The Sh*t Just Got Real.

Dio always knows the right thing to say. These are indeed words to live by...even though they're a little blurry.

Okay, so I finally got a book deal. Now that the ecstatic joy has gone down to a sane level, (okay, as sane as I can be) I need to begin focusing on what this means for me. The obvious being, no longer can I be considered by anyone (or myself on a bad day) a hobby writer.

Because, the sh*t is real now.

My editor said we have a lot of work to do: namely edits and working on my career path. As it says on their website: Sourcebooks publishes authors, not books.

Career...I haven't heard that word applied to me since I got my degree in automotive. A degree I can no longer use. However, I've been treating my writing as a career for the last two years. I've made self-imposed deadlines, gone through line edits with friends, built up a humble platform, and discovered the value of social networking (other than winning free books.)

But now it's a REAL career. The deadlines will be real, the edits will be through trained professionals who are not going to take it easy on me. My platform and social networking could impact my sales.

I know the work my editor referred to is going to be a lot more than revising BITE ME, YOUR GRACE. Speaking of, when I said that to my husband, he said, "But, I thought you edited it already." The house practically shook with my hysterical laughter.

Anyway, besides polishing that work, there's going to be a multitude of preparations before I make my debut. Namely, what project will be the next focus? No longer can I willy-nilly hop around sub-genres. Not right now, anyway. At first that sounds restrictive...until I remember the anxiety that came from: "What project should I work on next? I have one idea here, and another there!" Now, I will have guidance and help in shaping my personal brand. And that comes as such a relief.

What am I doing now, so early on my journey?

As you can see, I've deleted the progress bars for my other projects from my site until I figure out what I'm working on next. Also, I've finally figured out how to add pages to this blog. Aren't the tabs cute? Those pages are pretty bare for now, except for the one where I list my upcoming guest posts. Check it out. I got some good ones lined up already. The "books" tab is for now a source of happy daydreams of what's to come. As for the "About Me," I'm going to do my best to seem awesome. :)

Because my career is REAL now. Hey, do you think if I say that to the kids, they'll behave and let me work when they're around?

No? ::sigh:: That's what I thought.

Thanks to all who are here for me and been supportive of my journey so far. I'll pop back in and say "Hi" later. Now I gotta go to my Idaho Writer's League meeting, where Shelley Martin and I are interviewing everyone as their characters. To keep the Halloween spirit, we're also bringing some spooky goodies. I carved a pumpkin to "barf" up smoked salmon spread and made deviled eggs to look like eyeballs. Shelley's got pumpkin bread, lady fingers...and a chocolate fountain. It bears repeating: A CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN. 

Summer Rerun: On Genre Bending

If the TV stations can get away with reruns in the summer, I can too. :) I'm buried in revisions at the moment, so I hope you enjoy this older post. 

For years I have been working on and off on a series that breaks so many genre rules that it isn't even funny. In the first book, most of the characters are between ages 17 and 19, which apparently is a no-no for adult romance, but I can't make it YA because they are older in subsequent books. So far I'm gonna call it an urban fantasy, though I don't know how well that'll end up working because eventually the series really begins to lean towards straight fantasy. Either way, there is a love story within every one.

This got me to thinking of other authors that broke the genre rules and made new genres. Laurell K. Hamilton, Lillith Saint Crow, and others pioneered Urban Fantasy. Amanda Ashley, Maggie Shayne, and more started paranormal romance.

Right now I'm reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and damn, it breaks a lot of rules. I love that it is similar to mine in that it blends urban fantasy with straight fantasy. Not only that, but the fourth novel, WIZARD AND GLASS, completely interrupts the storyline and is all back story. (I have mixed feelings about that one.) All over the place are connections to his other books, as if every story he wrote is part of an interlinked web.

Once you ignore that King is labelled a horror author, it is hard to nail down the genres of some of his stories. The Shawshank Redemption and The Body, to name a few are literary fiction, in my opinion. Really, where would The Dark Tower novels fit if they weren't written by a horror author? Fantasy? Urban Fantasy? Science Fiction? Is it a dystopian? How the hell would one query such an oddball series?

How Contemporaries Helped my Paranormals.

Now that I finished my contemporary romance, I'm working on revising the 1st two novels in my paranormal series and I gotta say, it's good to be back in that world. As much fun as I had with the contemporary, I really missed the magic, fangs, and otherworldly politics...not to mention the fictional worry free sex :) Seriously, you have no idea how frustrating it was to include condom use into the sensual flow.

But I gotta say I learned a lot from the experience. I made em into three "C"s because alliteration is sexy. :)

1.) Characterization: With no magic, fangs, or mystical chemistry, I really had to focus on not only making my characters unique, but also tapping deep into their psyches to make them real on the page.

2.) Conflict. Since there was no mystical prophecy involved, not to mention a lack of government conspiracies or crazy vampire cult leaders after the characters, I really focused on making every day problems affecting the romantic relationship.

3.) Communication: 1.) In my paranormals the characters can often communicate telepathically. One even speaks to a character through her dreams. In my contemporary the characters had to rely on phone and email. So to make things difficult I learned to add in believable 3rd party interference. i.e. The guy answering the phone at the recording studio says to the heroine, "Unless you're dying or giving birth to his baby, it's not an emergency."

2.) I did a lot of research on communication between men and women. THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES by Gary Chapman was awesome for this. I also talked with a counselor and one of the most useful things she said was "People often tend to 'assign' feelings to the other person." This was very useful. Hopefully I'll get a counselor to do a guest post on the subject.

Now that I'm back to work on AN IRONIC SACRIFICE, I'm seeing how all these things can make the story richer. I'm also realizing that it may be the best book I've written and I'm awed at how easy it's been so far to identify its problems and work out the solutions. I think my brief sojourn into another genre is responsible...as well as the priceless feedback from my awesome beta readers.

How many of you have dabbled in another genre? What did the experience teach you?

My Muse Has Surprised Me

I blame it on the project I just finished for my husband's anniversary gift. I drew a portrait of Ronnie James Dio, one of our heroes and inspirations. Ironically our anniversary is May 30th, which has been declared Ronnie James Dio day.  I can't wait to give it to him. In the meantime, he's not online so I get to show it off.

Man, that guy was hot in his day....and I can't help but notice that he looks a lot like my husband. *grin* Anyway, although the portrait took me a week to draw, I spent about 2 weeks prior to that acquiring the needed materials and finding the best picture of him to do. Also, I've been researching rock stars and the world of heavy metal for the past few months to prepare for the 3rd book in my series in which the heroine is the lead singer of a metal band.

In my research, a story popped up in my head. What if my heroine were to encounter one of her idols? She and her band have a rule of not sleeping with fellow musicians so they can be taken seriously. But when Dani Deity (a sexy amalgamation of every badass metal star ever) invites them to tour with him, the rule gets thrown out the window. It was a fun short story to write, but a little sad since I knew they couldn't stay together.

I put IDOL'S KISS aside and set to work on the drawing. For a little while I was occupied fully with my pencils and tortillians. But then, as I drew the eyes and the sexy hair, (I have a hair fetish) my mind kept straying back to Dani's character. I LIKED him, dammit, and he deserved an HEA of his own. Unbidden, another story formed in my head.

The problem? This one is completely contemporary. No one has fangs, magic, or superpowers of any kind. At least with the last one, I knew the heroine wasn't human though I never pointed it out. I am completely out of my element. And if the story is good enough, what will it do to my "Author Branding" if I market it?

Argh!! My frustration is endless. Has this happened to any of you? What did you do? What should I do?

In the meantime, happy writing, all!!!

Getting to Know You.

It's been about a year and a half since I created this blog and I'm all the way up to 90 followers! W00T! Now I must confess that I check out all your profiles and I enjoy getting to know more about you. One surprising thing I've noticed is that despite my blog's subject being predominately Paranormal Romance....though I frequently deviate... many of you read and write different things. I have followers that write horror, fantasy, science fiction, and all subgenres of romance... including inspirational!

It warms my heart to see such a variety and I think it helps make this blog more interesting. Now I would like to thank you all for your support and feedback on my posts. I would also like you to let me know what you write and what you read so I can better tailor my posts to be useful or at least entertaining to everyone.

Again, thanks so much and big hugs to you all!

P.S Be sure to stop by on Friday for a Special Guest post from debut author, REBECCA ZANETTI and a chance to win a copy of her shiny new release, FATED!!!

Define "Smut."

This was an older post of mine that I thought was a lot of fun.

From 5th grade on I was famous for reading horror, fantasy, and classics. What people around me didn't know was that by age 13, I'd also gotten a taste of historical romance novels and was hooked. It wasn't until after high school that I decided to quit reading them in secret and to "come out of the closet," so to speak. But still, I used to be a little embarrassed and offended when a friend would eye one of the romance novels I was reading and say, "Oh, you're reading one of those 'smut books' again."

I threw off the shame of reading "smut" after awhile...or so I thought. I was always adamant to argue that the romance novels I read weren't smut. "Becausethey have a plot," was my typical argument. I had cast away the shame of reading romance novels so much that I began writing my own. Never mind that it took awhile before I would flat out say "romance" when asked what I wrote, after awhile I admitted it.

Then, a couple years back, I embraced the term "smut." I was a mechanic that also did some construction work on the side and all of my coworkers were men. When they saw me working on a manuscript during break time, they'd ask what I wrote.

"Paranormal Romance," I replied with a steely gaze, daring them to laugh.

My response was always greeted with a blank stare, and maybe a tentative, "Huh? What's that?"

Finally I grew sick of their confusion and said, "Supernatural Smut." (Catchy name, huh?)

Comprehension dawned in every man's eyes. "Oh, okay." Then either we'd all get back to work or they'd go on to ask what the story was about.

It was then that I realized a few things:

1.) Many men don't know what "Romance" is as a genre, but they all know what "smut" is.

2.) "Smut" isn't really a bad thing for most people.

3.) "Smut" is a figurative term.

Did you know that THE GREAT GATSBY was once referred to as "smut" when it was banned by a few schools a few decades back? I remember very little about that book. Schools have a way of sucking the fun out of almost any piece of reading. But if it DID have anything I would remotely consider to be "smutty" I bet I would have enjoyed it more.

So what is "smut?" Is it any romance novel? Or just romance novels with sex scenes? Is it romance novels with cheesy or non-existent storylines? Is it porn without a plot?

I would love to hear how you define "smut" and why.