Joey W. Hill's Blog: Author Joey W. Hill, page 4

What's with the Freakishly Enormous Manhood?

Yes, I deliberately chose manhood instead of one of those “other words,” because I could just see the title of my latest blog post being banned from all social media outlets. Unless the resulting controversy would in turn give me more book sales…hmm. Wait. Have to give that some thought.

In the meantime, here’s a repeat of the question. Why do so many erotic romance heroes have gigantic genitalia? Does that mean that’s what women want? To answer this question, I did extensive research, as follows. I pondered it while I ate a piece of chocolate, did my toenails, watched History of the World (Quick Time March!), came to some very subjective conclusions and decided to post it in my blog.

Do women want a man with a gigantic, you know? Yeah, my characters can say it and think it. I can’t. I blush.

Nooooooo. And yes. But really not. Let me explain. I think there’s this weird thing embedded in our female instincts. We see a muscular man chopping wood, with a noticeable bulge down there, and centuries of intellectual evolution gives way to this primal instinct that says “Alpha male! Must have one of those!”

We really can’t help it. It’s how we survived when we were running around with mammoth tigers and no bug spray. So busy trying not to get eaten, there was no time to develop the things that make life worth living. Like indoor plumbing and Kohl’s sales. But once we started gathering up those tough alpha males and made them feel useful, protecting us and all, there was more time for that.

These days, that primal instinct is still there. Fortunately, our intellect usually kicks in and saves us from overlooking other important things about him, like “Is he a nice person? Is he smart? Is he honest? Does he like animals? Does he brush his teeth? Does he appreciate a woman who eats lots of cookies?” However, erotic romance gives us the chance to indulge that historic, primal side of ourselves. The best love stories in the group give us BOTH – the guy who’s hung like a moose AND loves puppies.

It’s kind of a weird thing, the big dick trigger, because seriously, there is such a thing as too big of a cock (ha, said it that time). Unlike the Full Monty where they’re looking at big breasted women and one of the men suggests they’re too big, and the other male, puzzled says “Didn’t think they could be,” they’re not trying to fit that very humongous breast into a limited capacity space.

Okay, I can hear you. “Well maybe SHE thinks there’s such a thing as too big a cock, but that’s not how I feel, girlfriend.” Yeah right. Show of hands - how many women go to their annual physical and tell the doctor, “Oh, no, that speculum is WAY too small. I want the biggest one you’ve got! And put it on maximum spread.” That’s what I thought. The person in the back corner who raised your hand and really meant it? Hang back after class. I think I can base my next uber-masochistic character on you…

Sigh. Got to go. I’m out of time to share any other pearls of wisdom, because my cat barfed up a hairball. The glamorous life of an erotic author must resume.

But do you agree with me? Disagree? Have an alternate theory? I'm all ears.

ATTRIBUTION: I have to thank one of my readers for inspiring today’s column with THIS picture. I know not where she found him, but we all appreciate that he exists. If he loves puppies.

* * *

SPEAKING OF ALPHA MALES: Don’t forget the Arcane Shot series has been re-released! The sexy sorcerer Derek Stormwind and Dark Guardian Mikhael Roman are back to making Ruby and Raina’s dreams come true, respectively (though our half-succubus witch Raina is NOT averse to a foursome). Really good time to try these books if you never have - $4.99 ebook price!

Change, Doubt and a New Year

We doubt ourselves. It’s a very human thing, to question our decisions, the forks in the road we’re facing. My husband and I moved to our current location over three years ago. At the time, it seemed for good reasons. However, recently we both realized this is not where we want to be. So we’re moving back to the coast this year, if the real estate and moving gods all align.

There are a wealth of sayings to help us make these decisions. Like sh*t or get off the pot, for example. What does that mean? That my decision might end up being a load of crap, but at least I’ll have made one? Not reassuring, but probably true. I’m 49. My father died at 54, and my mother at 69. To my way of thinking, to make a decision is better than doing nothing and staying in a situation where you’re not making the most of the life you’ve been given.

Another one is “When someone is unhappy enough, they will make a change.” I use that one a lot when I’m frustrated with people who seem to always be miserable but also always have an excuse why they can’t change anything about it. Bloody revolutions have come about when people are unhappy enough to make a change, so I feel like someone dealing with personal life challenges will reach the same point, if they are truly that unhappy. I choose to make changes before I become truly unhappy, so I’m ahead of the game (grin).

But the deal is, change can be hard and scary. We’re moving back to an area with less employment options, and the publishing field has become much tighter for us these past few years. However, sometimes it’s just about altering/narrowing your viewpoint in small ways, and asking the right questions. Do I want to handle my career ups and downs, find a day job again, in a place I don’t really want to be, and get caught here for several more years (or even forever, because we know how fast three years can turn into ten), or roll the dice and take our chances in a place I love?

Stories are like that (you knew I’d come back to that – writing is far more interesting to talk about than my life, lol). Early on in my career, I would suffer total angst if the editor wanted something changed, because it would feel like she was wanting the whole story or character to change. But, after thinking about it for 24 hours, I would find that what she was wanting required maybe the addition or redirecting of a few paragraphs. Miraculously, it accomplished the goal and ended up being better. But if I stayed entrenched in “this is the only way the story can be”, I would have missed that, and wouldn’t have had a better story – or become a better writer.

Like many lessons I’ve learned in writing, it also applied to life. It taught me to listen to what a person was saying, but to also dig deeper, for what it is they were really wanting/needing, because often the two are not the same. And full circle, those lessons came back to my writing. Here’s something Tyler said in Mirror of My Soul to Marguerite:

She cocked her head. “What if I deny you? Tell you to get in your car and leave me alone, now and forever?”

He took the next step up, forcing her to tilt her head as he leaned over her. “You know what kind of Master I am. We’ve covered that before. I don’t look for words. What comes out of your mouth most of the time are lies to protect yourself. I look for the pounding of your pulse.” His hand circled her neck, nudging up her chin. She nearly moaned as he zeroed in on the most sensitive part of her as if he had supernatural intuition. “Breath. Heat. The smell of your arousal, which I know is soaking that excuse for an outfit you’re wearing right now. If those things are saying yes, your lips saying no isn’t going to mean two damns to me. I’ll just find something to shut you up so we can have an honest conversation between us.”

Yeah, a little over the top for my point, but it still illustrated it – and it gave me the chance to mention Tyler and Marguerite, still one of my favorite couples.

In the same vein, I picked up an excellent quote from Blue Bloods last night, which is nice, since this latest season the episodes aren’t all that great, just mostly recycled earlier storylines. When I heard it, I thought, wow, that could apply to a lot of difficult topics we think about, not just the one they were discussing (rehab for drug-related crimes instead of prison, and drug legalization). But of course you know what my very second thought was. This would also be a great tool for character development, particularly in high conflict situations! Nothing’s more boring than a bad guy who’s all about, “I want to take over the world merely because I’m evil”, or a totally good person with blue birds fluttering around their heads. Here’s the quote:

“I’ve heard the one side called fascist and cruel, while the other side is being called fairy tales for snowflakes. We seem to have lost the middle ground.”

“How do we find it again?”

Sigh. “I don’t know.”

My reaction to it was that yes, maybe they don’t know the answer to the question yet, but acknowledging that the middle ground has been lost is an important first step, because the middle ground is where dialogue and change happens. And BOTH sides have to be willing to step into that middle ground, which means BOTH sides have to be willing to give a little to the other side, try to see things from their perspective, not the perspective they’ve decided the other viewpoint represents because they’re seeing it only through their side’s lenses. Which, when you’re writing a story, makes it way more interesting than one side being all right and the other being all wrong.

Another exercise related to this helps me resolve issues in both my life and my stories. When I feel like I can’t understand someone else’s viewpoint and/or my own seems diametrically opposed to it, I ask myself two questions. “How am I wrong?” and “How are they right?” And I seek serious, true answers to those questions. Because it’s rare that someone is 100% wrong or right. Thank goodness. What a boring world that would be.

So how does this circle back to my original thoughts on change? Small change, big change, life change, story change, it all comes back to being willing to see more outcomes and options than just the foundation stone you’re standing on. Yes, I might step off into a quagmire, but I’ll learn things from struggling out of it that can help me build other stones, a new life, a new way of thinking, a new approach to the story—whether it’s between the covers of a book, or my own.

Happy New Year, everyone!

* * *

The boys are back! Knight Nostalgia, an anthology of Knights of the Board Room stories, comes out February 15. Excerpt, buy links and blurb are here.

Embarrassing Moments

I bet if I asked any of you what one of the most embarrassing moments of your life has been, you’d have at least one thing spring forward into your mind. Now, what’s funny is, I’ll also bet that if you asked someone who was a witness to that moment about it, they’d barely remember it. Because we remember the embarrassing things that happen to ourselves, not to others. Not that we can convince ourselves of that. I still turn three shades of rose and shudder when I think of some of my most embarrassing moments.

Here’s one of them. At my very first conference, I was late to almost everything. Don’t ask me why, because I’m an organization freak. However, I slipped in late to my publisher’s breakfast, and the head of the company was already at the podium speaking. Flustered, I therefore shot into the closest chair to the door to be inconspicuous. Everyone at the table looked at me, and kept looking at me, until I suddenly realized the table I was at was the executive circle of the publisher…and the chair belonged to the head of the company. So, when she was finished, and everyone was applauding, I behaved like my cat does when she falls off the counter. I acted like I totally meant to stop there as a waystation before I hurried back to a table WAY at the back of the room.

Another thing I’ve noticed about embarrassing moments is the most painful ones happened before I turned forty. I’ve mulled upon if that’s because with middle age comes more wisdom, such that I do less embarrassing things. Er, no. Looking back at the past ten years, I’m really sure that’s not it. So, I’ve concluded that I’ve reached the age where I don’t get embarrassed as easily. I don’t really spend a lot of time worrying about whether the world sees me as a total dork or not. I’d rather do something foolish while having fun, learning something new, or improving myself, than not do those things for fear of being seen as foolish.

Fortunately, I don’t think I’ve ever suffered from self-consciousness with my writing. Any reader who knows the freaky places I go with it should be nodding right about now, lol. I don’t know how many times I’ve had an aspiring author say to me, “Oh, I can’t share my work with others (writers’ group, critique partners, etc). I’d be too embarrassed.” Okay, heads up – if you’re worried about people castigating or mocking your work, you are SO headed toward the wrong career choice. I’ve had people say things about my writing that they would never in a million years be mean enough to say to my face – the joy of Internet anonymity, facilitating the bravado to be a total ass – but it’s okay. Constructive criticism is what I use to improve the work, and the rest is chaff in the wind.

If my heroine wants to turn into a pixie fairy and ride my hero’s junk, that's fine. If my hero decides to turn my heroine into a living salad, yep, I’ll go there. If my vampires choreograph a whole party scene where a bunch of vampire servants stand in an outward facing circle and masturbate to completion in sync, like a fountain, a la Esther Williams swim dance style, we can do that.

I have in fact, written all of these scenes. The last one even made my editor blush…but she didn’t tell me to take it out. I get far more embarrassed by consistency and typo errors I discover post-publication than I do with the actual content of my work. That’s because I try to give every book 100%, so when I release it to the readers, I feel like I’ve told the story the way it wants to be told.

If I turn around and apply that to life, then I think what I’ve realized in my 40s is this. As long as I give whatever I’m doing 100% energy and enthusiasm, the rest doesn’t matter. Even if I trip and fall on my face, the enjoyment is all.

Plus, there's a bonus. Everything is a potential experience to put in my writing!

* * *

GIVEAWAY: I’ve been so pleased with reader reaction on GoodReads to Vampire’s Soul, my latest book, I want to do a giveaway. Leave me a reaction, comment or your own favorite embarrassing tale below, and I will choose a winner to receive a beautiful Vampire’s Soul tote crafted by one of my readers, and a swag pack. Giveaway runs until November 15.

Update on Vampire's Soul iBooks Version

iBooks version of Vampire's Soul has been updated! If you bought it on release day or before now, you should be able to go to your Updates and have a notification of a new version available. However, if you don't see that, simply delete your existing version and go re-download it on iBooks (which shouldn't cost you anything since you already bought it :>) to be sure you have the newest one. If you haven't bought it yet, waiting for this notice from us, you now have the all-clear to do so! Again, so sorry for the inconvenience to our iBook readers! Couple extra notes:

1) If you want to be sure you have the newest one, the correct version will have an Acknowledgements page. The incorrect one does not.

2) All other vendor/formats were fine from the get-go, so if you'r on Amazon, Kobo or Nook, you're all good.

3) We're still not sure if the problem was on our end of things or an upload glitch, but we've figured out how to ensure it doesn't happen again. :>

Have a great day and happy reading!

Attention iBook Readers...

Hey guys, just a quick note. Received a heads up this morning that iBooks loaded the WRONG version of Vampire's Soul for release. This is a much earlier version. We're in the process of getting the issue corrected now. Apparently, once they do the update, there will be a button on your version when you open it that will say "Update", and you can click that and the new version will load (no additional purchase or cost involved).

Otherwise, if you're an iBooks reader, and you haven't yet purchased it, I'd advise holding off until we verify through GR, Twitter, FB, etc that the problem has been corrected. No other vendors had this issue. So sorry for the inconvenience - we've never had this problem with iBooks before!

How to Save a Book - Listen to My Readers

My apologies that it’s been so long since I’ve written a blog post. While I said I would post something whenever an interesting topic reared its head, I’ve had several topics audition, but just couldn’t seem to make them work the way I wished. I, who never have writer’s block, apparently had blog block, lol. Anyhow, I hope to do a little better going forward. If you ever have an idea for a subject you’d like me to talk about, send it my way. I’ll be eternally grateful. No matter how off the wall (actually, off the wall might be kind of fun). Now, to today’s topic…

Some years ago, I was sitting with another author at a conference, and we were discussing the need for critique partners (or beta readers). She shrugged and said, “You can tell if something’s wrong with your own book.” To some extent, I think that is true, once you’ve become skilled and confident in your craft, and she was. She’s a very successful author. But I think critique partners, and readers voicing thoughtful, critical opinions, can be a lifesaver. Because an author’s creative process and focus are not static items. I certainly found that to be the case with Vampire's Soul, my newest book.

When we’re writing our very first book and hoping to be published, it never even crosses our mind, what challenges we might face 15-20 years into a career as a fulltime writer. For one thing, just getting published is enough of a pipe dream. Less than 10% of those who write get published and achieve sales of any significance. Less than 1% of that number will ever be able to do it for a living. But for those who do, as the years and book titles accumulate, you face challenges you didn’t factor in when you were nursing that wish-upon-a-star hope that you’ll make a living as a writer.

I have met deadlines in the process of a move, while working a fulltime job, being a primary caregiver for a family member, and dealing with physical challenges. As a result, just like that other author said, I’ve developed some measure of confidence that I can connect with my characters and my story, no matter what other stressors are introduced – and recognize it when I’m not.

I was first published at 32 years old. I’m 49 now, and, with this newest book, I realized some stressors can get sneaky. I didn’t realize they were impacting my process until my critique partners and a shift in my own thinking made me see my manuscript in a whole new light.

My critique partner team is honest and constructively critical, the two most important qualities an author needs in her beta readers. To my way of thinking, they really brought Vampire’s Soul back up to the level my readers expect from my work. I hope when you read the book, you’ll agree. But here’s what happened.

After writing the first draft of Vampire’s Soul, I sailed through the first and second edit rounds. I was happy with the story. It seemed like one of the easiest books I’d ever written. BIG ALARM FLAGS. I’m NEVER happy during my second edit. It's grueling and drives me crazy. It’s my “I need to give up writing and go get a day job” round. My husband has to comfort me in my despair each time, and I’ve written over forty books! Sometimes even the 3rd edit is like that, but it’s by the end of the third edit that I start to be happier, if I’m doing my job right.

So when I was just trotting along during the second edit of Vampire’s Soul without a single creative curse of frustration, I did have a niggling sense of uneasiness. But because I didn’t see anything wrong with the story, and I was so happy with the second edit, I went ahead and sent it to my CPs. They liked the bones of the book, but they had some key problems with characterization and the flow of certain scenes that I’m so grateful they noticed. I’d give you specific details on what they found, but to do that I’d have to give you spoilers, and I don’t want to ruin the story. I’ll talk about specifics during the Bookclub chat we’ll do at the JWHMembersOnly Facebook group, a few weeks after book release, where spoilers are allowed and encouraged (wink).

However, after they gave me that feedback, the craziness didn’t stop there. Initially I was puzzled by their feedback. I COULDN’T see it.

I’d been working pretty hard, and there were some personal stressors happening in my life during those few months. So the weekend after receiving the CP feedback, I stepped back, sat down and tried to finish reading a book with which I’d been struggling. Anne Bishop’s Sebastian. I normally love her stuff, but I’d had trouble getting into that one. That weekend, however, I stuck with it. The story started opening up, and so did I. Getting caught in the creative flow of a good story, sitting on my back porch, staying away from the computer and phone, doing nothing but relaxing, helped loosen other things that had been wound too tight.

Monday, when I opened up Vampire’s Soul, a switch flipped inside me. It was like I’d been looking at something in candlelight, everything softened and pretty, and suddenly, the overhead light was turned on and I saw every flaw. Part of the reason for the change was the relaxation, altering the flow of my brain, but I’m not sure I would have been able to zoom in on the problem areas quite so quickly without the CPs pointing me in the right direction.

In truth, it rattled me. Referencing that earlier discussion with my fellow author, yes, since about my tenth book, I’ve developed a pretty good level of confidence about knowing when something I’m writing isn’t quite right. Yet this time, it took not only the targeted feedback of my CPs, but stepping away from the book and changing my creative process, to see it in this manuscript. It made me realize that a) my CPs are invaluable, b) as my life changes, how I react to stressors might also change, and c) I might need to change my schedule/creative process to ensure that B doesn’t adversely impact my writing.

For the first time in the history of writing over 40 books and six series, I practically re-wrote a book during the fourth edit round, which is usually my final polish, “read it on the e-reader like a book” round. Then I did two more rounds after that, AND gave it to a generous reader who did a 48-hour read-through. She ensured the manuscript didn’t have a horrifying amount of typos in it, lol.

I never want to offer my readers a bad book. I’ve written books that some readers love, some readers don’t, but it’s always a story I would like to read, and I’m proud to have written. Coming so close to releasing one that fell far below those parameters was unsettling, but it was a wake-up call. Good writing is not a process I can do half-assed or on formula autopilot. It’s important to stay aware of how the process might be changing as I get older, and/or in the face of new challenges to my life.

So, I’m very, very happy and excited about the release of Vampire’s Soul on September 30. And that I learned something new to help improve my creative process. But I’m even gladder to feel personally it’s a book that’s worth reading. I hope you’ll agree. I’ve put the link to the book trailer below so you can enjoy that teaser glimpse of Cai and Rand’s story – with pictures and music!

* * *

Click here for the Vampire’s Soul book trailer.

Buy links and a Chapter One excerpt (including an audio version of it, read by the author) can be found here.

Join us for the Release Day party September 30 at the JWHMembersOnly Facebook group!

Swimming down memory lane with mermaids...

With my Daughters of Arianne series re-releasing on July 31 as self-pub titles with beautiful new covers, I was looking through some of the blogs I did when the first book, A Mermaid's Kiss: A Daughters of Arianne Series Novel, initially released in 2008. I came upon one (originally posted as a Dear Reader feature for Berkley) which was a lovely memory of how I came up with the opening scene. I’m sharing that with you below, for those who aren’t aware how I stumbled upon a mermaid heroine/angel hero story and would appreciate the background, and/or how these things can form in an author’s mind. There are also some interesting insights about this series compared to the Vampire Queen series, that I had forgotten and rediscovered myself…

* * * * *

I’ve always wanted the chance to be a mermaid. I lived at the coast for 18 years, and of course love the water. So it’s not unexpected that I would write a love story between a mermaid and an angel. The story was born one afternoon when I was floating in the surf, staring up at a sky darkening with storm clouds. I knew I would soon bow to that absurd human instinct to leave the water to seek shelter during rain – I didn’t want to get wet, you know (lol).

However, as the sun disappeared, I lingered, because I felt that spark that tells me a story is hovering close, ready to explode in my mind like a fireworks display -- scenes, characters, snippets of conversation – if I stayed just long enough. And right on time, I watched the cloud cover become a battle in the sky. An angel, cut off from his Legion, fighting a force of true darkness, red-eyed creatures from a dimension of despair. While truly magnificent, there is a weariness to our angel, something more than being outnumbered weighing down his sword arm. An opponent swings a battle axe, cleaving one wing from his shoulder, and the angel is falling out of the sky, down miles and miles, until he will splash into the ocean.

There an unsuspecting mermaid will find and rescue him, from the pursuit of enemies so dangerous it would fill him with fear for her foolishness, if he was sensible enough to stop her from interfering.

So begins the story of Jonah and Anna. I wasn’t surprised to discover the sensual story of A Mermaid’s Kiss inside of me. However, since my last two books have been dark, erotic vampire novels, it might be surprising to some that I would write a romance featuring a golden-haired mermaid with an innocent, pure soul, and a warrior angel who needs to find his faith again.

Over the course of my writing career, I’ve written a wide spectrum of characters…dark to light, older, younger, contemporary, historical, paranormal. While that seems diverse material, I don’t question the muse. Instead, I’ve realized there’s one continuous thread between all of my work – reaching into the deepest layers of my characters and discovering what they need to overcome in order to grasp the type of unconditional love we all crave in some way.

“Mine,” Jonah said softly. “Mine forever.”

He was going to shatter her, with an explosion of happiness too enormous to contain. Anna knew his choice of words had been deliberate. In the caves, at the beginning, when she had lain next to him in those first few hours, he’d heard her. When she thought him unconscious, she’d laid her hand upon his chest and thought it. Perhaps even said it.

Mine forever.

A fantasy, now a wish come true. He was giving the gift to her, letting her know she finally belonged with someone, to someone. As he belonged to her.

The fascinating part of writing my stories is finding that craving in every single character, no matter how different they are from the ones in the last book. And since fiction does give you a certain license, each of them is the type of being that will go to extraordinary lengths to embrace it. Lyssa, my vampire queen, is certainly different from Anna, my young, innocent mermaid who clings to hope despite being born under a death sentence. Jonah, my all powerful Legion Commander, second only to Michael in the heavenly armies, is a far cry from Jacob, the wandering Renaissance player and misplaced knight who vows to serve as Lyssa’s human servant, no matter what she demands of him.

But both of my heroes need their heroines, and vice versa, to give their life meaning. In Jonah’s case, it’s key to saving the very universe. In Jacob’s case, it’s key to saving Lyssa’s life and bringing her the type of happiness she’s never had, not in her 1000 year lifespan.

Therefore, you could say that love stories have the potential to reflect the microcosm or the macrocosm – day-to-day struggles for happiness, or a conflict outcome that could decide the fate of millions. It all comes down to the hearts of the major players, and nothing influences our hearts quite like those we love.

* * * * *

Okay, back to present day. Coming up with an idea like this for an opener or a key scene around which to build the rest of the story, as fun as it sounds, isn’t all that unusual. It’s the way a lot of writers do it. But one thing I find VERY cool is how the muse will foreshadow later books for me in earlier books. For instance, in If Wishes Were Horses, which considerably pre-dated the Daughters of Arianne series, this paragraph was included in a scene where Sarah, the town sheriff, pulls up in front of the “For Her” erotica shop belonging to the sexy, enigmatic Wiccan priest, Justin Herne:

She pulled into a parking space. As she got out and walked toward the front door, she passed a side courtyard which could be accessed from the parking area through a trellis of wisteria. It was cobbled in stone, and had a wishing pond and a fountain as the centerpiece. The water poured over a bronze sculpture of a long-haired mermaid and a winged man, an angel. They clasped one another in an intimate embrace. One of the angel’s wings was wrapped around the mermaid’s bare back, his other hand cupping her breast. Her fingers tangled in his shoulder length hair.

Someone was trying to tell me something, right?

* * * * *

If you’d like some pretty pictures/teasers about the Daughters of Arianne trilogy, go to their board on my Pinterest page. And don’t forget, during the preorder phase (up until July 31), the books are available at a discount, $8.97 for all three full lengths ($2.99 each) versus the usual $4.99/book cost. Excerpts, blurbs and buy links all available here. Full trilogy at Amazon here.

P.S. – That more complicated blog post I mentioned a couple weeks ago? I’m still working on it. The topic has proven a bit trickier than expected, but I hope it will interest you when I get it worked out. It’s about the issue of erotica vs erotic romance vs porn, particularly in the perceptions of those an erotic romance author calls friends, family, co-workers, etc. Yeah, a lot of us talk about this issue, but something a friend said to me not long ago gave me a new take on it. Looking forward to sharing it with you. There, now that I’ve mentioned it, I HAVE to make it the next blog post. No more procrastinating, lol. Tune in soon…

Book-Inspired Fantasies... We all have them!

So I was kind of a strange kid when it came to sex. Like most, it started fascinating me at the gateway to puberty, but it wasn’t just about the hormones for me. Probably because of the submissive orientation I didn’t realize I had until my 20s, there was a real interest in the psychological and emotional dynamics of sexual interaction. And since I was an avid reader, aspiring writer and overwhelmingly romantic soul, I couldn’t help but let my fantasies intertwine with the stories I read, which resulted in some questions I still ponder to this day:

1) Why can’t Guinevere have BOTH Lancelot and Arthur? And this applied to pretty much any book I read that had the “triangle” love story. If both heroes were very compelling, I didn’t see why she couldn’t have them both. Pissed me off something fierce when LKH backed off from a Jean-Claude/Anita/Richard trinity. Though they did have that one fabulous scene together in the early books. Maybe they got back together in future books. I hope they did, though I think Anita virtually has a harem now, lol. I still have Guilty Pleasures on my keeper shelf.

2) Later, when I discovered a love for male/male romances, that question about Guinevere, Lancelot and Arthur expanded into: “And why can’t they be an equilateral triangle, with all of them wanting each other; male/male, female/male, male/female, etc…" In short, Lancelot and Arthur could want each other as much as they both wanted Guinevere (wicked grin).

3) I want to be ravished by a pirate captain! Is that bad? Yes, I know that in actual history they were scary and often terribly brutal men who lived in appallingly non-hygienic conditions, but the ones in my 80s bodice rippers – I totally wanted to be ravished by one of them.

4) Couldn’t most fights between romantically involved fictional characters be resolved by a good spanking? I always thought that would take care of most of the relationship problems in the Harlequin Silhouettes, though sometimes it was a coin toss as to who needed to be tied up and spanked the most – hero or heroine!

5) And not a book issue, but I have to throw it in regardless, because it has bugged me ever since I was a faithful devotee of the Adam West Batman series (yes, I admitted that openly, lol). Does Batman have to untie Batgirl when he rescues her? Couldn’t he also tie up Catwoman and keep her in his Bat Cave? We all know that place already has the perfect feng shui to become a play dungeon.

I’m pretty sure the erotic romance genre was born from questions like these. Avid romance readers who were aspiring writers, who wanted to see their favorite romance tropes taken further, darker and deeper. In my teens I read a lot of bodice rippers that already straddled that edge. The 80s were far less politically correct (thank the Goddess) when it came to writing romance. However, political correctness has proven a boon in an unexpected way in current day erotic romance writing. Some of the topics that were mostly off limits for 80s romance – overt BDSM dynamics, polyamory relationships, male/male romance – are now considered acceptable enough to have good mainstream followings!

I’m working on another blog post about a far more complex question, but it proved too overwhelming for my Friday brain state, lol. As a result, I wanted to leave you with this lighthearted topic to start the weekend. But I'll be back with the other one hopefully soon. Have a great weekend, everyone!

* * * * *

Daughters of Arianne series self-pub re-release! Pre-order discount price of $8.97 for all THREE full length novels with angel heroes and mermaid heroines (and a vampire hero in Book III – grin). Here’s a pic of the new cover of A Mermaid’s Kiss to enjoy. You can also visit the Daughters of Arianne series page to read all blurbs, excerpts and find buy links, or find the trilogy on Amazon here.

Love Thy Enemy...and Write Better Characters

At one time, story bad guys were mostly one-dimensional. Pure badness, usually with dramatic monologues and an evil laugh. It was easy. You don’t have to expend effort to try and understand someone who’s truly evil. You don’t have to walk a mile in someone’s shoes, listen or consider a different perspective. You don’t have to dismantle your carefully built fortress of opinions and beliefs. You just send in Captain America to take out that evil guy and the world’s a better place.

It still works with the right story line, but the antagonist that interests me the most is the one truer to life. We all know people we don’t understand. Sometimes they frustrate the ever-living bejesus out of us and we want to slam their rock-hard heads against a wall until they see things our way (grin). We don’t understand why they do the things they do. And when that person is someone we care about, it can be heartbreaking.

One of my favorite quotes comes from the film A River Runs Through It (based on the book of the same name by Norman Maclean), where a pastor speaks of his son with this quote: “Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true, we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”

That quote has often guided me in the way I write my conflict characters, and so some of those characters have become personal favorites. Like Elaine, Thomas’s mother in Rough Canvas. Elaine is a devout Catholic. At the beginning of the book, she genuinely believes her son being gay will result in the damnation of his soul. Many things in that sentence might hit an off switch for people. Bad feelings toward the prejudice that can exist in organized religion, assumptions about someone who doesn’t believe being gay is okay, etc. We throw up a wall tailored by our own experiences and feelings, paste a bigot label on that person, and move on.

I dislike the word bigot. It’s a way of reducing a person to one thing so that no one looks at anything else about them. By doing that, intolerance not only becomes a two-way street, we miss so much about that person (or character, if you’re looking at it as a writer). Elaine loves her son, deeply. She’s a generous and selfless member of her rural community, the type of person who is the first to arrive at a neighbor’s door when they are in need and quietly help without asking for recognition. She is a protective and loving mother to her three children. She has suffered the loss of her husband and grieved deeply for him. That loss is recent, which only increases the burden she feels toward shepherding her adult children.

She gardens, she laughs. She has favorite TV shows and music choices. Like all mothers, she lies awake at night sometimes, worrying that the paths her children are choosing might bring them pain. What she wants for them are lives of happiness, safety and love. Like all mothers, sometimes her idea of what that looks like and what her children think it looks like are entirely different. Who hasn’t had arguments with their parents about choices we make in life or the paths our hearts are compelled to take? Sometimes those paths end up being the right choices for us; other times we really wished we’d listened to Mom, lol.

So when I wrote Rough Canvas, I had to think about Elaine from inside her head and heart. I thought about what I would do if I believed in the Christian concept of Hell, and I genuinely believed my son was on a one-way road there, his soul sentenced to eternal damnation because of a path he was following. How helpless I'd feel, knowing he was a grown man and that every day that chance of calling him back to the right path was getting slimmer. Her fear and worry for him results in a tremendous conflict for Thomas that almost tears him apart from Marcus, his art, and his nuclear family.

But the same love that drives her fear is what brings her and Thomas back together. She is a good woman, who knows she raised a good man with a gentle heart, an artistic soul. She can clearly see he’s inherited her husband’s stubbornness and her own iron backbone to handle life’s bumps and breakdowns. She has to reconcile that with her belief that he’s taking a wrong path, and that reconciliation isn’t a good fit. It’s in those cracks where change has a chance to plant seeds and start to grow.

One of those first seeds is planted near the beginning of the book, though at the time neither Elaine nor Marcus is aware that has happened. It comes back to them later on, and influences them both. During a volatile argument, Marcus expresses his feelings for Thomas in a way Elaine recognizes, because it is how she has felt for her own children, her husband and loved ones. Marcus talks about how one night, he was standing in their bedroom doorway, watching Thomas sleep, and…

“Those incredibly talented fingers were on my pillow. He did that whenever I got up at night, to know when I came back. I looked at him and I couldn’t speak, couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t even move.”

Marcus made a fist, pressed it against his chest. “I wanted everything for him. I wanted to see him achieve every dream, embrace every desire. I wanted to protect him from anyone who would cause him harm or a moment’s pain, tear them apart with my bare hands. Never let him out of my sight, even as I wanted him to stretch out his wings as far as they could go and soar. And at the bottom, top and middle of it all, I just wanted to stand there, just that way forever. Not disturb him. Just look at him and love him. Do nothing but simply love him for everything he is, a creation too perfect to be anything but God’s gift to the rest of us.”

Elaine takes an amazing journey during this book, almost as amazing as the one that Marcus and Thomas take together. Through simple moments of insight, as well as terrible catalysts filled with pain and revelation, they find their way. Ultimately, they find that path because of love. A mother and son’s love for one another, as well as the love Marcus and Thomas share.

I've always loved Elaine's character, because to me her journey is the journey each of us takes in life. Doesn't matter the issue. We all have something that's our line in the sand. Sometimes, something happens, then something else, then something else, and gradually we start to have a different perspective on that issue. And usually what helps move us in a different direction, like it did for Elaine, is love.

So when I write my books, I often have the pleasant experience of finding I’m writing more than one kind of love story. Which is yet another side benefit of writing antagonists who are not one-dimensional.

Being a good writer means not blocking a deeper understanding of my characters. Fingers crossed, I hope that also helps me be more open to understanding those hard-to-understand people in real life - and quell that desire to bounce their heads against a wall, lol.

* * * * *

Get signed editions of vintage print books from Joey’s backlist for $9.99! See what titles are available and how to order HERE.

The More We Have, The More We Bitch, LOL

You ever notice how the universe sends you the same message from several different sources within a short time period? It’s like the Powers-That-Be study the same marketing techniques employed by magazine advertisers: Hit them three times or they won’t notice! Lol…

Anyhow, I recently had this experience about the issue of gratitude. First, I stumbled on "Gratitude is a Gateway Drug" by Lisa Earle McLeod. That, in turn, made me recall something my mom would say. “The more people have, the more they find to bitch about.” Throughout life, what has struck me about the people who’ve impressed me most is that no matter the challenges they have faced – and for some of them, those challenges have been horrific – they kept an eye not on what they didn’t have, but what they did. Not just paying lip service to it or putting on a brave face, but truly feeling that gratitude, which is actually a very difficult thing to do.

Once more, the same thought process came back to me when I recently watched the movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars. In a visit to the Anne Frank house, a teenage girl with terminal cancer hears and finds strength in the doomed girl’s message. Paraphrased, Anne Frank wrote that she found beauty in every day, rather than focusing on the fear and potential for loss which, in her circumstances and that of the terminally ill heroine, were substantial.

We each deal with suffering differently, so I try to avoid phrasing like “I know how you feel,” when talking to people going through things. While I may have dealt with a similar situation, the two of us will experience it differently. However, I think messages like this article and how suffering is portrayed in The Fault in Our Stars offer a universal message for each of us. When despair and fear try to take over, gratitude is a quiet little way to try and get the upper hand on life again.

Just a random thought I decided to throw out there today. I know, two posts within a couple weeks. Nobody die of shock, lol. Happy weekend, all!

* * * * *

Truly Helpless: A Nature of Desire Series Novel has an average 4.59 stars out of 41 GoodReads reviews so far! Thank you all! Hope you’re enjoying this newest release.