be a psychological problem but the research that led to the development of Viagra proved that in many cases it was physical. So now there's the untapped market of women who "aren't in the mood."

I really find myself undecided here. In a sense I'm in agreement with Leonore Tiefer and her colleagues who argue that the problem is not chemical but

"...for many women the solution to their libido problems isn't that exotic. Maybe they have a partner who hasn't a clue about technique. Maybe they're stressed out. Maybe they can't possibly get in the mood because they're so busy raising children. Therapy, counseling, even free day care, says the New View Campaign, might do more for women's sex lives than any drug company ever could."

But maybe it's not that prosaic, either, for men or women. It's not a question only of lubrication and circulation, or phsyical/emotional wellbeing and opportunity. People can succumb to desire in the most inexplicable circumstances and situations and ultimately I don't know that science can ever explain the phenomenon.

Maybe it's something we should leave to the poets:

And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

What do you think?
And would you ever take a "female Viagra"?

And the Winner is!

2008-03-10T23:47:00.002-05:00

Jenna Bayley-Burke

Woo hoo!

Congratulations Jenna.

Please email me at Lacy@LacyDanes.com

with your snail mail address and I will get your copy of ANIMAL LUST in the mail to you.

Enjoy,

Lacy

ANIMAL LUST!!!!

2008-03-08T23:27:00.009-05:00

My new book released this past week and has been doing so very very well... So i thought I would give away a free copy!

So here is my question...
What is your favorite sub genre of historical romance? ie Paranormal historical, Time travel historical, wild west, Victorian etc...

I will draw one winner at 9PM PST on Monday March 10th from everyone who posts their answer.

Also I wanted you all to know that I will be doing a reading and signing at the Seattle Babeland store on Tuesday March 11th from 6-8 pm. For more information on this event check out my blog Lacy Underthings on Monday the 10th and I will have a post up.

Hugs and kisses,
Lacy.

I make stuff up...really that's all I do...

2008-03-05T12:46:00.006-05:00

I write about a lot of things: being tied up, being spanked, threesomes, foursomes homo erotic action, etc etc. In my fiction I'm quite happy to explore anything.

But I always get a shock when I read other people's blogs and realize that people actually do all that stuff and enjoy it . I've never experienced a single slap on my bum since I was a kid and that's okay with me. I have absolutely no desire to experience the stuff I put my characters through.

Does that make what I write less authentic because I haven't done it? I don't think so. I've never had any complaints, in fact, just the opposite. Most readers assume I know all about it and want to share their experiences with me too. Not that this is a problem because being a writer I'm obviously a complete and shameless voyeur.

Last year I wrote a story for my first foray into erotica with Cleis Press. It's called Sunday Service and it's in the L is for Leather anthology. it was such fun to write something completely kinky with no worries about making the ending happy. But I still made it all up and I have a suspicion that some of the other authors in that anthology didn't and that is amazing.

So I wonder, can readers tell whether you've done the deeds you write about?

The erotic of the everyday

2008-03-01T22:23:00.005-05:00

I've mentioned before how I like the hidden eroticism of everyday life--particularly useful if you're writing books set in a time where the appearance of propriety was more important than propriety itself. I came upon this splendid picture a few days ago, Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables by Sir Nathaniel Bacon, c. 1620-25. It is altogether rather odd. (The perspective is very strange. Why the gigantic cabbages in the foreground? They have to be three feet tall.)

And the, uh, blatant symbolism of the uh, big melons. For at least a couple of centuries, portraits of women at work, particularly in kitchens and surrounded by fecund heaps of produce and game, had great erotic significance. If she displayed a melon, she could display her own; if she could peel a carrot, she might peel his.

Here's a short excerpt from an earlier version of Forbidden Shores, an example of the erotic of the everyday, the everyday item in this case being a pair of gloves which Allen has lent Clarissa:

Oh, the poor young man. Such a shame, after he’d tried so hard to impress her. Clarissa cradled Mr. Pendale’s head in her lap, gingerly exploring the rising lump on his scalp. His gloves lay somewhere among her skirts. She had removed them with some reluctance, after savoring the secret warmth of the silk and leather, the heat all the more enjoyable for having been rendered by a male, and a stranger. The intimacy of his gesture and her enjoyment of her fingers being where his had lain gave her a definitely indecent pleasure. As did her exploration of his head, warm and heavy in her lap. He groaned. His eyelashes, long and dark, fluttered against his cheeks.

She resisted an impulse to touch his face, her fingers itching once again for that pleasurable roughness. Had they not been surrounded by a cluster of interested kitchen staff, she might have risked it.

Thoughts?

A first for the Crumpet Strumpets!

2008-02-27T16:39:00.005-05:00

A squeaky clean entry today. No reference to sex, erotica, orgasm or any body parts.

Well, except for one. ;-)

Just a bit of levity for your hump day (oops).

Oh no, not again...

2008-02-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

(Sorry, I had a draft ready to go Sunday and promptly forgot to post it before I went to bed. Better late than never....)

Well, here it is, another post, and I’m still having my butt kicked with the end of this synopsis. I do not know how this story is going to end, and perhaps in the end it doesn’t matter that I know, because the good thing about synopses is that they are not set in stone.

However, if my solution turns out to kill off one of the two heroes, then that might be off-putting to the editor who agreed to the idea with all three living happily ever after.

Perhaps, a serious maiming would do. (Because truthfully, I can’t bring myself to kill off either one of them.) But a maiming would make for an interesting sequel, which would probably never see the light of day.

Of course, there’s always the: you get Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays; and you get Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and I get Sunday to myself -- solution. Which with these two jealous brothers? Not so sure would work without bloodshed and, well, see above, and the need for this ending to be satisfying.

Dammit.

This stream-of-consciousness has been brought to you by someone who thought threesomes might be a fun thing to explore and it turns out that they’re a major headache.

So, readers, what do you like about threesomes in erotic romance? Are you satisfied with the endings of those books?

Authors, what am I missing? Why is this so hard? *whiiiiiiiiiine*

Winter Bugs and Black Silk

2008-02-24T08:02:00.003-05:00

Sorry to be late! I’ve gone through another round of kids with stomach bugs, and have some big revisions to do on my WIP, and the time just got away from me.

I’ve wrestled the revisions under control and have a clear plan of what I need to do, so now it’s a matter of putting the words to the page. Hopefully, the right words this time. I’ve also realized that I can’t write a book from a synposis. I need to do an synopsis that gives me the feel for the story and its emotional highpoints (and basic plot) and then write an outline.
It’s always a learning process.

Since it’s winter I have to hurry out and take the kids up for some skiing, so I’m going to post a small excerpt of my upcoming Black Silk—out so soon, April 2008:

One glass of champagne for courage.

Maryanne handed her empty flute to a barechested, masked footman, who whisked it away. She couldn’t help but stare at his finely hewn, bronzed muscles, such a startling contrast to his immaculate powdered wig and black breeches.

Her invitation had gained her entry to Mrs. Master’s salon, but she rather felt as though she’d walked into hell. Surely hell was as hot, as raucous, and smelled as strangely. Decorated in Eastern fashion, the salon was a sumptuous den of gold and scarlet, velvet and silk. Pillows spilled everywhere, on daybeds and on the floor. Couples and groups explored pleasure in sensuous and astonishing positions.

Behind her mask, Maryanne’s cheeks heated. She pushed aside a spray of glittering red beads that dangled from a swinging lamp.

Most of the women strolling about were completely nude, and they encouraged the handsome gentlemen to paw, pinch, or kiss them in any place desired before inviting them to play on the cushions. A few wore virginal gowns of pale silk, like hers, so she did not look out of place, at least.

How would she find Georgiana in this crush?

"My dear, you must be parched."

Another glass was thrust into her hand. She half-turned and the gentleman bowed. Lord Craven. She almost dropped the glass. Lord Craven had been featured in many of her authors’ books. The acts he enjoyed gave her nightmares.

He plucked the glass from her fingers, his smile dazzling. Craven was a handsome man, a fair-haired gentleman with angelic blue eyes, long lashes of gold, and lean, sculpted form. He held the glass to her lips. "Such a delicious brew is not to be wasted."

This was a smaller glass than the one that had held champagne and the fluid within was a deep burgundy. What harm in a sip?

But Craven tipped up the glass, and the liquor was sweet, intoxicating, and tempting. She continued to drink. At his laugh, she saw she’d drained the glass.
He gave her a leering wink and raised his hand. Instantly another tray of champagne was presented. "To cleanse the palate."

It was true. The drink was…clinging to her tongue, sickly sweet. She took the champagne. He grabbed a flute and drank it in a gulp. "Do you dare, my dear?"

His smug smile irritated. "I’m not a fool, my lord." She thrust the glass back, untouched, on a passing tray. She did not have to do as Lord Craven asked.

"Ah, the timid and pretty kitten is now a lioness." But his smirk became a beaming grin of delight.

Understanding dawned. Most jades would not be concerned about becoming drunk. She had given away a clue that she was not a lightskirt.

Blast.

Lord Craven raised his hand. In the blink of an eye, men surrounded her, gathered by Craven. They made a circle—eight of London’s most desirable gentlemen.

From Black Silk, © Sharon Page, from Kensington Aphrodisia April 2008

A New Novel from Pam (and a little about how Molly W. discovered romance)

2008-02-21T08:00:00.006-05:00

I always get a little nuts waiting for The Revision Letter from my editor, so my thoughts are a bit scattered today...

So in lieu of a coherent post I thought I'd unveil the cover of the book, front and back, since that's what they've sent me thus far.

Isn't it pretty?

In Regency-speak, isn't it devilish pretty?

As you can see, the book is called The Edge of Impropriety. (I like the way the end of her shift gets tangled up with the title lettering, don't you?)

It'll be out in November, a erotic historical story whose heroine is a silver fork novelist (those were glitzy novels they read during the Regency -- the Regencies they read during the Regency, if you will; I love playing self-referential games). The hero's a classical scholar turned Mediterranean adventurer (anything to get those guys outside and give them a good, sexy suntan); he's one of the people responsible for hauling back all the spectacular Greek art you see in the British museum, though of course -- being one of my guys -- he's developed a conscience about it.

In fact, my couple meets cute among the Elgin Marbles.

And banter their way into each other's hearts (and bed) amid dinner-party discussion of Greek eros and esthetics -- and a little about the British empire as well (all of which was big fun for me to research).

But until I find out what revisions I have to make to the text, I better not tell you any more about The Edge of Impropriety.

Or worry too much about those revisions (though if you think I'm not worrying, perhaps there's a fixer-upper temple on a big hill in Greece that I can sell you).

So instead, I'm trying to prepare a set of comments to deliver at the Popular Culture Association Meeting next month. I was invited to speak on one of the romance panels; yes, there are academic scholars who study popular romance fiction: you can find out more about what they think and say and do at the blog Teach Me Tonight (and follow out the links from there).

The title I sent them was "From BDSM to Erotic Romance: Observations of a Shy Pornographer." Well, I figured it would get people's attention, anyway. And it has the virtue of limiting what I say to the work of one author I know a great deal about (moi) -- because to me one of the most daunting aspects of romance scholarship must be knowing how to define the field, popular romance being so huge and so driven by the prevailing winds of an ever-changing market.

But the core question for my presentation will be how a writer of hardcore BDSM porn came to turn her attention to romance writing. I wasn't a romance reader at the time, though I was vastly curious about the bodice-ripper covers it seemed I'd been seeing everywhere for a decade or so, and which seemed to seethe with the sort of repressed passion on the verge declaring itself (see my last post as well, about Mr. Darcy and repression -- gosh, I'm already learning to footnote myself). And my point (one of my points, anyway) will be that certain elements of the romance novel form sort of sprang forth from under my pornographer's hand...

(but some of you Molly Weatherfield readers probably know where this is going already)

...at the moment when, at the end of Carrie's Story, Jonathan makes his unwilling and hitherto-repressed declarations to Carrie (he's even pale -- god help him and his author -- and has been chain-smoking). Whereupon Carrie (cruel healthy young hyper-intellected smartass that she is) muses angrily that when he'd promised to give her a narrative form for her fantasies, she didn't think it would be "a goddamn Harlequin romance".

Which was the same moment when I (older, more compassionate, hyper-intellected smartass that I was), decided that I'd better find out what those "goddamn Harlequin romances" had to tell me (I thought of them generically back then -- Harlequin was like Kleenex).

True story. I still have to figure out how to tell it (among others).

In my spare time, when I'm not finding revisions and better ways to tell my tales of eros, esthetics, and empire, at The Edge of Impropriety.

If you want to find out more about the Popular Culture Association conference, it's here.

And as for questions... oh lord, in my disheveled state, you want questions?

Well, how do you think BDSM and romance fiction hook up? Or do you?

And isn't that cover for The Edge of Impropriety just fiendishly lovely?

Dreaming...

2008-02-18T12:46:00.004-05:00

I am under major deadline pressure. I have a book due on March 1st. I also have my next book releasing this month. on Feb 26th. Animal Lust.

I have received some wonderful reviews for this book.

RT. gives Animal Lust 4.5 stars... and says...This fantastic novel keeps the reader engrossed. You'll turn page after page and not be able to put it down! Each story of the cursed Ursus brothers starts off with a bang, thanks to amazing characters, and readers will feel as if they are in Regency England. Danes is a rising talent.

Coffee Time Romance gives Animal Lust 4 cups and says... Animal Lust is not only, four steamy hot stories, about four well-developed brothers, and the four women who capture their heart, but it is engaging, wonderfully written, great dialogue, and secondary characters that even pull the reader into the midst of the tales. Lacy Danes crafts a read that is explosive. This great read entertains as the characters still linger with the reader long after the story if finished. It comes highly recommended.

Animal Lust is about 4 brothers who are descendent from a Viking clan and live in Regency England.

The first story in this book, Martian's story, the opening scene came to me in a dream.... the sniffing at the door.

The other stories just came one after the other after that. I really enjoyed writing this book... I mean who can resist Bear men?

Dreams are amazing things... some say they are your subconscious flushing bits of information you no longer need (when you have crazy weird dreams that make no sense) or that your subconscious is working on a problem you are having... but have you ever had a dream come true? I have and it is kind of freaky when it happens.

So I guess my question is... do you remember your dreams? and have you ever had any of them come true?

Lacy.

Just Gay Enough?

2008-02-15T13:16:00.002-05:00

I like to write Regency heroes who aren’t quite what you’d expect, in fact, I like to write heroes who appeal to the type of reader who is slightly intrigued by the tantalizing thought of gay men making out, but still likes a good romance along the way. My heroes will give you that. Not quite gay, but willing to experiment with anyone or anything if the opportunity arises, (and somehow it always does in my books) and also just Alpha enough to keep you interested and hot and, well, you know...

How did I end up writing them? I don’t know. I just got fed up with the whole Alpha, Beta, Metro thing. I mean, sexuality is much more complicated than that isn’t it? Aren’t there a hell of a lot of grays in between? I love the grays, the men and women who can appreciate that sex is far more interesting if you can be open and up for anything.

What does amuse me is seeing my books in the romance section. Yay, I’m a subversive! ‘Georgette Heyer on crack’ as one of my fellow Black Lace authors called me. I’m expecting my readers to want to know whether a sexually ambiguous pair of Regency gentleman like Lord Valentin Sokorvsky and Peter Howard who star in Simply Sexual and Simply Sinful, can find their happy ever after’s. And I want my readers to be happy for them and care about what happens to them. I want them to care even though these men aren’t remotely conventional and never will be.

I don’t have an agenda. I truly believe love is where you find it and that we all have a right to be happy and sexually satisfied. Is that going to become the norm? Will my kids wonder what all the fuss was about back in the day? I sure hope so 

So tell me, does ‘just gay enough’ turn you on or off and how do you feel about it being in the romance aisle?

Cold blowy wintry day

2008-02-13T10:34:00.004-05:00

Is anyone else sick of winter?

(Well, I know some of you don't have to deal with winter, but humor me.)

It's cold and blowy here today, but at least the sun is shining. It literally looks like diamonds on the snow--I know it's cliché, but it's a cliché for a reason. Right?

So tomorrow is Valentine's Day. As an erotic novelist, that holiday should be high up on my list of favorite days, right? *snort*

Yeah, it's there with my red-silken boudoir and candle-lit bath and cabinet filled with a variety of whips and other accoutrements.

No, seriously. The cabinet is there, but the other stuff....well, all right. You caught me. How about piles of laundry and rows of shoes in my boudoir?

So what's your favorite way to stay warm in the winter? Me? I take a hot bath every night. Then when I climb in bed with HEN (Husband of an Erotic Novelist), my feet aren't cold and neither are my hands. Or other areas.

What about you? And how will you celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow? Chocolate and champagne? Whips and chains? Dinner for two with some good under-the-tablecloth foot (and/or finger) action?

Come on. Spill!

eeps!

2008-02-10T11:33:00.000-05:00

It's Sunday and I was supposed to post on Friday. How the heck did that happen? Where did Friday go? And Saturday for that matter...

I do recall thinking, "Oh yes, I must come up for something this week." I don't recall actually coming up with something...

I do have good news though. I have finished (really finished this time) a rough draft of my latest WIP proposal. It's Regency-set and deals with the "Table of Affinity", which aren't in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer anymore. I don't know if they are in the current UK BCP.

Anyway, they're based on the rules in Leviticus (and given my husband's chuckles, it sounds like "The Year of Living Biblically" by AJ Jacobs will be a good read on the complexity of those rules). However, it was Judah and Tamar's story in Exodus (please don't ask me to quote chapter and verse) that inspired me to write this one.

Until I found out about that Table of Affinity (I keep wanting to writ "Infinity") and how it was an ecclesiastical crime in the UK to conduct and be a party to such a marriage. And shortly after the Regency period it became a civil crime to do so. The main problem being that such a marriage (and its offspring) could be rendered invalid if a husband returned, say, from a long sea voyage, or turned up coming back from a war after all.

Oh crap, thought I, that tears it.

Fortunately though, the Austens came to the rescue once again. Her brother Henry married his wife's sister -- had to go overseas to do it admittedly, but they don't seem to be shunned by society for so doing. I think the sympathies lay in their court though. Henry had small children who needed a mother, if I remember right.

My heroine doesn't have any children, but still, I thought this was a way cool idea. I still haven't figured out how much of what I've written will actually make it into the book, but I think I'm on the right track this time.

Next, the synopsis. *groan*

So my question for you all today is: authors, how many of your stories have been inspired by a historical tidbit; readers, do you get disappointed when the inspiration that you've read about a WIP and the final product don't seem to match up?

Made for Each Other

2008-02-06T10:55:00.000-05:00

I’ve been caught up in the administration of writing for the last couple of weeks, and am so thrilled to be back working on my current story. Thanks, Pam, for posting the link to the article by Martin Amis. I was really struck by this passage of Mr. Amis’ about Pride and Prejudice:

"Even now, as I open the book, I feel the same panic of unsatisfied expectation, despite five or six rereadings. How can this be, when the genre itself guarantees consummation ? The simple answer is that the lovers really are made for each other - by their creator. They are constructed for each other: interlocked for wedlock."

How can an author make the reader believe in the happily-ever-after, i.e. make the reader beliebe the hero and heroine will be sixty (or so) and still finding passion together? Passion heightened by the long understanding of lovers, and made all the more intriguing by the secrets kept for a lifetime. (Honestly, would anyone admit to their spouse what they really fantasize about?)

Mr. Amis’ idea intrigued me because one of my critiquers said the same thing of my first Bantam Dell book. She told me that she felt I created heroines and heroes who belonged together. And the truth is, I consciously want to do that. The hero has to give the heroine something that she can’t find in herself. He has to challenge her to grow. He has to complement her. On the fundamentals of life—money, morals, children, dreams and hopes, they have to be on the same page, at least eventually. In short, they have to be capable of having a strong partnership through life.

As Mr. Amis states, why are am I, as reader, on the edge of my seat, wondering whether there will be a happily ever after, even though I know there must be one? I think the mystery and excitement is in the process—and in the waiting for those moments of revelation. What I’m hanging on for is to see how each character will grow—because that’s the way they will complete each other. Unless the character changes, there can’t be the partnership. What keeps me turning the pages is the excitement of each step in the process and the pain/reluctance of each character to take that step. In Pride and Prejudice, Lizze could have accepted Mr. Darcy’s first proposal with money and security in mind. She doesn’t because he hasn’t grown yet. We might know there will be a marriage at the end, but the mystery to me is: will it be made for the right reasons, or the wrong ones? Will there be happiness? Will it last?

Now I’m preparing to work on my second book for Bantam Dell. I’m writing an erotic vampire romance right now for Aphrodisia and letting my next sensual historical romance percolate. A while ago I talked with my agent about book 1. She mentioned that I could choose a titled hero for book 2. And I could. But my heroine has survived an abusive marriage, attended a sex club for couples with her late husband, and is generally steeped in scandal. She was championed by her best friend even when everything looked black against her—did she murder her husband or not?

Even so, she could have fallen in love with an earl or a duke. How, after all, could a gentleman bring a scandalous widow into his family? But suddenly the hero stepped into my story. He’s not titled—he’s a bastard son. As a youth, he was involved in a horrible murder (he’s still heroic, though, as will be seen). He is tormented and at the start of the story, he has a death wish. These are two people I believe can believe in each other, even when the rest of their world doesn’t. It’s early days yet, and things may change for this story, but this hero and heroine are calling to me. And if I’m passionate about them, I know they are going to be passionate about each other.

What keeps you turning the pages of romance when you know there’s going to be a happily ever after ending?

Winner!

2008-02-04T00:04:00.000-05:00

The winner of a copy of "Simply Sexual is...

brownone

email me at contactme@katepearce.com
to claim your prize

Kate x

Writing and Repression: Jane Austen and the Bodice-Ripper

2008-02-01T18:50:00.000-05:00

"What happened, I think, is that someone said they wanted it to be sexy. What they meant was the kind of sexuality that's in the book, the sexuality of repression.When you read the book, you know that everybody's horny -- all that flirtation and dancing and conversation, but nobody's going to get laid."

"I thought to myself: 'This is where he wants to go across the room and punch someone. This is where he wants to kiss her. This is where he wants sex with her right now.' I'd imagine a man doing it all, and then not doing any of it. That's all I did."

Lacy's vintage smut was is hard act to follow. And so, in a tight situation, who best to help me out but that sublimely sexy writer Jane Austen?

More precisely Jane Austen as channeled by screenwriter Andrew Davies as channeled by Colin Firth, as he spoke in various interviews more than a decade ago, trying to explain how he worked up the mojo to play Mr. Darcy in the 1995-6 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, soon to be showed once again in the current PBS Jane Austen fest.

Repression. What a concept.

And it works, too. Extraordinarily well. Skimming over the text of Pride and Prejudice, it's not the least bit of a stretch to to plug in Mr. Darcy wanting to kiss, have sex, etc.

Like at this moment:

...the pianoforte was opened; and Darcy, after a few moments' recollection, was not sorry for it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.

Or this:

But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying.

Oh yes. Mortifying will do very well indeed. In romance, we love a mortified hero, not to speak of one who "begins to feel the danger..." And we especially love it when the author has first introduced him in all his smug, hunky, thoughtless toughness and now shows his inner writhings and torments.

I've read that it was during the era of the bodice-ripper that this outer-to-inner revelation becomes popular romance convention. You know, stuff like (I'm improvising here), "He'd sailed the seven seas, plundered the Spanish Main. No one could master him at arms and yet... she... she.. this meek little chit of a tradesman's daughter. Why did she set him all aquiver... afire?"

Needless to say, it works better as filtered through Austen's her gorgeous little understated ironies. But it shows you why there are those who insist (especially when they feel they have to stick up for the genre) that Jane Austen was a romance writer.

I suppose you can say that she was, in this way, at least in her spare time when she wasn't inventing the modern novel. She didn't invent the moment when the hero reveals his hot inner anxieties and arousals (I think it might have been Richardson who did that, in Clarissa) but she did it so deftly and demurely that she can take your breath away.

And provide stage directions for guys in waistcoats and tight pants for the next couple of centuries as well.

Note: I took the Firth quotes from this article. And while you're at it, you won't regret reading this wonderfully witty piece on Austen by Martin Amis.

So, are you doing the TV Austen fest?

Do you agree that Austen might have been an influence on the bodice-ripper authors? Or do you think I ought to be pilloried for suggesting such a thing?

Vintage Smut

2008-01-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

I started this post over on my site last week sometime. Vintage Smut

I have a deadline looming off in the near future... March 1st and I have been writing and editing daily again which is a wonderful and satisfying feeling.

To get myself in the mood to write hot and steamy I tend to enjoy looking at old black and white Victorian photography. I am simply amazed by the images... they are a snap shot in time that leaves me thinking... what happened just before this... what will happen next. They engage my mind and my creativity sores.

My favorite site to visit for this kind of research is....
http://www.vintagelovelies.com/

here are some of my favorites from this site.

This image is one of the inspirations for the final scene in my story Lusts Vow in my first book WHAT SHE CRAVES. There is something about seeing a couple in this position that is so open so erotic to me... put a mirror in front of them so they can watch and... well, yum... my scene from Lusts Vow was born.

And another...

I love how the couples heads are in this image... there is a tenderness to it. And goodness... look at the mans hand. I have a thing for hands... wink.... and his is stiking against the soft curv of her bottom. Maybe in more ways than one.

So what kind of vintage smut do you enjoy?

hugs and kisses,
Lacy.

Simply Sexual

2008-01-28T12:59:00.000-05:00

by Kate Pearce

What can I tell you about this book? Firstly, I have no real idea where I got the idea for it from. I remember a few vague thoughts about Turkish pirates, sieges and white slavery and then these 2 characters appeared in my head, one of them complete with a name, which is really weird. So there he was, Lord Valentin Sokorvsky, a Regency noble man and a businessman, looking for a wife.

But I also knew that at the age of 10 he'd been kidnapped along with another boy, by Turkish pirates and sold to a brothel. Not one of those nice Princess and floaty drapery harems, but a place where he and his blond haired companion, Peter Howard are forced to have sex with each other and anyone with the coin to pay for them.

Rescued and returned to England at 18, Valentin has issues-big issues not only with his sexuality but with his best friend Peter, a man he's tied to in many ways. A man who is still in love with him. So the book is about an older Valentin coming to terms with his voracious sexuality in a way that satisfies both his needs and the needs of his new wife, Sara. Throughout most of the book, Val is in major denial about his relationship with Peter and with how he deals sexually with his wife.

Here's an excerpt:

Sara's breathing shortened and Valentin knew she was close to a climax. He pulled back, barely touching her, wanting to see her face in this most intimate moment. He drew back the folds of her dressing gown to expose her breasts and nearly lost what little sense he had left.

Her rose red nipples glinted with gold. He stared at the rings that pierced her sensitive flesh. She flinched as he reached out a finger. With great restraint, he lightly touched the ring. She would be sore for a while. Even more sore if the ring was ripped out, as had happened to him. He still bore the scar on his chest. He traced the warm metal with his tongue and removed his fingers from her pussy.

“Does it still hurt?”

She bit her lip. “A little.”

He licked her nipple as gently as he could and she sighed.

When she healed, he intended to spend a great deal of time lavishing his attention on her breasts. God, it was possible that he’d never let her out of bed again. He cupped her chin and kissed her mouth, giving her a taste of her own pleasure. His cock throbbed. He wanted to be inside her with a primitive urge that shook him to the core.

Still kissing her, he reached down and opened his breeches. His breath hissed between his teeth as his cock sprang out, blindly seeking her. She dragged his breeches down to expose his buttocks and tight balls.

“Oh God, Valentin, I missed you.”

He groaned as her fingernails scraped his skin. Releasing her mouth, he slid back down between her legs and pushed her knees wide with his hips. She’d take his cock now and scream out her pleasure.

Sara quivered as he pushed her hand away from the jade dildo and grabbed the base of his shaft. His cock was bigger than he’d ever seen it before. He guided the massive weeping crown along the lower side of the jade, engorged red flesh to pale green, velvet heat to cream-washed stone. Her sheath swallowed him below the jade.

He waited until her flesh gave willingly and then continued his slow penetration. Sensations exploded over him, the clench of her pussy, the rock hard resistance of the stone above him. He was trapped in an erotic vise of his own making.

“Valentin.” Sara clutched his muscled shoulders, her fingernails digging deep. “Oh. God, I’m going to come.“

He pressed deeper until his balls slapped against her buttocks and held still as she milked his cock with the strength of a ravaging storm. He caught her screams in his mouth, refusing to end the kiss even when she nipped and bit at his lips in the final throes of her climax.

When she finished shaking, he pulled out and removed the jade dildo. He stared down at her beautiful, wet, fuckable pussy. So much for restraint. He was beyond that now and so was she.

It's available from Kensington Aphrodisia and is due out on the 29th, although it has already been spotted in stores. Of course, you can also buy it online at Amazon.com and Amazon uk

What's even more fun is I got to write a companion book "Simply Sinful" which comes out in November, which reverses the focus and gives us Peter Howard's story, complete with his sexual trysts with another man and the man's wife and his take on his complicated relationship with Valentin.

So how do you feel about sexually ambiguous Regency Rakes masquerading as romance heroes?

Comment and you might win your very own copy of my edgy erotic Regency-set novel "Simply Sexual"

Sex and Death

2008-01-25T18:50:00.000-05:00

Eeek. That's what my agent said when she saw my latest partial.

In it, a major character is dying (in Forbidden Shores one of the protagonists was dying but it was apparently okay because he was bad) but coming gently into that good night. No no no no. It would scare editors. As would the fact that he might or might not be in a wheelchair--the ADA does not apply in the rarified world of erotic romance.

Uh, I said, which is so often the case when I talk to her, I'll rewrite.

And thought about it. What about Tristan and Isolde?

Or Romeo and Juliet?

Oops. Of course: no HEA.
But there is a very strong connection between sex and death. The Elizabethans referred to orgasm as a death--it can take you out of your body, it can suspend time, and it's a mystery. (Oh and quite often people shout "oh God oh God" so it must be a religious experience, right?).

It means that Orsino's line from Twelfth Night is highly erotic:

That strain again, it had a dying fall.

And here's the first stanza of a song by Dowland:

Come again! sweet love doth now invite
Thy graces that refrain
To do me due delight,
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,
With thee again in sweetest sympathy.

If you want to hear the song, follow this link to Kathleen Battle and Christopher Parkening's recording Pleasures of Their Company and listen to the song. Even in the brief sample, you'll hear the breathless build up on the fourth line, and then a wonderful suspended note on die. (Sorry I can't give you a more precise link to the song.)

It can be all about the breathing--here's an interesting article by Annie Sprinkle.

I'm just doodling around on the edge of a huge subject but of course the French refer to orgasm as le petit mort (the little death--I think that's the right gender. It's spelled in all sorts of different ways online). Because people in the throes can look as though they're dying--or having a fit, yawning, hiccuping, sneezing, an infinite variety. Try looking in the mirror if you haven't already. Or, take a visit to this splendid site which has some free content, including a nicely edited sequence narrated by two jolly Australian women:

www.beautifulagony.com

Enjoy!

The Writing Process, or, I don't know WTF I'm doing

2008-01-21T09:58:00.000-05:00

So I was stuck for my topic this week. I can share my latest writing news (that SHOW ME has been sold to Spain; and that I’ve bought an Alphasmart Neo to save my back from lugging my ancient laptop to and from work so I can write during lunch), but as you can see, that didn’t take very long.

Fortunately, one of the readers of my livejournal blog (hi, wilhelmina_d!) came to my rescue.

So I took her suggestion of writing about my writing process, because it is evolving for me, right now, or rather, I think it may be going back to how I originally wrote with a good deal more craft know-how supporting it. This topic is something I’ve written about in response to interviews, especially with the History Hoydens, so I was able to chart a little about how things are changing with my writing

The first book I wrote and finished, was much the same way everybody writes a first book, you just wrote it. Mine was a series of scenes where things were neither resolved nor the conflict deepened with kissy stuff as needed. I did manage to naturally include the “black moment” (when the characters believe all is lost) but it was more of a dark grey, really. A lot of character development and very little actually happening.

Then I got eddicated by RWA. Anyway, this is how my writing process usually works: It begins with a scene. It could be the beginning or the end, but it’s usually a scene very close to the opening of the book. In SHOW ME, the library scene came to me first. In my novella for THE HAREM, it was the hero climbing in through the heroine’s window (although my editor is entirely to blame for quoting the Beatles at me and I took the quote as a serious suggestion instead of more metaphorically. I am still not sure what the metaphor was). The opening of MADE FOR SIN came first.

For the current work-in-progress, I came up with a scene that seems to be a midpoint of the book .... but given my past record, it is probably the beginning of the book. Which makes one wonder about the first three chapters I’ve just finished because that scene isn’t in there, but more on that later.

Once I have the scene, then I have to figure out who these characters are, how this story is going to work within this historical framework (bearing in mind that there are consequences to breaking society’s rules). Some things we might come up with were just not within the ken of the hero and heroine. (Which is, I’m sure, why there are so many tomboy heroines in historicals, we need our heroines to be capable in some way.)

So it’s scene, characters, plot.

And by plot I mean, I’ve figured out how it starts and how it ends. At least, that’s the way it used to work. I flew blind practically all the way through ONE MORE TIME. The only story questions I asked myself with that book were: What’s the worst thing that could happen right now? and How do I fix this?!?!

But before then, I would plot the entire book with the usual “stuff happens” marked a few times in the middle of my synopsis and with a clear end in mind. When I reached that point, I knew the characters so much better so I could ask the first question (What’s the worst thing...?) and make life miserable.

My big flaw that I work hard to overcome, is the sagging middle, the “stuff happens”. I think I am still too nice to my characters sometimes.

So what about the sex scenes? Well, that first scene that comes into my mind for an Aphrodisia book has often been the first sex scene or the prelude to it. I learned off umpteen revisions to that first book that the action starts right away: whether its an accidental tumble, or someone pointing a gun, there’s got to be action of some sort, right? *wink*

Currently, I’m flying blind again. I’m not even sure that what I’m writing now will make it into the book. Only I have to write it because that’s the only way I’m going to get to know these two characters (because otherwise they will not talk to me) and why on earth they would come together when so much is keeping them apart. I mean, their being together is something that should be outside their “ken”. I’m still working through that. The tough part is, I’ve reached the “written three chapters and thus have a proposal” part. [edited to add: that I actually looked at the chapter files and have written a prologue and two chapters and thus have one more chapter to go.]

You see, once you sell, well, you stop writing a novel from beginning to end and start writing proposals. So these days, I get my initial idea, write the first three chapters, and then write a synopsis. I run it by my brainstorming buddies, the Goofy Gals: Judy Laik, Jacquie Rogers and Sherrie Holmes, and they point out all the gigantic plot holes and so it all gets revised and off it goes.

I really miss writing a novel all the way through. So I think the current work-in-process might be an “all the way through” novel. I have vague ideas, thanks to the original scene that came to me that’s supposed to be the middle of the book, but I don’t have anything remotely resembling an ending, because there are two heroes to this one, folks, and I don’t know which one she should end up with.

It is, as they say on the internets, the sucketh. But I will work it out eventually.

So that’s my writing process right now. In other words, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, except that if it doesn’t increase tension and I don’t learn more about the characters then it’s obviously not making it onto the page, let alone the book.

So authors, has your writing process changed since you started and is it still evolving? Readers, do you even notice? *grin*

Chocolate in my Peanut Butter...

2008-01-18T08:43:00.001-05:00

Why do I have chocolate in my peanut butter? I’m working on my first historical with Bantam/Dell which isn’t erotic, but which have had sex scenes that I have lovingly created and which do exactly what I wanted them to do. (Yay!) And early readers have said they are very hot (whew), hot enough to please my erotic romance readers but not too far out there to maybe…well, scare a reader not ready to go that far. I’ve realized it’s getting more and more difficult to make the distinction, something we’ve talked about here. Sensual romances are now hotter, and erotic romances may start without a sexual "bang", so defining the two is complicated.

Anyway, while I’m tuning up this WIP, I’m also writing an erotic paranormal. The sex scenes there? Not so good. Originally I decided that I would go all out and write a very sexy book. Perhaps a capture/bondage story—a way to push my boundaries. At the very least, the entire plot would focus on the sexual encounters and how the emotions and pleasure shared redeemed my vampire heroes and teach my virginal heroine a thing or two about life, adventure and happiness.

But it’s just not working that way. My heroine is not about to have sex with two notoriously evil vampires, regardless of whether my plot demands that she do it or not. She’s a strong woman with some dormant magical powers of her own and while she might be ready to start surrendering her heart, she’s not about to let a couple of vampires tie her up and have their way with her.

I know my story will resolve itself, but I wonder, for other authors out there, what do you do with heroes and heroines who want to take their own path in the story? And for readers, have you read books when the sex felt forced or contrived?
In other news, I’m going to be doing a book signing at our local sex trade show, Sexapolooza. This is my first time at an event dedicated to all things sexual, so it’ll be interesting! I’ll let you know all about an innocent’s journey there later on .

Looking Forward, Looking Back: A January Post with Love to the Bodice-Ripper

2008-01-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

Blame my over-exuberant spam filter, or perhaps the exigencies of getting a draft of my forthcoming book to my editor: I let my membership in my local San Francisco Area Romance Writers chapter lapse for a couple of months last fall.

I did send the manuscript in on time. If you want to find out more about the forthcoming book -- due out in November 2008 -- you can check my in-the-works web page for info as I feel myself sure enough of it to share it with you.

And I also rejoined the chapter -- making our poor membership coordinator reenter all my stats into her database.

When did you first join? she asked me.

Oh, that's easy, I said. Sometime in the fall of... um??? Well, some year in the late '90s. In truth, I wasn't sure which -- but I knew it would have been the year I began writing The Bookseller's Daughter in earnest.

'97, '98, '99? It wasn't like my romance-writing career took off fast. The years between my getting the idea for the book and beginning to write it were spent doing things like wandering around museums getting a visual understanding of rococo style (which slow process I heartily recommend, no matter how at odds it is with the way things are generally done in this biz).

Ah, but I did remember what else I'd been writing when I joined RWA. And so I knew I'd find out the year by going to the page on my website that lists my published essays, bringing up Molly Weatherfield's review essay on Francine du Plessix Gray's At Home With the Marquis De Sade, and checking the date.

1998.

And how, in 1998, did I ask Salon.com to describe me?

Molly Weatherfield is the author of the comic pornographic novels Carrie's Story and Safe Word, and is currently working on a bodice-ripper that takes place in pre-revolutionary France.

Sacre bleu! I said I was writing a bodice-ripper. Because I didn't yet know that the word was verboten to those of us in the romance-writing trade.

Perhaps it still is.

I'll see when I speak about at the Popular Culture Association Conference in San Francisco this March. The name of my comments (I'll be part of a panel) will be "From BDSM to Erotic Romance: Observations of a Shy Pornographer."

Yes, I mean the name to be provocative. But I also mean it as an honest end run around a vexing methodological problem: how can you have read enough to authoritatively discuss so huge a field as popular romance fiction? I'm not sure how romance scholars get around that one, but luckily I don't have to because I have a certain authority as, duh, an author. So I'll be starting from the case of my own trajectory, from Carrie's Story and Safe Word to my erotic romance novels. Because whatever I found out there in porn world, I (and others) it brought home to erotic romance, which seemed to be waiting for it, for us, for... something. (In any case the subgenre seemed to know what it was waiting for, or so will be part of my premise -- jamming all my speculations into 20 minutes will be like jamming Persuasion into 90 minutes -- and here's hoping I do better than the folks at Masterpiece Theatre.)

Part of what I'm going to speculate about is whether the bodice-ripper moved the romance genre forward. And whether what it moved romance toward was a discussion of erotic desire that paralleled some of the feminist (and -- let's never forget -- gay and lesbian) pornography of the 80s, where I found my Molly Weatherfield voice.

Because I'm beginning to think it was no accident that the bodice-ripper became wildly popular during the heyday of second wave feminism and the brave, heady post-Stonewall pre-AIDS years.

It certainly was no accident that when I wrote a scene in my first erotic romance novel where a bodice is in fact, ripped, I brought to it all the confusions of tense, agency, and consciousness that I'd been exploring in the Carrie books:

In future years Marie-Laure would never be quite sure what had really happened during the next moments. Of course she’d recall it with vividness and clarity, joy and delight. But she’d never truly be able to separate perception from imagination or distinguish memory from surmise. For how could she possibly have experienced every astonishment, decoded every sign, interpreted every wonder of that first embrace?

He’d mumbled something when she opened the door and looked up into his dark eyes. Pardon me, Mademoiselle Vernet, I’ll explain all this later, was what she thought she heard; perhaps he’d also said something about “danger” or “protection.”

But the only words she could be sure of were “Mademoiselle Vernet,” the only emotions she’d be able to swear to were giddy delight and delirious elation -- silly, selfish relief and prideful vindication, in truth -- that he hadn’t forgotten her name after all.

He wasn’t wearing his coat or waistcoat. She’d caught a quick glimpse of his hips and thighs in pearl-gray velvet breeches. The lights and darks of the velvet, illuminated by her flickering candle, revealed rather more than she was prepared to admit that she’d understood.

Nonsense, she’d think later. Of course she’d seen the bulge between his legs. After all, she wasn’t a child or a fool -- the velvet was definitely stretched by the tumescent flesh beneath it. And even if she’d been embarrassed to bring it to consciousness upon first observation, there could be no doubt of what she’d felt a moment later, no mistaking the urgent press of him against her own hips and thighs.

And no use pretending that she hadn’t been thrilled by it.

The weave of his linen shirt had grazed her chest and shoulders; his hand cradled her breast. She’d gasped with surprised recognition: somewhere, in some secret place at her center, she’d wanted his hands on her breasts ever since she’d watched him pile books onto Papa’s desk.

Was that the sound of cloth ripping? It was hard to discern behind the sound of her heartbeat and her breath, hard to concentrate with his mouth against hers, opening it, probing and teasing it with his tongue.

His other hand was tight at the small of her back. Well, it had been tight at first. Yes, she was sure of that. He’d held her closely -- for a moment. And she was pretty sure of what had happened next, almost certain that his hand had loosened, had become more adventurous. It had moved downward, slowly but confidently lingering over the curve of her buttock, while it gathered her skirt and petticoat out of the way. And as for where his hand was poised to go next, and where he might put his fingers...

Not to mention that I learned from the SM tradition to wonder where "reality" leaves off and theatricality begins.

So since I'm gonna be yammering away on these issues until the conference and perhaps beyond, I'd love your help toward preparing my comments.

What to you think about all this? Where do you find the roots of your taste for erotic fiction -- in bodice rippers, writers like Anne Rice, classic French erotica, low-rent porn, or what? And where do you think this mix of genre and market is going?

Dirty words

2008-01-14T19:19:00.000-05:00

Writing what we do, you have to come up with words to describe body parts and acts. I have a list on my site of historic terms used for this but...
when I started writing Erotica I cringed every time I came to the BAD words. You know Cunt, Cock, Fuck, Dick, Pussy.

No matter how you try they come up... whether in dirty talk or in descriptions. These words have been around for ages.

Here are their descriptions:
Cunt: Female genitals or vagina. According to Hugh Rawson in Wicked words, 1989 it was the "most heavily tabooed of all english words." John Wilmot the earl or Rochester. 1648-1680 was one of the last to use the term openly. having just described a premature ejaculation in "the imperfect enjoyment". he wrote:"A touch from any part of her had done't:/ her hand , her foot, her very look's a cunt."

Cock:Penis from the 15th century through the 18th century this was standard english. only in the 19th century did this become vulgar. Ex. "O man what art thou when thy cock is up?" Nathaniel Fields, Amends for Ladies 1618.

Fuck: Copulate the earliest recorded use of this taboo term was in 1503 in Northern England and through its etymology is not certain it is likely derives from middle english funken or German Ficken, meaning strike. it appeared in dictionaries in the 16th century.

Dick:Penis As a common term dating back to the 19th Century Dick may be the most popular of the many names applied to the penis. It comes from the word derrick a crane that can rise up.

Pussy:Female Genitals. This usage dates back tot he 17th century.

The word that gives me the most trouble is Pussy... it raises all the little hairs on the back of my neck when I say it and when I type it. I feel foolish speaking it... LOL. I have no idea why. blush.

What are the words you have difficulty with?

Hugs and Kisses,
Lacy.

Sex and the Story

2008-01-09T10:45:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm Jackie Barbosa, and I write erotic romance.

Sounds like a confession at a 12-step meeting, doesn't
it? Except I have no intention of stopping. Because
midway through 2007, I sold an erotic historical short
story, Carnally Ever After, to Cobblestone Press and honestly, I'm
hooked! I now have a contemporary novella contracted
with Cobblestone, titled The Gospel of Love:
According to Luke, which has an anticipated
release in June of 2008.

When I started writing seriously a little less than
two years ago, I didn't set out with the intention of
writing erotic romance, historical or otherwise. You
see, at the time, I wasn't even aware that such a
thing existed. What I did know was that I liked my
romance novels a bit hotter than the ones I was
reading at the time and felt I wasn't finding those
sorts of books. In retrospect, I realize I just wasn't
looking in the right places.

So my first novel began as an attempt to write a
traditional romance, just with a little more smut. I
have since completed that manuscript and consigned it
to the Magical Mulch Pile¹ under my bed,
but I learned a lot from writing it, and one of the
things I learned was the characters can't just have
sex because the author wants them to have sex. You
see, I'd fully planned to get my hero and heroine in
the sack by no later than page sixty in that projected
400-page novel, but as it turned out, the characters
I'd created steadfastly resisted that plan. It just
didn't make sense for them to start tearing up the
sheets before about page 300, although there were
plenty of longing glances and so forth leading up to
that moment. By the time I actually got the two
characters in bed together, it made sense, but it
certainly wasn't what I'd intended when I started out.

I took a real lesson from that experience, however.
When I set out to write Carnally Ever After
(more or less on a dare from my friend Ann
Aguirre, (who has since contracted several books
with Ace), I knew I had to have a reason to get my
characters into each other's pants (or more
accurately, trousers and drawers) early and often. And
the sex couldn't just be there because I wanted it to
be it had to move the plot and, most importantly, the
romance forward in a significant and meaningful way.
Each sexual encounter had to change the story question
in some way, to affect the hero and heroine's goals
and motivations, and heighten the conflict and the
question of how they'd arrive at their happily ever
after.

A common criticism of erotic romance seems to be that
the stories contain sex for the sake of sex, and
perhaps in some cases that's true, but I certainly
don't believe it has to be so or that it ought to be.
A few weeks ago, I was responding to a question on a
loop (a common one): What's the difference between
erotic romance and sensual romance? And my first
blush response was, I cant explain it, but I know it
when I see it. Then it occurred to me that I had a
better description. I responded, In a sensual
romance, but the romance drives the sex. In an erotic
romance, the sex drives the romance.

YOUR TURN: What do you think distinguishes erotic
romance from sensual or traditional romance? I'd love
to hear your opinions!

¹The Magical Mulch Pile is a coinage of my
fellow Manuscript Maven and dear friend, Erica
Ridley. Check out her blog sometime. It's full of fabulous
stuff!

Bending it

2008-01-08T12:59:00.001-05:00

This is a late post because ... well, it just is. But this morning, shoveling oatmeal into my mouth, I began to catch up on the newspapers and found an intriguing article in the Washington Post about two designer underwear campaigns featuring sports stars. Of course I can't remember who the other guy was, but David Beckham was signed for Armani. And here he is in his skivvies and all his ripped perfection. Ooh.

Now the thing is, he looks ultra sulky, and Beckham has a killer smile (oh, and okay, he's some sort of football--that's soccer to most of you--genius married to a stick insect) and seems to be a nice sort of guy as superstars go. So why sell something based on strength and menace?

Which brings me to my attempt to define masculinity, or what I consider masculinity; that a man truly secure in his masculinity might do things that are not stereotypically male. The hero of Forbidden Shores, for instance, does his own laundry, in an age where gentlemen had servants and/or females for that sort of thing. Beckham, bless him, appeared publicly in a sarong--this may also have been when he posed for a gay magazine--I'm not sure, because I borrowed this pic from a Swedish blog (the name of the pic is humpa.jpg, which I find hilarious, but probably means something innocuous in Swedish).

He's pale, muscular if on the skinny side, and much less glossy. The oil and ice-cube-for-the nipples assistants were not needed at this shot. He still has that wonderful muscular body, but he looks as though he's just dropped to the floor after fighting... or something. Very male, very human, very sexy, very vulnerable. Would it sell underwear? Probably not. Appear on an erotic romance cover? Probably not.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I find the concept of a strong man showing his vulnerable side very sexy. How about you?

An O by any other name...

2008-01-04T09:30:00.001-05:00

Well, Happy New Year to everyone!

Congrats to Celia for her RT Reviewers Choice nom! That's fantastic news, and I'll be at RT cheering you on!

I was in a restaurant over the holidays (eating, of course...oh, dear...eating, and eating and eating...)...anyway, there was an item on the menu (dessert, of course) that was described as orgasmic.

I sort of nodded. Yeah, it was chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Some (real) whipped cream. More chocolate. Mm-hm. Yes, I could see it being orgasmic.

Especially if one is suffering from PMS. (We all know how that works, don't we, Strumpets?)

Anyway, I was wondering what other treats could be considered "orgasmic"--ones that are of the food variety (and, yes, I know that food and sex are oft combined, but I'm talking about food-only. Treats.).

So, what's your favorite non-sex orgasm?

I'll take a good chocolate anyday...Godiva or Milka, with caramel. Or...oh, yes...the Great Wall of Chocolate from P.F.Chang's. Yu-ummmm.

And PS: here's the cover for my May release, Master: An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo. Pretty, yes?

(Yes, I know there's a typo. They've fixed it; I just don't have the new version yet.)

Let's kick off the new year with talk about SMUT!

2008-01-02T00:05:00.000-05:00

Earlier last month, Pam wrote about Pornotopia and the realm of fantasy that is erotic romance. In our early blogging days, we talked about smut too, and what it meant to use that term.

We interrupt this blog because I forgot to announce that ONE MORE TIME is a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award nominee for Erotic Romance. Yippee Skippee! We now return to our regular ~~broadcast~~ blog.

Last month, I had a booksigning at a local independent bookstore along with three other authors, none of whom wrote erotic romance (mystery, mystery with vampires, and epic fantasy). The chat session actually went well, because we could all riff off our subgenres in answering questions about research and so on.

So with four very different authors, it was a mixed crowd, with a fair share of "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" going on when it came to my books. You know, the stuff we bitch about -- how nobody takes us erotic romance writers seriously and how we get comments about us “researching our novels” *wink wink nudge nudge* from our relatives and they all really don’t have a clue there, do they? (Although it was confirmed that fantasy authors do get similar grief.)

There were some characters up the front sniggering and elbowing each other. Well, instead of getting a stick up my bum about it (can I really say that, safely, on this blog?), I actually played with the audience, playing along and then drawing back to say, "Well, my book's really more about X" and plunging in again.

It was fun!

No shit, there I was, dodging the “research” question and talking about Regency gowns and how it affects movement, when before I knew it I was talking about taking said clothes off.

Dodged the whole research on sex toys issue though.

Ladies and gents, that night I owned the word “smut”. That night, despite that I had a hardcover author to left of me and a hardcover author to the right of me, I sold all but two of my new release.

So, no more being snobby about my art. It’s smut, pure and simple, and sure there’s a message and a theme in it if you want to talk about it, and there’s no doubt in my mind that what makes an erotic romance readable are that the characters are three-dimensional and the plot is somewhat realistic, but let’s be honest here. Isn’t it the dirty bits we’re all really interested in?

By the way, those two sniggering fellows up front? Didn’t buy my book. Although I had my photo taken with one of them and signed their autograph books. One had a good excuse for not buying, so I can hardly blame him.

So, dear readers -- can you own the word smut? Why? And if not, why not?

Oh, and I'm having another booksigning next Wednesday -- at the Barnes & Noble on 10775 Westview Parkway, San Diego, CA 92126 -- that the's 9th January at 7pm. Come and talk smut. Hopefully, I'll still be in this playful mood...

2007-12-24T10:16:00.001-05:00

Happy holidays from the Crumpet Strumpets!

Celia, Colette, Jane, Kate, Lacey, Pam, and Sharon
wish you peace, love, and joy this holiday season.
We'll be back in the new year.

A Little Spice for the Holidays

2007-12-22T08:18:00.000-05:00

Well, the holiday season is starting! Last Saturday morning, we were in a clinic with one child, who was a brilliant red, and who turned out to have scarlet fever. (Thank heaven for antibiotics). And last night, child #2 threw up a few times. Looks like that might just be too many holiday party cookies on top of a big ball of excitement. That’s why I was late in posting—a morning at the office, and some "barfy kid" patrol in the afternoon. But he’d much better and was sleeping like an angel on the sofa.

I’m sure everyone is having a hectic time. If it’s not the Christmas preparation, then it’s the realization that 1) it’s the end of the year and 2) people are away for 2 weeks. That always spurs me into desperate action. I finally forced myself to outline my next erotic historical vampire in detail today. No working from the 1 page synopsis in this time. I’m going to try some greater organization in 08 (ho, ho, ho).

I wish everyone a happy holiday. Soon we’ll be thinking of New Year’s resolutions. My kids have already suggested less junk food and more exercise (for me), so I’ll have to think of my own. And I’ve told them that all I really want for Christmas is sleep.

Since Black Silk is set in the winter (around Christmas), I thought I’d include an excerpt:

"Both, perhaps." He sat on the edge of her bed and held out his hand. "I don’t feel as though I am in mourning anymore. Not now that you have come into my life, Maryanne."

"That is so…." It was as if doves took flight inside her. To think she had made such an impact. It stunned her. "Wait right there."

He leaned back on the bed, propped on his elbow, all six delicious feet of him sprawled over her ivory silk sheets. And she shook in her slippers as she went to her wardrobe and dipped to slide out her secret from beneath it.

Maryanne’s cheeks were hot as she returned to Dash holding her muslin wrapped package "I smuggled it in—and it was the very devil to do so. I couldn’t risk having a maid find it during the unpacking. But I have a small compartment in my case."

Dash’s mind ran riot. A whip? A large dildo? What would be Maryanne’s secret? Slowly she drew the muslin down, revealing curled pages, and then finally she flicked the translucent material away to reveal a stack of paper with an ivory ribbon tied around it. She picked it up, cradled it, and then handed it to him.

Handwriting, tight and neat, covered the first page. The writing angled in every direction as though the notes had been added haphazardly and at different times. Then he picked out the words: A Novel by M. Hamilton.

"This is your book. You wrote all this yourself?" He patted the bed beside him.

"Yes." She laughed.

But it still seemed miraculous to him. That she had created a story and diligently set all these words to the page.

"No one has ever read it before. I’ve never shown it to anyone. I was always too afraid to let anyone see it. But I would like you to read it." She ducked her head, cheeks pink. "You see, it is an erotic story."

"Hell," he muttered, instantly erect, lusty, yet completely astonished.

"You must wonder why I did it," she hurried on. "And I really cannot say. I edited those stories for the courtesans who wrote for us, and I…I felt a compulsion to put down words myself. To tell a story. Of course, since it is an erotic story, I was hampered by a certain lack of experience." She stood by the bedpost, her arm curled around it.

Too shy to join him while he read her book? "Not anymore." He grinned, sat up, and spread his legs. "Come and cuddle between my thighs while I read."

"I don’t know. You may find parts that are…silly."

"I doubt that, love."

"Or physically impossible."

God, he was hard with anticipation. As he turned to the first page, he watched Maryanne. A curl brushed her cheek, she looked so sweetly demure. Then he looked to the first lines.

All the best for the holidays! And if you’ve thought of any inspiring resolutions already, please share them now!

Made My Deadline... Glo-o-o-o-o-o-or-o-o-o-o-o-or-o-o-o-o-o-o-OR-ia

2007-12-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

I went to elementary school, you see, in the era before holiday celebration went all ecumenical.

So I know a lot of carols (some in Latin), and this week I'm belting them out for joy, especially after my editor actually found the manuscript I sent her (buried, inevitably, beneath several hundred hints as to how she could increase the size of her penis).

"And I don't even have one!" she wailed.

"Which just goes to prove how much you need all that spam they're sending you," I told her.

She decided to settle for my hot, thrusting prose instead and we launched into an enthusiastic chat about production schedule and revision procedures, both of us quite enjoying the detail stuff -- because during my 25 years as a computer programmer for major financial institutions, I learned to get good at schedules and procedures, it being clear to me I was never going to make it solely on my programming expertise... And yes, there is a lesson there for writers of popular fiction.

So now it's all over but the revisions. Oh, and the publicity, though I'm not sure how much blog-hopping I'll do next fall. My book (another erotic romance, this time set in 1829, as George IV's reign was drawing to its bloated, overwrought close) is set for November 2008 -- at the close of another George's... well, you can finish the thought for yourself.

I'm thinking that people may have more important things than another Pam Rosenthal book to think about next November, though perhaps they won't want to.

But I'll worry about that later. Right now (during the month before I get my revision instructions) I'm sort of floating around my house in a giddy delighted stupor of freedom, doing stuff like replying to a friend's (unfailingly witty, charming, and guilt-producing) Christmas letter for the first time in three years.

Which is about as much holiday celebration as we ever do around here (except for an overdue Chanukah check in the mail to the kid, also known as Our Son the Victorianist, bravely girding his loins for on onslaught on the academic job market).

Aside from that, Michael and I mostly drift disembodied through the season like happy ghosts. Not not Jacob Marley, though; I prefer to think of us as the chic-er and much more fun George and Marion Kirby of our childhood favorite movie/TV series Topper.

What with finishing the draft, this year I'm even enjoying taking my occasional swipes at cooking and housework, both of which Michael's been doing way more than his share while nursing me through the novel. As he always does, he helped me research it and then make sense of what I'd written. This time I was sort of a basket case emotionally, which he said made it sort of scary fun.

And then there's the huge pile of unironed clothes I'm amassing. As soon as my local video rental place gets me Disk One/Season Two of Big Love, I'm planning an ironing and irony extravaganza. After which we head east for a week (NY and Philadelphia) to see family, friends, museums, theater, pretty lights.

But meanwhile I have a little holiday set piece to offer, from Carrie's Story, perhaps making the season yet a little more ecumenical in its pleasures:

As the winter wore on, he brought more toys--angry little clips for the nipples and other soft parts, sometimes with little bells attached. He told Mrs. Branden to give me a cup of coffee when I came in and not to let me pee; this would increase the chances that I'd have to squat over the chamber pot he kept for me in the corner. And if I dribbled onto the floor, I'd have to lick up the drops.

He tried different whips on me--whips and broad leather paddles. Once "just for the hell of it," he said, he tried a stiff hairbrush, which really hurt. Another time, an old-fashioned shaving strop--he'd ordered it from a catalog, Peterman or something, just to use it on me; I don't think he ever used it to shave with.

There was a period--Christmas and through January--when he seemed to have presents for me all the time. Things that hurt and humiliated, which sometimes I'd find beautifully wrapped under a little holiday tree in his study, and have to unwrap--of course without tearing the paper--and thank him for. Sometimes I would never have seen them before--strange Victorian posture-training devices, for example--and he'd make me guess what I thought they were for before he showed me.
And then, after the needles of the little Christmas tree dried up and it got tossed into the alley, there were costumes...

Have a great holiday, everybody, whatever you call it and however you manage it. See you next year.

Hello From Afar

2007-12-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

This past week I actually did some writing. Being a single mom with two jobs my life tends to be a bit on the caotic side. A friend of mine from a tinny little far away land invited me for ten days away from my fast pased unfocused exsistance.

I arranged for my X to watch the kids and I packed one very large suitcase with clothes that I mostly did not wear, and my research books, then headed with passport in hand to the airport. I was nervous; single woman traveling for the first time to another country where I did not know the language. So, I drank two glasses of wine and downed a Dramamine and I was out cold on the 9 hour flight.

I arrived in an airport that had wooden floors, something I have never seen in any airport in the US. I headed towards the man sitting in the glass booth and handed him my passport thinking to myself will he understand me if I speak?
He said in english "where are you going?"

I said "here" and smiled.

He smiled back and stamped my passport for the very first time and said "Enjoy your stay."

I walked through the power sliding doors and into the baggage claim area thinking wow that was amazingly easy.

I then left the airport for a 4 1\2 hour drive to the west coast and a beautiful beach house. I had wine… ate dinner... and then lie awake that night exhausted but unable to sleep! I had always wondered why people complain about jet lag. Now I know. I still have not quite gotten on any ones schedule but that has been okay. My trip has been relaxing and basically time has truly stopped for one week. I woke when I woke… ate when hungry… went for walks on the beach when I was awake and it was light out. (this happened only three times during my stay) and I wrote.

Yes I did just say that… I wrote.

I had been struggling to find the time to do this and then when I did find the time I was so distracted by all the other things I should be doing like taking out the over flowing trash or finally washing the dishes that had been sitting in the sink for a few days that I didn’t have the creative energy to think of what my hero should do to my heroine once he had her naked and sitting before him.

I have had a wonderful time on this escape from reality and I was curious… Do any of you do this? Take a holiday to escape and write? To leave the everyday and be creative?

I am still on holiday… Tomorrow I will explore the city and the local erotic art museum, then I will return to the real world the next day. Until then...

Hugs and Kisses,
Lacy.

PS... No English spell check on this computer. I am sure I have misspelled a few words! Amazing how dependent I have become to that feature... LOL!

It's nearly Christmas!

2007-12-14T11:54:00.001-05:00

When I say Christmas, I mean any holiday that works for you:) Christmas is the one I'm most familiar with and the only one I can recount tales of family traditions and mishaps! Researching Christmas traditions for the Regency period can be a bit tricky because most of 'my' family traditions, and those of most people who grew up in the UK, come from the Victorian time period.

Christmas trees? A German import, probably courtesy of Prince Albert. There is, of course, a old tradition of bringing in the Yule log which gets to burn over the holiday period. That dates back to medieval times and is usually considered pagan in origin, as are quite a few of the Christmas traditions.

I think that hunting for small objects cooked into a pudding is also an old tradition that dictated who got to boss everyone around for the season and play tricks. The Victorians added the silver charms in the Christmas pudding but I'm not sure if they had any particular significance, other than you had to be careful not to a, choke or b, crack your teeth!

From my family I carried over the tradition of Christmas stockings placed on the kids beds for the morning. It's kind of a delaying tactic to slow them down with enough chocolate to wait for their big presents later after church. I remember one Christmas when I was about 8, when my father came home from the pub and took umbrage (as you do when you've had a few pints) to the suggestion that my mother was the only one who could fill the xmas stockings for the girls (his 5 daughters). He insisted on doing it himself.The next morning everyone was sobbing because, of course, he had no idea what each of us wanted and we all got the wrong things. It took my mother about an hour to sort out the mess and I realized that maybe 'you know who' wasn't quite who I thought he was.

Recently my husband asked me whether we should continue the stockings-he gets very bah-humbug as Christmas approaches, I suspect it's a money thing. The kids were horrified at the very idea of messing with their xmas and I'll still continue to do them. Mr Kate Pearce has to be kept away from the financial aspects of xmas. He has this weird idea that $50 goes a long way and I hate to destroy his old-world assumptions. We have a deal that he doesn't look at the bills in December!

Something else that's become a tradition in my family is that I always make mince pies and a particularly rich ice cream from scratch. I'm not sure how ice cream became an xmas tradition, but there you are. For my kids, it's part of Christmas, as are the mince pies which I hand out to various guests and watch their expressions as they try and work out exactly what I'm expecting them to eat!

And in case you're wondering about my dad. He never did the stockings again, but he did once bring a complete stranger home for Christmas dinner because the poor guy had no one to celebrate with. Now that more than made up for the stockings in my book :)

And don't forget, if any of you get any gift cards for bookstores-and I know you will-"Simply Sexual" my erotic Regency-set romance from Kensington Aphrodisia comes out on January 29th!

I hope you have a great holiday season!
And please comment about your own traditions, I'd love to hear about them!

The Making of an Erotic Romance Reader

2007-12-12T13:14:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow my other half will be over at the Risky Regencies blogging about Mansfield Park in the week-long (with a prize!) build up to Jane Austen's birthday on December 16. The Riskies each picked their favorite Austen book to discuss, and I knew Mansfield Park would be a problem, so I volunteered to talk about it. Just to give you a preview, I found it an extraordinarily sexy book; there's a lot of physical awareness among the characters and a huge amount of activity taking place around rooms and spaces and entrances. I kept coming across passages that just didn't sound like Jane Austen (color coded for your convenience):

...stopping at the entrance door...to take a last look at the five or six determined couples, who were still hard at work--and then, creeping slowly up the principal staircase, pursued by the ceaseless country-dance, feverish with hopes and fears, soup and negus, sore-footed and fatigued, restless and agitated, yet feeling, in spite of everything, that a ball was indeed delightful.

And I wondered why the book, that once struck me as being tedious, longwinded, and with the nerdiest of heroes and heroines, now bristles with sexuality. (Oh, okay. Fanny and Edmund are still pretty nerdy.) The simple answer is that I read differently and I've changed, and possibly I'm smarter now about Jane Austen. I'd hope so, considering how long it's been.

On the other hand there are also books I've always found sexy--Jane Eyre, for instance (see my post Jane on Jane). I'm indifferent to Mr. Rochester--for me the big turn-on in the book has always been Lowood. All that discipline. All that spanking, dressed in frilly white underwear and black stockings, under the lascivious gaze of Brocklehurst and the Board of Trustees (I made that up. Didn't I?).

What books have you found that you've interpreted differently at different stages of your life? Or what books do you feel you have a particular insight into because you're a reader/writer of erotic romance?

The Making of An Erotic Romance Author

2007-12-10T11:55:00.000-05:00

In my formative years, I was as naïve and innocent as can be imagined. I knew nothing about sexuality, at least until I discovered some hidden books in my parents’ house and took a look, with my best friend, at her parents’ copy of "The Joy of Sex". I wrote about this in my very first attempt at an erotic/coming-of-age story, and just for fun, I’ve posted a little of it here:

"Giggling, she promises to come right back, and runs out of the room. In an couple of minutes she's back, pulls a book out from under the loose pajama top. The Joy of Sex.

I'm disappointed. A lot of hairy men and droopy women with saggy stomachs and description of a multitude of positions. I suppose the bodies are supposed to represent reality and not an idealized person, but if I wanted reality I'd buy myself a pair of binoculars and scan the windows of my neighborhood. Books are an escape, I believe.
Anne sighs. "I want to have a boyfriend this summer."
"You want sex?"

"I don't know if I'd go that far. I think we should both meet guys."

It's not a boyfriend that I want, but something physical that I don't completely understand. Something to satisfy my restlessness, the ache within me. Someone on which to release the energy that builds up in me at times, until I feel like screaming and crushing something with my bare hands."

I’m writing erotic romance because it always intrigued me how sometimes men and women can be physically intimate, while not even willing to have a conversation. It intrigues me how the physical part of sex—the caressing, cuddling, touching—gives a sense of intimacy that maybe just isn’t there. And that fascinated me about the role sex plays in romance. I couldn’t see how you could write romance without writing the sex. Getting naked with someone, exploring them, experiencing what you’re feeling (or not), what he’s feeling—what could be more critical to love and a relationship? I wanted to peek behind the bedroom door, because, back when I was a teenager who didn’t know anything, I needed to figure this relationship stuff out.

In my books Blood Red and Blood Rose, I explored male/male relationships. I read stories written by men and found it intriguing that, as Pam mentioned on Friday, it is human nature to wonder about love and to wonder about whether he’s really into you (whether you are a he or she) and vice versa. I remember reading a story in an old-fashioned "confession" magazine. In this confession, a group of eighteen-year-olds set up house together—there are three or four couples. And pretty soon there are jealousies flaring and someone’s boyfriend fancies someone else, and people are going to bed with each other because they’ve just had their heart broken by someone else. I write menage a trois stories for my vampire series, and wonder, would it really work? People do live in successful relationships involving more than one partner. What intrigues me so much as a writer is the process of making that work.

As I was stretching my writing wings and taking that journey to learn about voice and story-telling, I took a fiction writing course at my local university with author Tom Henighan. Tom who looked at my early short stories and told me to write about what is really important to people. Their sex lives was one of the things he mentioned. And I though, yeah, that’s why I was sneaking books out of the bookcase—in the hope that I would learn about life. Maybe I should go there too.

And so an erotic romance author was born.

Book Bottom II: Pornotopia and its Discontents

2007-12-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

Warning: I'm in Theorygirl mode these days, trying to make a whole lot of interesting ideas fit together, which they don't quite yet.

But with Jane Lockwood's "have we lost our way?" post still in mind, and with my brain cells still wonderfully massaged by Katha Pollitt's fabulous wit and smarts, here are some further thoughts about erotica, pornography, and erotic romance.

It's the people who have a problem with porn -- even a simple aesthetic revulsion at the shaved and implanted phoniness of it all -- who are suspect now, and who have to prove their normality by insisting that they "like sex," as if sex were all one thing, like oatmeal. Imagine if you said, Yes I like sex, with the right person, in the right place, in the right mood, preferably after a lovely meal cooked by someone else; otherwise, frankly, I'd rather get on with Daniel Deronda.

That's Pollitt again in Learning to Drive. Is she right? Certainly I do think that there's a certain you-go-girl giddiness in the hype for the romance erotica lines. It's interesting these days how we're nudged in the direction of a kind of tickle-me-Elmo giddiness about sexuality. Doubtless a necessary corrective to many still-current pruderies and hypocrisies, but perhaps not the best inducement to make a book hang together.

Pollitt continues that, "in porn no one takes a night off, no one even rejects one partner for another they like better; they just have them both at once, and the meter reader, too, should he happen to drop by" -- or (I hasten to add) the hunky gardner in the Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom. Rock critic Richard Goldstein once put it more succinctly. "In porn, everybody wants it. All the time."

Of course, Pollitt doesn't seem to have read much erotica since the very male-oriented porn from the 70s, but it's possible that (mostly)-by-women-(mostly)-for-women erotica from the romance publishers is going in that direction. At least I gather from Jane Lockwood's post that there is some sentiment that it's possible to have too much of a good, friendly, down and dirty thing -- and that what you risk is losing the romance.

I'm not sure. Partly because I haven't read enough dirty books lately. My current w.i.p. has taken a lot of effort: the draft's due Monday and after I hit the SEND key I'll find out what's actually happening in the world outside my study.

For now, tho, I only have my experience, and a word, "pornotopia" -- from Steven Marcus's 60s lit crit book The Other Victorians, which introduced books like The Pearl and My Secret Life to a general readership. I don't remember Marcus's exact definition, but I've kind of adopted the word to mean a kind of alternative fictional world -- sort of another kind of dimension, where the ground rules are different, and sometimes the laws of physics and biology. It's a fun, friendly, sort of prelapsarian world. Even when you impose the power strictures of BDSM, it's got a kind of amplitude. It lends itself to episodic writing and ensemble plots (I like the ensemble aspect, because I often find romance novels awfully thinly populated).

But as to plotting: If you're a Shakespeare, you can get the dizzy wonder of A Midsummer Night's Dream out of it. But if you're not a Shakespeare, it can be hard to fit a plot around what's potentially endlessly episodic.

What's interesting to me is that when I was writing erotica-that-at-that-time-called-itself-pornography, I found that I desperately wanted a plot. And so did my characters.

In the Carrie books, a perverse dynamic began to take over. The bigger and friendlier my orgies got, the more seriously I and my characters began wondering about who really liked who best (or even loved them). Relationships formed just below the surface of the action as characters began asking themselves what they really wanted. I began to imagine little offstage tragedies (what's going to happen to Susan when Andrew realizes she's really into Steve?). I loved giving tiny subplots having happy endings (poor neglected Stefan, happy at last as Mr. Constant's boytoy!). I wrote a sequel, Safe Word to figure out whether Carrie's Story had really been Carrie's story at all, or Jonathan's and Kate's.

Which was one of the ways I drifted toward erotic romance.

About which I'm blogging today, at Michelle Buonfiglio's RomanceBuyTheBlog at LifetimeTV, to cap off Erotic Romance Week there and in honor of the mass-market paperback release of Almost A Gentleman. Please come by and say hi.

And about which I'll also be yacking on a panel with romance academics (whom you can also check out online at the Teach Me Tonight blog) . I'll be chatting with them in person, though, at the Popular Culture Association Conference in San Francisco next March. My contribution (which I hope will be provocative) will be called "From BDSM to Erotic Romance: Observations of a Shy Pornographer." I hope to attend in Theorygirl mode, except that by then I hope to have figured out all this out (partly through posts and discussions here).

And if you want to read more from Safe Word, the clue to my current contest is in the excerpt from that book, posted on my web page. And the prize? An autographed copy of Forbidden Shores, by Jane Lockwood.

Oh and as for my question -- well, do you think there's a difference between male and female-oriented erotic fiction?

A Mistress of Subtlety

2007-12-05T07:17:00.000-05:00

When writing my erotic novels, I don't leave much to the imagination--as far as emotion, action, insert Tab A into Slot B, etc. I mean, to me, that's what an erotic novel is: detail, so one can immerse onself.

And while I love that kind of writing, there are times when I also prefer subtlety. The kind of writing I have to work a little harder to appreciate.

One of my favorite authors is The Mistress of Subtlety--in all facets of her writing. She writes romantic mysteries/gothicky ghost stories. There's always a romance (never any sex; I think she's used the word "breast" five times in more than thirty books)...and sometimes it's more satisfying than the insert Tab 6 into Slot 9 (heh heh) stories.

Her name is Elizabeth Peters, and she also writes as Barbara Michaels. She's brilliant. She's funny and witty and writes the most dry, humorous stories with such a great romance that I read her stuff over and over. And the wonderful thing about it is I always catch something new every time--even the books I've read upwards of five or six times.

Do you have a favorite author who, unlike many of us Strumpets, leaves some of the details to the imagination? Do you find you have a preference between the implications of sex and the immerse-yourself-in-the-moment scenes?

Why and when?

ONE MORE TIME is out!

2007-12-03T10:59:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been out since just after Thanksgiving so far as I can tell, but it's official release date was Saturday.

ONE MORE TIME, under Kensington’s Aphrodisia line. I was so thrilled when I got the word that I made RT’s Top Pick list! (Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine). Here’s part of the review:

“This scorching roller-coaster of a read is an erotic page-turner. It has romance, intrigue, licentious nobility, a Greek god come to life and an unexpected ending. Feisty Abby and sensual Myles are the perfect couple to surmount the obstacles in their way. This may have been the first book I've read by Hart, but it certainly won't be the last!”
4.5 stars, Bella March, Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine

And Harriet Klausner likes it too! She gave it 5 stars! "This torrid time travel romantic fantasy stars two wonderful lead characters, a horde of profligate aristocrats (she'd make a fortune selling her toys to this crowd), and a Greek god seeking passion. The story line is fast-paced even during the heat of passion and yet filled with twists. Loaded with heat, ONE MORE TIME is an erotic tale with plenty of heat."

So as you might guess, I'm pretty pleased with all that. The blog tour (see the list at my website) is also going pretty well!

So how's your Monday?