Sunday, March 31, 2013

The Birth of an Erotica Author (Giveaway)

by A. J. Moore

When I was a young girl I discovered that I loved to write stories.  I loved the freedom, the adventure and the wonder of getting lost in a world of my own creation. The idea that I could create individual people, make them be whoever I wanted them to be was absolutely fascinating to me.  Oddly enough, I most enjoyed writing sad tales.  Stories that would make the readers cry.  Why?  I liked to make people think and I knew that if they were sad or even crying, they were feeling my story as well.  Sure, I got a few odd looks and a well-meaning discussion or two from the adults who read my stories but once it was established that I was a normal, happy child those same adults were impressed.

Then I grew up and I realized that life is already sad enough.  No one needs to be inspired to tears and if they do all they need to do is read the news or take a hard look at the world around them.  Life is tough and when you become an adult, you learn that lesson quickly.  So writing became an escape for me.  But what to write?  Alas, I have no talent for comedy and no interest in writing mysteries.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around YA characters and writing Romance is frustrating to me.  So I am left stagnant.  Until one day I got to thinking and I realized that if I couldn’t make people laugh and shouldn’t make them cry, maybe I could make them sizzle.  Bring a little joy or a fun escape into their lives through passion and lust, and thus an erotica author was born.

I originally tried writing romances.  Honestly, I got bored very quickly.  Someone back me up on this: I cannot be the only person in the world who is repeatedly frustrated by Romance novels?  Don’t misunderstand, I love romance novels, have been reading them for about 15 years.  All kinds of romances, all time periods, many many different authors and publishers.  Who doesn’t enjoy reading about love and seduction?  But sometimes I’ll be reading a perfectly awesome book and at about page 200 find myself ready to scream “Would you just have sex already?!”   Is it just me who feels that way? Like romance and seduction can be played out way to far, until you silently start to hate whichever character is holding out when you wish they would be putting out?  That’s part of what first brought my attention to Erotica.  I am impatient and if I want to read about hot steamy sex, I don’t want to skim through two hundred pages to find what I am looking for. Erotica is a bit of a more direct approach, in my mind.

I will admit that when the idea to write Erotica first occurred, I was a little nervous.  What would people think?  What if my Mother found out? Or worse yet *Gasp* read one of my books?  I didn’t want people to be shocked, horrified or offended by what I write.   That thought bothered me a little bit until I realized that in order to find what I was writing the reader would have to go looking for it.  Erotica doesn’t just magically appear on your Kindle. 

When I started writing my Erotica novella, I knew that I wanted to create a character that would have a legitimate reason to have multiple partners in her sex life.  Someone who could be free loving without being labeled or cast in a negative light.  Of course, the first option to pop into my mind was a succubus.  A creature that feeds on sex.  But it’s been done, many times in many wonderful  ways by many talented Authors.  Besides that, Succubus are demons and that would involve a lot of research that wouldn’t really interest me.  So I looked elsewhere and finally landed on Greek Mythology.  I created Rose, one of the immortal nymphs who were cursed by the Goddess Aphrodite to need sexual release in order to maintain their immortality.  She’s not a succubus; she doesn’t feed on the life energy of those she has sex with. She’s not a demon at all; she is a spirit of nature.

I named my character Rose after the flower.  My thoughts being that like women, there is a huge variety in Roses.  Different colors, shapes, sizes, planting preferences, fragrances, origins, petal counts and care needs.  I wanted to create a character that any woman could relate to, as well as a character that could become many different types of women yet still retain her own femininity and roots.   I see Rose as a down to earth, realistic character that is doing what any woman would do in her place: making the best of her situation.  Rose loves life, she loves humanity, she loves variety and she loves sex.  Yet not everything in her life is handed to her. She doesn’t have a magical ability to take any form she wants in the blink of an eye.  She can’t snap her fingers and make ten pounds drop off of her hips and thighs.  She has to work for it, work out, eat right and keep herself in shape.  Rose works for her successes in life and doesn’t let her curse get her down.  She’s not immune to love or sadness or pain or heartbreak, in fact her existence would be pointless without those experiences.

Rose is the main focus of my novellas, as she recounts tales from her long and eventful sex life.  She is attracted to many different kinds of men, from all walks of life. She has one time encounters, as well as long standing relationships.  She makes emotional connections and shares affection with a few different men as the series progresses but only one man from her past truly holds her heart. She has loved and lost but chooses to recall her life in a positive light, tries to keep an upbeat attitude and a smile on her face. Overall, I think I created the character that I wanted to create.  Someone that I as the writer, and hopefully you as the reader, would want to spend time with. 

I am currently working on Erotic Tales of the Immortal Nymph #2, in which Rose recounts her steamy adventures with other Immortal or Paranormal beings she’s met up with throughout the years.

You can find my book Forever, Rose on Amazon.com
Connect with me, A.J. Moore, on Facebook.com, Goodreads.com, Twitter
Discuss my books with me on Inner Goddess.

Comments/Giveaway
We at Inner Goddess find A.J. Moore's book Forever, Rose to be a lighthearted and fun read. As such, we have a lighthearted and fun contest for you.  We will choose two winners of Amazon ecopies from the comments below using Randomizer.com. Don't forget to leave an email so we can contact you.
  If you were a nymph, which flower or plant would you be named after?

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Heather Rainier talks about Unlikely Heroes


Thank you, Pearls and Tink, for the chance to share a little of myself with your members.

The book I have in the works right now, Tangled in Divine, has been an experience I won’t forget. In my writing process, I usually have the groupings or couples for subsequent stories planned out two or three books ahead. By doing this, I have a clear idea of where the series is headed, and I enjoy giving my readers a peek at who might possibly have their story told next.

There are times when secondary characters get introduced that I didn’t necessarily intend to write a book for. Gwen Henderson from Heavenly Angel was one of those characters. Gwen charmed readers but she went on the back burner for ten books. I knew if she was meant to be, then my muse would let me know. With characters like this, it usually happens that their heroes or heroine present themselves and I clue into the connection.

Hero number one was Julian Alvarez, from Lusty, Texas. (See Julian’s crossover from Cara Covington’s Lusty Texas here: http://www.bookstrand.com/love-under-two-cowboys ). Julian was made for Gwen. I already knew exactly where I was going with him. But I write ménage.

My heart kept telling me that Chris Potter was Gwen’s other lover. But I knew nothing about him at all. Nada. It was as though he was hiding, which irritated the crap out of me. I couldn’t hear his voice, and he wouldn’t show himself. Then I met him one day and realized why.

During an unrelated Google image search, a picture of this random muscle-bound guy, in flowery swim trunks, making this ridiculous kissie-face for the camera popped up in the search results. He looked like a Jersey Shore cast member. Thick neck. Big, broad shoulders and chest. Clearly of Italian descent. I said, “No, thank you. No way. Nope. Can’t be.” Then he started talking and I knew it. Damn it. It was Chris Potter.

I showed my husband and the first words out of his mouth were, “I bet you ten bucks his name is Guido.”

I could imagine him, talking like Joey Tribbiani from Friends, when he flirts with any woman he meets. “How you doin’?”

I showed my critique partner, Corinne Davies, the picture and she said, “Huh?” Not one to pat my head, she was pretty clear. “WTF are you thinking?”

Every time I looked at his picture, I felt challenged. I started listening to Chris. I’d look at his silly kissie-face and I could almost hear him saying it. “I dare you. I double-fucking dare you to write me and convince readers to love me.”

“Challenge accepted, Guido.”

I put the picture in the book file and I have to be honest—I got a little defensive about Chris. I didn’t share the picture or even want to talk about him. He’d revealed some of his flaws to me by that time, and I was getting attached, but there was another problem. He had the body, but he’s not handsome. Not every hero has to look like a Greek god so I didn’t let that deter me…much. I began writing the book still thinking that I was screwed if I couldn’t come up with believable characterization for him. His enormous family had roots in New Jersey but I didn’t want him to become stereotypically predictable.

My husband and Corinne both thought I was insane when I sat down to watch a few episodes of Jersey Shore. Not to develop the story but because I’m from the South, and can’t relate in a family or among peers the way a Jersey boy would.

I got totally sucked in on Netflix. I had to find out what happened to the big jerk who hit Snooki! WTF? Anyway, once the marathon of shame was over, I came away with some great imagery and I knew a few new words.  

As if he knew I was committed, Chris started peeling back layers for me, and to quote him in one scene from the book, “Holy fuckity fuck!”

As the story developed, he shared his tender side with me and gradually became a classic example of what happens when a plain-looking man practically oozes personality. Looks don’t matter. I knew I was on the right track when Chris won Corinne over during one of our sprinting exercises. I shared a bit of the story with her and she flipped.

In a recent conversation regarding his nearly over the top personality, Corinne compared Chris with one of the characters I got to know in my “foray” to the Jersey Shore. I’m paraphrasing here…

Corinne: Remember, the picture you showed me of Chris? I said, “huh?” And now I want to hug him every time I see his name.
Heather: Yeah, if I was single I’d climb him like a tree.
Corinne:  It’s his personality that makes you want to climb him like a tree. That “Situation” guy from Jersey Shore should be dropped in the Atlantic with cement overshoes.
Heather: Yeah, I remember liking him at first but then he screwed up, going for the “easy lay” and I hated him.
Corinne: That’s my point. You have two men who have the same look but one makes your panties wet and the other makes you wish you had a gun license.

Chris Potter is one of the biggest, most multi-faceted heroes I’ve ever written. He’s tough as iron until he sets eyes on his woman, and then he melts like a marshmallow at a Homecoming bonfire. I love all my heroes, but when they show me as much of themselves as he did, I’m their willing captive at the keyboard. I know. I say that about all of them.

Let me show you just a little of what I’m talking about…from Tangled in Divine:
_______

EXCERPT

Chris hummed along with Gary Allan as he sang “Right Where I Need To Be” on the radio, while pulling into the drive-thru at Divine Drip. He had a hankering for a snack, and one of Cassie’s kolaches and a fresh cup of coffee would do the trick. He eased past the decrepit horse trailer and truck that were double-parked in the parking lot and shook his head. It looked like moving day for someone, since the horse trailer was filled to the roof with plastic bags, boxes and dropcloth-covered furniture.
“Damn, I’d hate to be moving on Christmas Eve.”
The rig had crud caked to the wheel wells and fenders like it had come a great distance through snow, salt, mud, and ice, which was slowly melting into great clods on the ground around the tires. It was cold as a well digger’s ass in Divine but wherever that rig had come from it was even colder.
He pulled up to the drive-thru window and greeted Cassie when she ran up and opened it, gathering her sweater around her to ward of the frigid blast of air.
“Hey, Chris! I just pulled some fresh sausage kolaches from the oven! Want some coffee too?”
Chris grinned at the vivacious woman. “How you doin’, Cass? I’ll take a couple of those kolaches and the biggest cup of coffee you got.”
Cassie blushed as she set to work putting his order together and called out, “Cream and four sugars, coming up! You all ready for Christmas? Seeing family tomorrow?”
“No, I spent Saturday night at home with them and came back yesterday. Got to see my folks, my brothers and sisters, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles—you name it, I saw it.”
“You’re from Junction, right? That must be nice to have so much family, and for them to be not too far away.”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” he said with a nod as she handed him his order of kolaches in a white paper bag. “But a little loud when we’re all talking, which is all the time. My ears are still ringing.”
“I can imagine! I put an extra kolache in there for you. Merry Christmas!” He returned her wishes and began to roll forward as Cassie called out. “Wait, Chris! Don’t forget your coffee!”
Chris stopped the truck with a jolt, and laughed as Cassie leaned out of the window with his big cup of coffee and he met her in the middle. “Merry Christmas to you too, Cass!”
He winked and rolled forward as she blew him a cheeky kiss. He heard a frightened yelp and a soft thump on the hood of the Dodge, and his heart lurched with fear.
Holy shit! Engage brain before accelerator!
He squinted out the windshield and his heart did a double take when he saw the frightened little face peeking out from the fuzzy Elmer Fudd hat that was just inches above the truck hood.
Oh God! Did I hit her?
He shifted into park and sat there, glued to his seat, staring like a dumbass, watching as the fear and pain left her deep blue eyes and was replaced by absolute fury.
She slammed her bare hand down on the hood and began shouting at him. Firing obscenities at him until the air practically turned blue, she was the most stupendously, majestically beautiful angry woman he’d ever seen in his life.
 ________

 How to Find Heather Rainier books

Heather Rainier writes erotic romance exclusively for Siren Publishing at http://www.bookstrand.com/heather-rainier  Tangled in Divine, the fourteenth book in The Divine Creek Ranch Collection, is scheduled for release on April 19, 2013. 

Visit her website and blog at www.heatherrainier.com and on Facebook.

       Discuss her books on our forum at  http://innergoddess.freeforums.org/heather-rainier-s-divine-creek-ranch-f93.html and on our Goodreads group at http://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_folder/131267?group_id=71973
_________

 

Contest

Thanks for visiting Divine with me and thanks again, Pearls and Tink, for welcoming me at Inner Goddess. I love hearing from readers. 

 Leave a comment here sharing a memory of someone you’ve known who was the classic Teddy bear or Gentle Giant type and I’ll enter your name in a drawing to take place at the end of this week, on March 30th. The winner will receive a free digital copy of Tangled in Divine when it releases on April 19, 2013. **Make sure to leave an e-mail address so I can contact the winner.**



Sunday, March 17, 2013

Getting Ambushed by Cute, Fuzzy Plot Bunnies (Giveaway)



To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement — it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writers build their own realities, move into them, and occasionally send letters home.
DAVID GERROLD

My friends and family can attest to the truth of the above quotation, because they have occasionally had to send out search parties to hunt me down and drag me away from my keyboard and back to reality. But even then, part of me is still with my characters, listening them converse with each other, myself and occasionally even arguing with me over the way the story is going to go. Did you have an imaginary friend when you were a child? Me too, but mine never left.  With each new story I simply add more to the legion that exist within the confines of my mind, and in the books I write. I’ve come to accept that having the mind of a writer is simply another form in insanity. Fortunately for me it’s a type of crazy that’s more or less socially acceptable.

As I type this I’m actually playing hooky from my current manuscript. My muse vanished in a puff of smoke somewhere around 1 am on Friday night and hasn’t been seen since, so I’ve been taking advantage of her absence to write this entry, prepare some work for my own blog, and re-work part of my current work in progress to fix some minor issues that popped into my head while I was driving home from the hair dresser. Even when my muse is in a snit, apparently she’s still willing to send me memos on where I’m going wrong.  This is what it means to be a writer, that no matter where I am or what I’m doing, part of my brain is still wandering on another plane: plotting, planning and building imaginary worlds while invariably getting ambushed by cute, fuzzy little plot bunnies who do their best to distract me with yet more ideas for new worlds and new characters.  

Some scientists theorize that there are an infinite number of realities in existence, and new ones are being created all the time. Every writer I know is living proof this is true, because we spend part of our lives forever inhabiting the realities we create. The rest of the time, we’re trying to write about these places so that we can invite our readers to come and explore them with us. 

Consider this your invitation: Come and escape with me.
Susan Hayes

 Bio:  Susan Hayes lives on the Canadian west coast.  She’s passionately in love with the written word (and a few of her more hunky creations.) Writing is her joy, her escape from reality and the only way she knows of to quiet the nagging harridan of a muse she claims the universe assigned to her.  She has written three paranormal series, The Paladin Protection Agency, Daemons and Angels, and Kismet Cove, and the novel Whispers in the Dark.  

Latest Release ~~Guarding Valentina, book 3 of the Paladin Protection Agency series

 Determined to keep hunter Valentina safe from the vampire’s vengeance, Aedan appoints himself as Val’s personal bodyguard. Then he makes sure he’s guarding her beautiful body up close and personal, every chance he gets. As the body count rises, Valentina and Aedan’s new bond is tested to the breaking point. Trusting each other with their lives is one thing, but can two solitary warriors find the courage to trust each other with their hearts?

Upcoming Release ~~ Riptide, book 1 of Kismet Cove series out April 11, 2013

Rory Frazier is destined to be the next leader of Kismet Cove, a secret colony of seal shapeshifters known as selkies. The catch? Rory can only claim his birthright if he and his blood brother Evan Sinclair find a suitable mate.

Contact and Book Buying Info

Susan on Twitter:  @capricia13

Find Susan Hayes' books at  BookStrand/Siren  and Amazon

Contest Time!!!

Win an ECopy of your file choice of Guarding Valentina!!!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Discussion Topic:  In honor of paranormal author Susan Hayes:  If your plot bunny was a patronus, what animal would it  be? 

Monday, March 11, 2013

Sheri Savill is CRAZY (and she knows it)



Sheri Savill Is A Crazy Woman Who Writes BDSM Erotica

Hi everyone.
The big juicy secret about me is that I actually have a background in traditional journalism and publishing, but only recently decided to write BDSM erotica and have now self-published a debut release (Owning Julia) on Amazon.  Oh. And also, I’m a real-life submissive. And I do web development. And I’m a very private person. Hey wait, is all this going out over the internet or something?

Yeah, so, I was in publishing and media-related stuff (editor, writer, reporter, graphics person; for newspapers, mags, radio; did freelance writing too) for years.  You see what it did to me.
But all those years, I wrote non-fiction articles and … humor, not fiction. And certainly not erotic kinky-as-hell fiction. Then I had a vanilla website for a long time, where I wrote about daily bullshit, rants, anything I felt like writing. And people seemed to like it. What I call my Legion of Fan™ [sic] would periodically clamor for MOAR blog posts from me, to my great surprise, so I would ignore them and treat them very badly. They liked it. And now, ten years later the Legion of Fan™ is still pestering me for MOAR blog posts and I can’t tell them I’m writing smut because, well, I’m sort of embarrassed about it, even though my mom knows I’m writing smut and heartily approves. In fact, her exact words were, “That’s great honey! Smut? That’s great.” You wish you had my mom.

So now I write kinky BDSM erotica, and I do mean kinky. And the reviews have been encouraging! My favorite review so far was the 3-star one that said, “Just sex.” Honestly that is the best review ever for an erotica e-book. I have this crackpot theory that bdsm-erotica is, somehow, about sex, and that review just nailed it.

I have a doctorate in something that’s about as far away from erotic fiction writing as you can get. I won’t tell you what subject because I like to be super mysterious and elusive when I am not all over the internet and social media and making new websites for myself and talking about myself and blurting uber-personal shit about myself every five minutes.

 When I write erotica, I try to write what I think is “hot.” Actually I spell the word “hawt.”  Because I was a professional editor, I can do things like that. My erotica contains some real experiences, or at least parts of them, that I’ve had as a real-life submissive. You’ll just have to read my books to try to figure out which experiences are real and which are total fantasy.  Teaser! Evil! Thank you!
Let’s see, what else? My erotica tends to be edgier and darker than what some may like and that’s fine. No judging. Just mock silently, like I do. Really, I’m the first to admit that my books are not everyone’s cuppa tea. But if you like some darker and heavier stuff, you might like my debut release, Owning Julia. See how smoothly I worked in a plug? (Heh heh heh I said “worked in a plug.”)
My next release is called Marked for Submission, due out in March. The new story takes place in a tattoo shop and the main character is a submissive woman named Janna. She likes the tattoo artist guy and they do kinky things together one night in his shop while he tattoos her. And when I say “she likes him,” you know what I mean there, don’t you? This is BDSM erotica, baby! Whips and chains. Bring out the gimp!

OK, just kidding about the gimp. There’s nothing at all like that in the new book. But really, please don’t be afraid to explore a little of the darker erotica stuff if you haven’t already, you sneaky thing you.  I mean, if “50 Shades” is your gateway drug, then sooner or later you will end up craving some of the harder stuff.  Oh yes, you can quit anytime. I know. Tap-tap-tapping on the inside of the crook of your elbow trying to find a vein.

I invite you to sink to my level. No one has to know! Thanks to the miracle of e-publishing, you can read whatever the hell you like on your “portable electronic devices” and, if you put on a pair of tortoise-shell reading glasses and let them slip down the bridge of your nose and then look disapprovingly at people every now and then over the top of the glasses as you read, people will assume that you’re reading white papers and think tank pieces on public policy. They don’t know you’re reading a smutty little story about a woman who is strapped to a table and tattooed and fucked silly by a hawt hunky tattooed guy.  Every now and then you should say, thoughtfully, “Hm, indeed” aloud as you read.  Maybe grab a sticky note and jot “This is fucking HAWT!” on it and people will think you’re deep into your “policy” piece. Not that I do things like this.

Oh! As part of my efforts to cement my reputation as an elusive, mysterious, inscrutable new erotica author, I just started a new group blog with a couple of great erotica writers who will hire lawyers as soon as they see their names mentioned here with mine, but I’m going to do it anyway. Truly, they are both great writers and friends (well, they were, anyway) and not nearly as butthead-y as I am. Their names are Trent Evans and Natasha Knight.  Check them out. Oh if only there was a way to search for things on the internet, you could find these two and read about them and buy their books!
So. The new group blog is called Romancing the Kink and, as I said it’s under construction (sorry, there’s no little manhole cover graphic with a guy in a hardhat digging). But we’ll be posting and excerpting and having discussions and stuff over there soon, if we haven’t already. We have some cool ideas for making the site fun and worth a little of your time.  For one thing, I like to write humor and I believe humor and BDSM-erotica go together like oil and vinegar, like pastrami and mayo.  So expect to see some way off-base ham-handed humor attempts over there. Here is the link to the new group blog: http://www.romancingthekink.com.

Thanks for reading this far, unless you just skipped down here to the end looking for a “TL:DR” tag, in which case, you’re totally my kind of person.  I hope you now have a sense of what a total wingnut I am and that you will think of me and my books next time you are looking for something that is pretty much “just sex.”  If you want to read something with a good plot, detailed character development, romance, a complex multi-layered structure, and well-thought-out themes, I can’t do better than to recommend Gone With The Wind.  Or something by my friends Trent and Natasha. They write superbly well, and both have, I dunno, “plots” and stuff like that in their books. Weird. I mean, to each his own, right?



**********************************************
Bio:
Sheri Savill is an independent author of BDSM erotica. Her books tend to be dark, edgier, and … sex-focused.  Because, this is, after all erotica, not "great literature."
Her first book, Owning Julia, has not won any prizes or prestigious awards. Her mother knows what she is doing and totally approves.
 Full Author Bio: https://www.vizify.com/sheri-savill

Author’s website:  http://www.sherisavill.com
Group erotica-author blog with Trent Evans and Natasha Knight, Sheri Savill (coming soon!):  http://www.romancingthekink.com


Books:
Owning Julia  Amazon
Marked for Submission  Amazon, March-April 2013