Joey W. Hill's Blog: Author Joey W. Hill, page 5

Authors must do BDSM to write BDSM. Right?

A talented author I respect recently told me about some feedback she’d received from a reader. Because the author wasn’t “in the BDSM lifestyle," the reader refused to give her BDSM romance a try. Not even an excerpt or teaser. So, hmm. Three thoughts come to mind:

1. Let’s count ourselves lucky that authors like Diana Gabaldon, Philippa Gregory and Sarah Dunant have access to a time machine so they can go back and hang out for weeks in historical time periods.

2. Thank GOD/DESS that JK Rowlings graduated Hogwarts with full honors before she attempted to write the Harry Potter books.

3. And really, who would have even known Stephen King’s name if he hadn’t gone to that hotel with his wife and child and tried to murder them with an axe?

Now, before I get started in a more serious vein, let me say my intent is not to deride that reader, because I don’t know her full story. Perhaps she has drawn this line in the sand because she HAS read several books by authors not in the BDSM lifestyle, and she felt the books were so abysmal it put a bad taste in her mouth to try anything else. But I hope one day she comes to realize that the premise of non-BDSM lifestyle authors writing BDSM romance is not the problem. It’s two other things:

1. Authors who make serious research mistakes (or don’t do the research they should have), which happens in EVERY genre. It’s more noticeable as well when a particular genre gluts the market, as BDSM romance currently does. And mistakes can be made by even the most meticulous and conscientious authors.

2. Authors who don't get what Dom/sub relationships are really about and are just trying to ride the FSOG gravy train. Which also happens all over the romance genres. If I had a nickel for every time someone thought: "Hey, those trashy romance books sell millions and they're crap. I'll just slap one together and earn my own millions." Yeah, right. Because they don't get that a good romance is a love story, and that's not crap at all.

But let’s look at the question from a different angle. Why do most romance authors write romance? The most common answer you’ll get is that they were an avid romance reader who loved the genre so much they wanted to write their own stories, improving on them and adding in stuff they wanted to see happen.

So say an author who loves reading/writing romance starts reading BDSM romance. Which will happen, because we romance authors, like romance readers, will often try many different subgenres, if there’s a good love story to be had. And this author finds herself fascinated with the intensity of the Dominant/submissive dynamic (which I guarantee is what draws in the best authors for this genre, because it always starts with the relationship, not the trappings around it). So she decides, “Hey, I’d like to write one of those.” (Please forgive me for using feminine pronouns for simplicity - there are lovely male romance authors out there, I know!)

Now, here’s my point above. If she doesn’t know her craft and/or treats this purely as a fantasy, rather than a relationship that has a real-life structure and setting, she may write something that is terribly off the beaten path from what BDSM is truly about. Then people in the lifestyle who have to vet her clueless readers at their group meetings will send her collective hate mail, lol.

But if she does know her craft, and recognizes that her book, while a romance with fantasy elements, must connect to its real world elements, she will do her research. And the cool thing is, because she is intrigued by this type of relationship, when she starts doing her research, she’s going to be not only thorough; she’ll be looking at it wide and fresh-eyed, and coming up with some takes and perspectives on it we may not have had the pleasure of reading before. She might stumble over some of the mechanics or premises, but if she works hard at understanding what the core of a Dom/sub relationship is about, she’ll probably write a pretty worthwhile story.

Plus, it's important to remember what the core of a love story is about, BDSM or otherwise. Connection, caring, companionship, fear, insecurities, loneliness...things we ALL know about, writers and readers.

When the wonderful country singer Alan Jackson was discussing his early years, he mentioned playing at roadhouses. Now, Alan Jackson is a true country singer, but even so, when he started out, he thought he had to pour it on really thick. Sing REALLY loudly, with a very heavy twang. In his interview, he winced when he relayed that, and gave a little laugh before he went on to explain he learned over time to become his own self in the genre, and that’s when he started to shine.

Same goes with BDSM romance. When I started writing it, I knew NOTHING. Lol. No lie. I was in a little corner of the world, small town, no Internet, and what I had was a strong submissive orientation I started to explore as a result of writing Make Her Dreams Come True. I didn’t know terminology, I didn’t know safety rules. All I knew was I had this incredible “right” feeling, words that would pour out of me when I would write about a Dom and a sub coming together. When I went back to read those early books, I did the Alan Jackson wince. Yet my wince had to do with underlying mechanics and how certain feelings/motivations were expressed, not the Dominant/submissive feelings themselves.

Fortunately, after those first couple books, I did purchase some things like Screw The Roses, Send Me The Thorns by Miller/Devon, and Sensuous Magic by Pat Califia, to head off more glaring mistakes. But the Dominant/submissive relationship enthralled me (at every level of meaning to that word), and that was the primary focus of my writing.

That said, it’s almost a newbie requirement that we always write our first books inside some glitzy club and give our Doms that untouchable, larger-than-life quality. But that setting and sexy quality is often initially what intrigues us, and authors like to write what intrigues us (grin). But as we expand and grow, we take BDSM into the world around us, into so many different personality types, and have the pleasure of taking our readers on that same journey.

On that same note, I have since written male/male romance novels and threesomes. I have written cops, military personnel and underground fighters. None of these are roles I have direct experience being or doing, but I feel good about the research I did and how they turned out.

So you know the saying, don’t let a few bad apples spoil the barrel? It’s like that. Writing is a practice and a craft. The only truly “unreadable” authors out there are the ones who refuse to strive for improvement with every book.

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Truly Helpless: A Nature of Desire Series Novel comes out April 30! Hooray! And, keeping in line with the topic above, I am neither a Female Dominant nor a male submissive, but I think Regina and Marius still managed to tell a pretty good story through my typing fingers (grin). Hope you’ll agree. :>

Theme Songs for Characters

Listening to music while I write is so essential that I’ve often thought about asking my accountant if I can put my iTunes purchases on my tax deduction list. Probably not, lol, but I should probably ask just to be sure. Over the years, I’ve developed some standard playlists that help me maintain a certain tone in the book I’m writing.

MiscEmote is an extensive and ever expanding playlist of gritty ballads and soulful tunes that fit with the emotional intensity of my work. Artists on that one would be everything from Nickelback to Melissa Manchester (“Through the Eyes of Love” is a personal fave). I have to wear earphones when I listen to that playlist because most of them make my husband’s ears bleed (according to him!). I have a “Sultry” playlist for the more erotic moments, with tunes like “If You Love Me” by Brownstone, “U Must Be” by Gina Rebe, or “Insatiable” by Darren Hayes. For fight scenes, I often go to movie scores from films like The Matrix, The Postman, Kull the Conqueror or Dances with Wolves.

Some books even have their own playlists, subsets of the playlists above, or with additional songs added. Beloved Vampire was one of those, as was Ice Queen/Mirror of My Soul. Truly Helpless: A Nature of Desire Series Novel, the book I’m writing now, has already attracted two songs to a specific playlist for it. “Sorry” by Buckcherry and “Stay With Me” by Sam Smith. Marius is a very troubled submissive, and the lyrics to both of those songs express his frustration. For instance, this stanza from "Stay With Me" fits him: Deep down I know this never works / but you can lay with me so it doesn’t hurt…

Occasionally a character gets associated with a particular song for me, such that whenever I hear it, my mind goes to him/her and their story. And sometimes that song even becomes part of the book scene. For instance, in Worth the Wait, the Nature of Desire book I wrote last year, there’s a scene where Julie wakes up in the early morning hours, to find Des tying her up in a sensual, dreamy kind of way. While he does it, he’s humming “Oh Girl” by the Chi-Lites…

Des had eventually come to bed, so they could sleep with comfortably tangled limbs, but he was no longer in the bed with her. He wasn’t far away, though. He was bent over her, looping rope around her wrists. Her heart and libido gave a simultaneous leap, making her twitch restlessly. He made a quelling noise, gentle but firm. Then he resumed the humming that had brought her so agreeably back to the surface.

It took a moment to figure out the slow-beat song with his off-tune cadence, but when she did, it gave her heart a little twist. “Oh Girl”, by the Chi-Lites. She didn’t think Des had chosen it lightly. “Oh girl, I’d be in trouble if you left me now… how I depend on you…”

Then there are the songs I never knew about until a reader brought them to my attention with a declaration like, “This is the song I think about when I read about so-n-so.” That happened with Ben O’Callahan of Hostile Takeover and the song "Demons" by Imagine Dragons. Irene of Literary Gossip even did a book trailer to it that I adore and have to share every once in awhile, because I still love it so much. Once I heard the words, I totally agreed the song fit him, because of all the personal demons he had to fight before he and Marcie could grab their Happily Ever After.

Here are a few more characters with their own theme songs:

Marguerite of Ice Queen/Mirror of My Soul – “Only Hope” by Mandy Moore, fit her desolation and loneliness so well, as she reached out to Tyler through darkness with the hope he’d be there to clasp her hand. He was. “Because You Loved Me” by Jo Dee Messina was a close runner up, and was the song she played for him at their wedding.

Marcie of Hostile Takeover – “As Long As You’re There” by Charice fit her resolve to have Ben. She’d loved him since she was 16, and now that she was a woman, she wasn’t going to be deterred. And she, too, had that song played at her wedding.

Lord Mason and Jessica of Beloved Vampire – “Gimme Gimme Gimme” by Abba. This song became their theme song as a couple. Don’t laugh. Give me a man after midnight (a vampire, of course), won’t someone help me chase the shadows away…take me through the darkness to the break of day, there’s not a soul out there to hear my prayer… So much of that fit Jessica’s situation, since she was tortured by a vampire master for years before she fell into Lord Mason’s hands and had to learn to trust him enough to give him her heart. And there are quite a few tense and dangerous moments in the book, so the tempo works great.

Gideon of Vampire Mistress/Vampire Trinity – “Barely Holding On” by Wes Nickson and “Far From Home” by Five Finger Death Punch. Gideon was a dark character, a vampire hunter close to the edge, and brought back from that edge by not one, but two vampires, Daegan and Anwyn. Memories of shadows, ink on the page, and I can’t find my way home… Beautiful writing in that song.

For Night's Templar: A Vampire Queen Novel, a male/male story in my Vampire Queen series, and one that connected through history to quests and the Knights Templar, I needed songs with strong male vocalists whose music and lyrics evoked courage and honor. “Freak the Mighty” by Sting got on the list. “I Will Not Bow” by Breaking Benjamin and “Broken” by Seether were also key, because the first one addressed Uthe’s life as a Templar knight, and the quest he had to pursue for centuries thereafter. “Broken” addressed his struggle with the Ennui, a dementia-type illness that affects vampires.

While I’ve trained myself to connect to the creative juices in a variety of environments, even without the aid of music, there’s no doubt to me that music helps me lock into that groove much faster. If ever you have music that makes you think of my work or stories, please reach out. I love to add to my playlists!

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Would you like to hear me read Chapter One of Truly Helpless, my upcoming release? Click here and you can do just that. It’s my first video production, complete with pretty graphics!

A Contemplation of Firsts

Sorry that I’ve been on such a hiatus! Christmas was chaotic, and I figured you all were pretty busy as well. I kind of suck at the “be sure and blog on a consistent schedule” marketing mantra. I prefer to blog with you all when I have something I think might be halfway interesting to talk about. At Christmas, let’s face it. We’re all too busy to talk about anything but our to-do lists! Hope everyone had a happy holiday.

Anyway, It’s the first of the year for most folks, which was making me ponder random "firsts." Not resolutions. I’ll get to that in a moment. Some firsts are good, some are meh, some are bad. But something I’ve noticed is that every “first” is like a coin, two-sided. Let me give you five examples:

1) The first time a person has sex can sometimes be bad, though often it’s just “meh,” because a lot of it is fumbling through mechanics and the personality differences between the two lovers. Whereas the first time you make love, wow. That tells you everything sex could and should be with another, right?

2) Now, on the BDSM side – there was the first time my husband tied me up at my request. I was such a hot mess of emotions about it, I fell apart, not sure how to deal with how strongly I wanted to embrace my submissive orientation. A few years later, I walked into a BDSM club for the first time. Because of the journey I’d walked since that first tie-up scene, I felt like I’d come home, and was delighted instead of freaked out by how much this was a part of me.

3) There’s a great line from Star Trek Next Generation, where Captain Picard says “Recently, I've become aware that there are fewer days ahead than there are behind.” But later, he follows that up with this: “Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived.” So when mortality first hits us can be scary; realizing that you can live a lifetime in a single moment, a single day, is a comfort.

4) I have a card I found shortly after my mother passed. It shows two polar bears, a mother cradling her cub. Inside, it says: “Before I knew anything else, I knew what it was to be loved.” In short, if the first thing I knew was the love of my mother, how blessed I am to have a gift like that one upon which to build my life, even in her absence?

5) The first time I realized the ups and downs of the publishing business could suck an author’s soul dry, I was comforted because I’d already experienced a far more important first. I’d realized how much I loved creating a story and getting lost in the characters. That never dims. So publishing gremlins, do your worst. I’ll still like writing stories, even if I’m the only one that reads them, lol.

So there are some random ruminations about firsts. Now, resolutions. I’ve never done those. I’m so goal-oriented and OCD, all my resolutions are usually well in process before January 1 ever hits. However I hope to do a few things this year – get my finances more manageable; write 2-3 books; catch a very elusive feral calico cat and get her spayed; and do better at learning how to relax and enjoy leisure time, making the most of it. That way I can experience more fun firsts! Anyhow, see you next time I have some kind of brilliant (or at least not incredibly boring) idea for a blog topic. Cheers…

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Oh, before I go, want to see the cover for my upcoming release, Truly Helpless? This will be Mistress Regina and Marius’s story, the next in the Nature of Desire series! I hope to have a free excerpt for you all on the website in the coming weeks. I’ll keep you posted.

What if We Treated Having Sex Like Going to Church?

Sometimes going to church can become rote, just part of the weekly list of “to dos” we have to accomplish before we can do the leisure things we’d really rather be doing. Sex can sometimes be like that, too. Perhaps you “get it over with,” to make a significant other happy so you can get on with your day, because it, too, has become a little too routine in nature. But that is not the kind of sex or church experience I’m meaning with my title of this post.

I’m talking about when we go to church to calm the outside voices, listen to our heart and soul, and connect to a divine energy to help us resolve problems, balance our souls, ease our troubles and feel like we are part of something that makes sense, even if we don’t completely understand it. It’s that greater-than-us power, a connection that makes us feel not so alone in the world. A power I believe is Love, which is the center of what any manifestation of God/dess is. And by church, I don’t just mean a building associated with a religion. It equally applies to wherever we make a sacred space for our faith.

So how am I working toward a point about sex? Lol – stick with me, because I’m getting there, I promise. I have the most wonderful readers in the world. So fortunately, the following has only happened a few times, though enough that it gave me fodder for a post topic here (grin). During my career as an erotic romance author, I have sometimes been complimented on the quality of my writing and its emotional intensity, only to have such compliments followed by the caveat, “despite the sex stuff.” From friends and family, I also get the suggestion (phrased in myriad diplomatic ways): “You know, if you left the sex out, you’d still have a really great story.” Or, “You’re SO talented. One day, maybe you’ll want to write something different from that stuff you write now.” Then comes the really fun one. The assumption that I have chosen to write erotic romance not because I love the genre, but because sex sells.

That connects to the tiresome theory that a writer who writes erotica is considered a lazy writer, one who uses sex in the place of craft. I’m here to tell you there’s a lot of lazy writing in every genre, not just mine. Writing is hard work, and not everyone is up to the task, especially when it’s a never-ending schooling that goes on until the day you put down the pen for the last time.

While obviously the erotica-equals-trashy-writing belief still exists in strong pockets, there are now so many discerning erotic romance readers who demand quality AND eroticism, we have more people in the stands to contradict that mistaken assumption. However, even among those readers, there is sometimes a subtle bias that the quality writing exists despite the erotic content, rather than acknowledgement of the erotic content as a vital, intricate part of the quality of the story.

The most recent time someone intimated to me that they liked the story “despite the sex,” what popped into my head was this: “Stop looking PAST the sex. Look INTO it.”

When I go into a church or any other sacred space, I’m not looking for the man-made absurdity that is religion. I’m looking for what I described at the first of the post. A truly spiritual, sacred center where the outside voices are calmed, and I find my heart and soul. Which is also much what I feel like my characters are seeking (and finding) in their most intimate moments, whether it’s a vanilla, missionary-position coupling, or an elaborate BDSM session or anything else in between. They don’t look “past” the sex in those moments. They are immersed in it. It is a vital part of what makes the connection so strong, the emotions so intense, the love so profound, if it truly is a connection with someone they love.

Sometimes I’m asked, if I could say one thing to readers who haven’t tried erotic romance--or who haven’t tried GOOD erotic romance--what would it be? I think from now on, that’s going to be my answer. “Don’t look past the sex. Look INTO it. And if you do, you might see something looking back at you that’s deeper inside yourself, your desires and needs, than you realize.”

I love finding that in characters in well written erotic romance, and it’s the kind of book I want to write myself, every time, to the best of my ability.

Hope everyone who celebrated it this week had a wonderful Thanksgiving! And enjoyed church, or sex. Or both. And was thankful for the type of blessings they each can provide (smile).

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QUICK REMINDERS

FIRST -Have you read my Christmas present to my readers, Doms & Sisters: A Knights of the Board Room novella? It’s FREE, and available NOW as a download in all the popular formats at the JWH Connection fan forum (under the Vignette section). Access info here: storywitch.com/community.

Don’t forget, all the free vignettes you see under the Vignette section are now available in both ebook and print compilations! Cantrips: Volumes 1 & 2, info and buy links here.

SECOND: I’m now offering four MUG DESIGNS that celebrate the different series, as well as a “signature” mug that yes, has my signature (lol). See the wrap around designs here for each of these, as well as how to order one or more if you want one.

William Shatner and Author Typecasting

My apologies! I’ve been a little absent from the blogging world these past couple weeks but a) I wanted to have an interesting topic to discuss and b) I’ve been putting to bed some fun new things I think you all will enjoy. If you follow this blog, I assume/hope you like my work, so be sure and drop down to the additional news past the asterisks at the end of this topic to find out what holiday surprises I have released/am releasing this month.

So the topic this week involves some personal reflection I’ve been doing. We’ve all heard of actors getting typecast. William Shatner literally became synonymous with Captain Kirk. Henry Winkler had to overcome The Fonz. Daniel Radcliffe continues to struggle to develop an acting presence outside of Harry Potter. Michael Weatherly is trying to step away from Tony DiNozzo with the new TV series Bull (which is awesome, by the way – totally recommend it).

But typecasting means more than an actor doing such an unforgettable job with a role that we just can’t imagine him/her as anyone else. When an actor refuses to do any more sequels in a popular movie franchise or for a long-running TV series, it probably has as much to do with wanting to do some fresh projects, things that stretch that actor creatively, as it is worrying about limiting his/her career to one track. When you enjoy acting…or crafting stories, you don’t want to stay in the same world, book after book after book…

Yeah, I know, I just segued on you all there. Authors can get typecast, too. Compared to the fans of the Harry Potter series, very few want J K Rowling to leave the world of Harry Potter. Same for JR Ward leaving the Black Dagger Brotherhood to write about angels or Bourbon Kings, or Diana Gabaldon to write about John Grey as her main character instead of Jamie and Claire. Though John’s a great character; I’m reading Written in My Own Heart's Blood right now and he’s a wonderful part of the story. But when they really love a series and its characters, readers don’t want the author to leave it. So essentially, the author gets “typecast." Meaning, they get so identified with a favorite series their audience isn’t really interested in anything else they do. Or not nearly as interested.

I have two series that have never done well, compared to my Vampire Queen, Nature of Desire and Knights of the Board Room series. Those two series are Daughters of Arianne (3 books) and Arcane Shot (2 books). I have re-read these books after a certain amount of time has elapsed so I can see them with fresh eyes, and I love them. The craft is strong, the characters great, and they’ve gotten great reviews from the smaller numbers who have read them. But the bulk of my readers just don't go for these. I have long term, dedicated readers who tell me consistently how much they love one or more of my three popular series, yet who’ve never even cracked the spines on the other two.

Does that bug me? If it does, I’d be the pot calling the kettle black. I’m the same way in my own reading. There’ve been plenty of times I’ve had an author I adore decide to write a brand new series and I don’t look into those books. I wait for her/him to write another book in my favorite series of their work. In the meantime, I move on to another favorite author who DOES have a new book out in one of his/her series I love. Leisure time reading is precious, and I want what I want. Professionally, I'm kind of ashamed of myself, but as a reader...I still do it.

But there’s another reason I don’t get bothered when my readers don’t jump to read every new thing I put out. Some time ago, I heard secondhand about an interview with Daniel Radcliffe, where he was asked if he was worried or upset about being typecast as Harry Potter. His response went something along the lines of yes, at one time he had gotten somewhat out of sorts over it. But his father immediately called him on it, pointing out that he’d had the privilege of not only bringing to life a beloved character that had captured the hearts of millions of people; he did it well enough that they would forever associate him with that character.

Obviously, I don’t have anywhere near the following of Harry Potter. But from that, I realized an author who has created a world or characters that her readers love so much they only want to read her books that are associated with it, has been given a gift most people who write a book never get. These are old statistics, pre-dating self-publishing, but at one time, out of all the writers who write, 10% get published. And out of those, 1% can earn a living on it without having to supplement it with a day job. So to be not only in that 1% (as long as I can make it work, God/dess willing), but having three series that have incurred the strong support and devotion of readers? How on earth could I ever complain about that?

I’ll still occasionally write other books outside those series. The one I just did, Medusa's Heart, is a prime example, because I also have a responsibility to respond to my muse and keep my creative process fresh and energized. But I won’t expect huge numbers out of that book – just the satisfaction of knowing the other books give me the freedom to fly into new territory on occasion, which strengthens my craft for when I return to the worlds my readers love the most.

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EXCITING NEWS FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MY BOOKS! I have two new things happening in the month of November:

FIRST: Do you like the FREE VIGNETTES I write revisiting my characters, but you’ve always wanted a print and/or ebook COMPILATION of them all in one place? Introducing Cantrips: Volumes 1 and 2, which will hold ALL my vignettes through 2016, including the brand NEW one I’m finishing up right now: Doms and Sisters, a Knights of the Board Room novella.

We already have some ebook buy links up for Cantrips: Volume 1, but if you’re going to want the print versions, hold off until they go live in the next week or two. Both volumes will be part of the Kindle Match program, where you can get the Kindle version for free if you buy the print format. Check out all the info on these here. Because we’re arranging the vignettes in the order in which they were written, the new vignette will be at the end of Volume 2. However, Doms and Sisters will still be available as a free download on the JWH Connection forum site, with all the rest of the vignettes individually, as they always have been.

SECOND: I’m now offering four MUG DESIGNS that celebrate the different series, as well as a “signature” mug that yes, has my signature (lol). See the wrap around designs here for each of these, as well as how to order one or more if you want one.

Cliff Notes for Men

I don’t know how many times I and other romance readers have proclaimed: “If only men would read romance, they would ‘get’ what women are seeking,” at least when it comes to the sexual side of romance. I’ve said that to my husband plenty of times. The problem is, in order to glean this valuable information, he has to sit down and read a romance—probably several of them, to get the full gist of the message—and he’d rather be dragged behind a pickup truck over hot asphalt.

Because I think he’s a pretty good representation of the straight male out there, the ones we love to pieces and yet who can drive us insane, we’re going to do them a solid. Here’s a short summary of the most valuable things a man could learn from reading romances:

Dying for us is not sexy. Vacuum the living room instead. You know how all those songs talk heroically about dying for their lady love? Yeah, that’s all well and good, but you know what we’d appreciate far more, since it’s way more relevant to our day-to-day lives? Help us cut down on our to-do list. You will be amazed how much more amenable we are to being seduced if we have less chores. Vacuum, take out the trash, offer to walk the dogs or go get the groceries—all without being nagged. And if you’re like my husband, unsure exactly what I need done, here’s a great idea. The following words (when sincerely uttered) have the same effect as foreplay, such that they should be considered foreplay: “Tell me what can I do to help you.”

Kissing – we love kissing. You remember how Richard Gere integrated the “hands cupping the face and neck move” into his way of kissing, and it became one of his very sexy trademarks? Women melted watching him do that, because touching and stroking a woman’s face while kissing her lips is a way of saying “I see you. You’re not just a body. I could kiss you all day long and be content.” There are a million ways to do kisses, and discovering them is like learning a language together. And on that same note…

Our body is not a target at the gun range. Aiming for center mass (aka “the naughty bits”) with every shot may get you going, but we’re left far behind in the arousal department. Try this. For at least the first fifteen minutes of foreplay, act like her breasts, nipples and that place between her legs do not exist. Yes, I said AT LEAST 15 minutes. Focus on kissing her lips, her neck, the top point of her spine, or that sweet spot at the juncture between her throat and shoulder (referencing the kissing suggestion above). Touch her body everywhere else. And do it slowly, in a lingering way. You’re not giving the dog a frenetic belly rub to make her back leg pedal. Make your lady feel like you’re savoring every inch of what you’re touching, and discovering her body all over again.

Think of our naughty bits like a Tootsie Pop. Work from the outside in. When you do start zeroing in on those spots that interest the male mind the most, cup and caress the breasts, stroke and trace the curves, before working toward the nipples for that finger clamp you’re itching to do. Play your fingers and lips along her inner thighs, and feather your breath over her sex as you murmur to her. If, thanks to suggestions two through four, she’s panting and squirming with arousal by the time you start getting to the actual sex, you are doing it RIGHT.

Be persistent and assertive. I want to go back to the very first suggestion, about helping us with our to-do list. We know we’re hard to figure out. We have trouble figuring ourselves out, to be honest. The thing that feels good in the bedroom on Thursday doesn’t feel as good two weeks later, then two days later, it feels awesome. Sometimes we’re so caught up in the forward momentum of the to-do list that, when you say “How can I help you?” we’ll automatically say, “I’m fine, I don’t need help.” We think you don’t mean it, it will take too long to explain, you won’t do it right, etc. But if you put a hand on our shoulder, make eye contact and say, “I mean it, I want to help. Tell me what you need done,” it gets through.

Because all of the things above have the same message. It takes effort to reach us, because sometimes we’re so used to handling and orchestrating things, it’s hard for us to step out of our own way and not only let someone else lead, but to believe that’s sincerely what they want. It also helps us consider that we can allow things to be done a little differently, if the result is we get more time to be intimate with our significant other.

Okay, one more, but I’m not making it part of the list, because it’s a bonus-points-on-the-test kind of thing. Learn to dance. No, you don’t have to learn how to gyrate your pelvis like Michael Jackson. Learn to waltz, contra dance, line dance, 50s dancing, et cetera. Doesn’t really matter. Just know enough so you can firmly take your girl’s hand and lead her out onto the floor, rather than her dragging you or having to go out there by herself. Watch Will Smith’s classic instruction to Kevin James in Hitch if you need to know how to handle those fast dances that terrify you. And even if you don’t think you’d ever want to do it in public, taking lessons together still earns you points, because it’s fun to do as a couple and because you can spontaneously ask her to dance one night on your back deck or in your living room and get the same high marks for relationship effort.

Final instruction to the ladies. In order for any of the above to work, we have to do our part as well, ladies. These days popular culture does a good job of marginalizing men and tearing them down, ridiculing fathers and husbands routinely in commercials, movies and sitcoms. Since we’re going through our days at 100mph multi-tasking, we ourselves tend to be impatient and often miss when they’re making true effort to be good partners and lovers. When we read a romance and the hero arranges to have a picnic lunch in a romantic spot (and the heroine didn't have to set up the whole thing for him, including preparing the lunch, lol), or he addresses the heroine’s often overwhelming obstacles with actions that say, “Hey babe, I’ve got this,” it gives us a romantic sigh. In real life, our partner may have to say, “Yes I want to do groceries, but you’re going to have to help me know what size/brand of things you want, and the first couple times I may bring home the wrong things.” That’s okay. Help him learn. Be patient, loving and appreciative. Goes back to kindergarten. Treat him the way you want to be treated.

Because the guy who’s truly trying to understand that proper seduction technique is about our hearts, minds and souls first and our body last, is even better than that romance hero. Unlike the hot guy on the page who fictionally always knows how to do everything right, the man with whom we share our life is the guy we love, with all his imperfections. And if he’s the right guy, he loves us with all of ours, too.

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Nearly 10 days until the release of Medusa's Heart

Ten Favorite BDSM Toys You Can't Buy in a Store

Don’t get me wrong. I love the plethora of choices The Stockroom, Adam & Eve and many of our other online and brick-and-mortar erotica shops now give us. But when I started writing Dom/sub romance, I didn’t have access to any of those. Beyond that, I believe in a very important rule when it comes to Dominance/submission. The BDSM practices should never eclipse the Dominant/submissive dynamics, because it’s those dynamics that connect us in a relationship, whether it’s in real life, or connecting the reader to the story.

I know we’ve all read books where the mechanics of the sex play are so well researched and so heavily detailed that we lose touch with the characters. They become the blow-up dolls being positioned in the ropes, or attached to the electronic device, etc. Or the devices are so complicated it’s difficult to clarify them in writing, so that the reader is having to work so hard to figure them out they lose touch with the characters. I’ve certainly made that mistake. Most of the times I’ve been lucky enough to catch it in the editing re-reads, because I’ll feel the moment I lose touch with the characters and realize, “hey, something’s not working right.” The solution is usually to simplify or minimize the description of the mechanics. Sometimes get rid of it entirely.

Sometimes the simplest stuff is best, all the way around. During the course of writing over 40 books, I’ve researched and enjoyed integrating some very creative things that have been invented for BDSM play by technological minds far greater than mine. But I admit some of my favorite “toys or aids” remain the things you find readily at hand, because those things maintain and enhance that intense D/s connection I crave to read, write and experience myself. Here are ten of my personal favorites:

Roses – In the free novella Taking the Gloves Off: Mason and Jessica (a supplement to the Vampire Queen series book Beloved Vampire the vampire Lord Mason binds his servant Jessica up in the thorny stems of roses, trails the roses over her body, and inserts one of the half opened buds into her body. He tells her: “When you climax upon it, I will take it and have it preserved, glazed and put under glass, so it will go in my gallery, where I can gaze upon a very rare species of rose, 'Jessica’s Pleasure,' whenever I wish.” Roses lead to a lot of ideas using other natural materials – a switch cut from a branch; flowers of all types crushed and spread over a lover’s body; tying someone against a tree, so they feel the rough bark against their skin…

Hairbrush – Every time I’m in an antique store, I get so many ideas, and those old fashioned wide-backed hair brushes, where the back usually includes a lot of raised embellishment, makes me think of how that would feel when it is being used to spank a beloved sub. In both Afterlife: A Knights of the Boardroom Novel and Unrestrained, Jon and Dale enjoy that pleasure with Rachel and Athena, respectively.

Food – In Virtual Reality, Mark essentially turns Nicole into a salad (lol). I’m typically not much of a foodie when it comes to sex play – the occasional chocolate-covered strawberry is fine, but I don’t have many scenes where food becomes a detailed part of the session, but I really enjoyed writing that one. Another was a chocolate cake scene in Nightfall: A Vampire Queen Crossover Novel, and I lay the credit for that one at the feet of my co-author, Desiree Holt, because she had the idea and I followed her lead. I had never thought of using chocolate cake in so many ways!

Ice – Yes, it can be used to caress the skin, and I’ve employed it that way in stories, as well as had a Master place a handful abruptly against the aroused sex of my heroine to help stave off the inevitable, powerful climax he has planned for her. But one of my favorite uses of it was in Ice Queen, when Tyler cuffed himself to Marguerite. He had the key in a block of ice, so until it melted, they had to stay bound to one another, a way to persuade her out of her emotional shell to interact with him.

Spatula – A kitchen spatula is an old and favorite classic. It’s one of the first things my husband and I first played with for spanking, and it still holds a very fond place in our hearts. Most of us with creative minds know that cooking implements make the kitchen a veritable stockroom of BDSM toys. We knew it even before Bill Murray suggested it so humorously in Stripes!

Clothing – I’m not talking about role playing, though that is a whole delightful article itself. I’m talking about the way clothes can be used. Blindfolding with a man’s tie, so the sub smells the Master's aftershave so close to his/her nose. Laying a sheer blouse over a sub’s face--again to offer the Mistress's scent--as well as to put a sensual haze over everything the sub sees through it as the Domme slides down the sub's body to put her mouth on him/her. In Worth the Wait, Des, my hero, is a lean guy, a tough and wiry roofer, whereas Julie, my heroine, is a lush D-cup kind of girl. In one scene he puts his button-down shirt on her, specifically because he likes the way it looks when he buttons the shirt up as far as it can go, which leaves her breasts nearly spilling out of the straining fabric while he pursues other pleasures with her.

Belt - Yes, it’s technically clothing, but I’m so personally enamored of it, I’m giving it its own category. Belts are extremely versatile. Not only can they be used for the obvious, some pleasurable corporal punishment, but they can be wrapped around the body and cinched just over the breasts to increase the sensitivity of the nipples, as well as enhance the psychological sense of restraint. And you can use them as a way to bind wrists or ankles as well. Or thread it around a sub’s wrists or throat like a leash to lead him/her where you want them to go. (No brainer here, but I’m going to say it, because we know there are some brainless folk out there – a belt should NOT be tightened around the throat in a dangerous way to restrict air flow).

In-Home Restraint Options – No, you don’t have to go out and buy expensive Japanese bondage rope. Heck, you can pick up a figure-eight coil of laundry twine and use it as a fast and convenient flogger in two blinks. Everybody has rope hanging around the house for multi-purpose use, as well as tie-down straps, bungee cords, duct tape. Just always be careful about circulation, joints and breathing, folks, however you use it.

And my number one and two favorites, the ultimate can’t-be-bought-in-any-store BDSM accoutrements:

The Voice – The things a Dom can do with words are limitless. A whisper in your ear, a low command at the right moment, like at a party where it’s like a secret code between you. Or in the privacy of your bedroom, when a sharpening of the tone or a command to kneel, take off your clothes, spread your legs, bend over, can flip a switch in your mind and take you one step closer to subspace.

The Hand – Spanking, gripping, stroking, pinching…it can be used to send very specific messages between a Dom/sub. There’s a part in Soul Rest where Leland uses a pressure point to focus Celeste, as follows:

He curved a hand over her shoulder, fingers stroking. She twitched away from him irritably and bit back a gasp as he captured the muscle between her neck and shoulder, putting enough force on that pressure point that pain resonated through her nerve endings. But it wasn’t an “ouch, stop that” pain, not for her. Instead it made her breath shorter, made her straighten her upper body and tighten her thighs, absorbing the shot of sensation straight between them. Her gaze snapped to him. His brown eyes were molten gold, the planes of his face more prominent when his expression was intent, like now, registering how she reacted to the hold.

“Take a breath,” he said. “A deep one.”

She did, and he increased that grip incrementally, wresting a tiny whimper out of her. Her lips parted, and his gaze darkened, seeing it. “It’s starting to really hurt,” she managed. Yet she didn’t want him to stop.

“I know. Do you like bruises, Celeste? Marks left on you by a Master?” He took it up one more notch and now she did catch a cry in her throat at the sharp bolt of pain. That was when he eased the pressure, the caressing follow-up of his fingers easing her body down the same way. He molded his palm over her shoulder once more, only this time to pull her closer so she was leaning inside the curve of his arm.

So those are a few things I’ve used in my books (and some in my own relationship), that have enhanced the power of the Dominant/submissive dynamics happening without overpowering it with logistics. Because as we all know from reading the stories, when it’s written right, everything supports that overpowering connection between the characters. If it’s a distraction, it doesn’t belong there. No matter how cool that toy is! Though some of them are REALLY cool…

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30 days to the release of Medusa's Heart! Chapter One and Two sneak peeks, pretty teaser graphics, giveaway info and buy links, all accessible through the countdown page here.

Fears, Phobias and Housecleaning

So sorry I missed doing my post entry last week. I was on the third edit round of Medusa’s Heart and had to get it to my critique partners by Saturday to stay on schedule for the October 31 release. For those of you who like longer books, you’ll be happy with this one. At 185k, it exceeded the word count I expected by about 45k. Though I keep wondering why I always say I’m “surprised” when my books are longer than expected, because they’re ALWAYS longer than I expect. I’m hearing Inigo Montoya saying “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Anyhow, I did a post for my Medusa’s Heart countdown page last week about Medusa’s snakes, because she has five of them in the story. They have a unique presence that makes them characters in their own right (don’t worry though; no talking animals). However, that led to a discussion about phobias and fears, because many people have a fear or phobia of snakes. Which made me think it might be fun to talk about the differences between phobias and fears. Why? Two reasons:

ONE: If you do have a phobia, raise your hand if anyone has ever tried to “talk you out of it.”

TWO: If you don’t have a phobia, raise your hand if you’re baffled as to why your friends can’t overcome theirs, especially in the face of overwhelming logic and rational thinking.

This is a topic of keen interest to me, because I nurse four phobias – Flying, needles, heights and daddy longlegs. Yep, I’m not even going to try to explain that last one. I don’t harm them, though. They just completely freak me out.

Flying is probably my number one phobia that people try to convince me shouldn’t be. With some wonderful and very rational arguments. But here’s the thing that may help well-meaning people and their phobic friends everywhere. If you have a friend who expresses a fear, determine if it’s a fear or phobia. Because there’s a vital difference between the two:

FEARS are something you might be able to rationalize, mitigate and sometimes even eradicate through repetition, desensitization, etc.

PHOBIAS are forever. Yes, it should be on a T-shirt. Not a damn thing you can say or do to stop them.

In the Dom/sub world I inhabit, you could call fear a session where you might be able to figure out the right safe word (rationalization/management technique) to end the scene, whereas a phobia takes control with no consent, and no safe word offered. Ever.

Believe me, those of us who have phobias HATE them. Because we know they’re irrational, and if you’re a great big control freak, like the person writing this blog is (who me?) that means the fear can control us without our consent, as noted above.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter admits one of his greatest fears is fear. And that really resonated for me because of the above. With a phobia, I’m actually more afraid of my fear than the object of the fear, because it’s the fear dictating how I handle it.

But back to our original topic. Have you ever tried to talk someone out of a phobia? It does not matter what argument you offer, a person with a phobia can counter it. They would have the last word with even God on the topic, I promise. Let’s take flying. Here’s one people use all the time: “Oh, flying is safer than being a car. The blah-blah statistics say so.” You know my answer to that? “I’m sure the last time a plane was plummeting to earth, that’s what the people in Row 1A and 1C were chatting about. Right before they went up in a ball of flame.” In short, it doesn’t matter how many times it worked out just fine – in my mind, this is going to be the time it doesn’t.

Last time I flew, parents with children were eying me nervously because I looked like the person who was going to completely freak out and try to open the emergency exit to leave the plane in mid-air. I have been to therapy for it, I have tried visualization and heavy drugs. As a result of the drugs, I passed out in the Miami airport, got sniffed by drug dogs and had my husband worrying that he was going to be accused of sex trafficking, since it appeared like he was transporting an unwilling unconscious woman.

But interesting note on how I finally “took control” of this particular phobia. The last time I flew, my husband coaxed me on the final connecting flight with the sworn-in-blood promise that, afterward, he would never ask me to get on a plane again. That was when I realized, “Hey, I may not be able to deal with the needle phobia, because no matter what, at some point in my life, I’ll need this or that medical procedure. But flying is something I can totally control whether I do it or not do it. So…I’m not. Never again. I practically kissed the ground when I got off that plane, I was so happy to be okay with that decision and done with it forever. I think my husband’s still faintly traumatized by the whole experience, however.

It was sort of a Jodie Foster in Nim’s Island moment. There’s this part where she’s on a plane in a storm and she’s saying, “If I live through this, I will EMBRACE my fears, I will never leave home again!” I admire and accept that self-evaluation, and have taken it for my own when it comes to flying. It’s fortunate I’m a Marcel Proust kind of person: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” I don’t need to travel any further than I can drive to find a lifetime of things to see and experience. And I’ll do so in a much calmer state of mind.

Now, the worst part of being confronted with one of your phobias is the sense of total failure when it overcomes you. But I learned a little trick about that as well. I’ll use the needle phobia to illustrate, along with my personal definitions of courage vs. bravery:

Courage is facing something you’re afraid to do. And you’re not one iota less afraid while doing it or thereafter when you have to face it again.

Bravery is overcoming the fear and having less fear of it as you go along.

I SO wish I was brave. But I have been able to comfort myself with the idea that I do have some amount of courage. For example: Based on hitting that lovely middle age when the engine and other running parts seem to need a little more maintenance and diagnostics, I’ve had to have some medical tests and procedures this year. I want to stay healthy for my family, so even when I know I’m going to have to face a needle, I deal with the X number of days in advance of anxiety attacks and constant hypervigilance I have about it, but I ultimately go in and do it. And I realized, “Hey, that’s a form of courage. You care about your family enough to carry you and your phobia into the situation and get through it.” Imagine the drug commercial here with the little cloud following the woman around all the time. That’s me and my phobia on the way to a blood draw – grin.

Sometimes you have an experience that helps you with those moments, and I do, when it comes to balancing phobias against the wellbeing of those I love. Years ago, not too long after my husband and I were first married, we were on vacation and decided to rent a two-person sailboat. We didn’t have a lot of sailing experience at the time, so we had more enthusiasm than sense about it. Well, we get in the boat, and there’s a lot of boat traffic in the waterway. Things very quickly get chaotic and frightening. We crash into a dock, and I, terrified, get out and say “No, not doing this.”

My husband is the type of person who will simply get a roused temper when things get overwhelming, and he was determined to sail the boat, gosh darn it, no matter what. So the boat moves away from the dock and there he is on the boat alone. When I squished in my wet shoes back to the dock where we got the boat, the guy who’d rented it to us was watching Scott drift toward a large yacht as he tried valiantly to handle the sails. I said something about him trying to get the boat under control, and the man said, without looking at me, “It takes two to sail that boat.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever in my life felt quite as awful as I did in reaction to those seven words. As I said, we hadn’t been married long, and the words underscored what it means to be married. To support and care for each other, even when you’re scared. Ever since then, if it’s a choice between fear/phobia, and someone I love, I’ve been able to manage the phobia. I’m not particularly heroic, so I wouldn’t want to put that to test in an underground torture bunker with a serial killer, but for the day to day fears, it has been a guiding light.

So on that same note, I have no doubt if a family member’s life depended on me getting onto a plane, I’d do it. I’d be terrified, but I’d do it, because that event made such an impression on me. But heights…er… Okay, if a family member’s life depended on me riding the world’s biggest roller coaster, I might just ask if I could make a generous donation to their favorite charity in memoriam (grin).

I’m not really trying to point us toward a grand conclusion here. I just wanted to share what I’m pretty sure are some common feelings about the issues of phobia, fear, bravery and courage, because we all face them. And there are three good things about phobias. First, I tend to be more understanding of what other people fear, even if it’s not something I can comprehend fearing at all. Two, as a writer, I’ve channeled my phobias into the way a character feels about facing things that are considered far more dramatic, because empathy is a fabulous tool for an author – probably the most important in writing emotional scenes.

And three? One extremely cool thing about having to face one of your phobias is the aftermath. After that doctor appointment with the nightmarish needles, I get a rush of adrenaline that is the best euphoria ever. I’m in total Zen mode the rest of the day. After facing your phobia, you may just stumble on the meaning of the universe. And a cure for phobias. If you find it, let the rest of us faint-hearted folks know!

So next time you have a friend with a phobia, here’s what I suggest. Don’t waste time with logic and rationalizations that aren’t going to make a dent in their fear. Instead, go with hugs, distractions and a promise of something nice afterward. Whatever their adult version of a lollipop is. You’ll be the best friend ever!

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Medusa’s Heart countdown page now has info on a free Chapter One except, pre-order link and more!

Oh, PS the housecleaning reference? That was because I “celebrated” turning the book over to my critique partners by cleaning the house from top to bottom. It’s my personal “book’s almost finished” ritual! Yep, I know how to party, right? Lol. Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Friends and the New School Year

As school prepares to start here in my area, I was thinking about my school years. When I was in 4th grade, my family moved to Charlotte from a much smaller town. In my new 4th grade class, I made one particular friend. I’ve pasted a picture here showing us at the beach. I was the little chubby kid, lol.

Our friendship began to connect the dots to other friends, but it was in 5th grade a pivotal event occurred that for some reason I’ve always thought of as the catalyst for what happened afterward.

We often stopped in to see our school secretary, Mrs. Collins, on the way to lunch, because we adored her and she was fond of us. On one particular day, she waved us into her office. She explained that a new girl had started school that same week, but a pack of girls in her class had bullied her so badly, she’d told the teacher she was sick and needed to go to the infirmary. Mrs. Collins asked us if we would go to the infirmary to give her a better welcome.

I remember so clearly how we filed into the infirmary and began to introduce ourselves to the new girl, all of us determined to help her feel better. By the end of that meeting, Mrs. Collins had pulled those magical strings a school secretary can and the new girl was transferred into our class.

Now, not all the girls that were part of that event stayed close friends. Some dropped off along the way. But the core group stayed together, and we picked up several more in seventh grade. The remarkable thing was we met IN school, and yet, at a time when bussing meant kids were being brought to a school from all over the city, we found out that all of us lived in adjacent neighborhoods.

At some point, we decided we were a “group” and wanted a name for ourselves. That was a very big trend in the 80s, including getting the long sleeved, bi-colored baseball T-shirts with the iron-on felt lettering that proclaimed your group name. You could go to the mall and get the iron-ons done. Remember that? We called ourselves the FMs. We came up with about 80 potential meanings for it—from typically teen raunchy, to sentimentally sweet, but we never decided on one. The name itself simply came to mean…us. When we went on our first beach trip together about 7th or 8th grade, that became our annual event through our school years, and helped solidify our bond. This pic shows us all at sixteen (I'm in the middle, top row with large sunglasses, poofy short hair and a green/yellow sun dress.

When I was accepted into college a year early, they gave me a gift – a dozen white roses, a portfolio stamped with my name and the FM designation, and a pair of monogrammed wine glasses. I still have the glasses and portfolio, as noted here. They gave me the portfolio because I was entering college as a creative writing major, with every intention of making that my life’s profession, and this was one of many ways my friends showed their enthusiastic support. The first stories I ever wrote were written during my grade and middle school classes, and passed under the desk to my friends to read and comment upon. They were my first critique group. I still have one of the enthusiastic notes written to me by one of those friends, telling me how it was the best thing she’d ever read and she just knew I’d be an author one day. And by the way, that was the “new girl” from the infirmary. She helped me come up with a lot of my early story ideas and was/still is a good writer herself.

[Note on the creative writing major thing: my parents are eternally grateful I eventually switched to a business major. I was therefore capable of supporting myself until the writing part of things took off!]

So, fast forward about 40 years. Wow, it feels strange to see that in print, because I can remember most of those events as if they did happen only a few years ago. But yes, the FMs still get together annually. Over the years we have celebrated graduations, marriages, the birth of children, and professional milestones.

We’ve also grieved. Their mothers and fathers were as much a part of my life growing up as they were, so as we’ve had to say good-bye to a few of them, and seen others succumbing to some of the crueler effects of age like dementia, we’ve offered comfort to one another. Two of these mothers had the harrowing distinction of chaperoning us on those first couple beach trips. Eight young teenage girls! On one of those weekends, we froze a bra and tossed it off the deck into a tree for a prank, thinking it belonged to one of us. Nope – it belonged to one of the mothers, lol. My parents’ house had a fabulous basement/rec room, and I lost count of the number of parties our group hosted there. My mom oversaw them all with a careful but unobtrusive eye – unless obtrusiveness was needed, and then she was there in a heartbeat.

Some of our marriages have ended. It is a poignant feeling to flip through my photo albums and see the pictures taken of a dear friend’s wedding, remembering our excitement when she showed off an engagement ring, or when we watched her walk down the aisle toward the person she was certain would be her life’s companion through better or worse. And then remember how it disintegrated into a painful and often far-too-ugly ending of that bond. We have offered comfort and grieved for those losses as well. We’ve celebrated the accomplishments of our children and held hands or offered listening ears when they took a worrisome path. Or when they, or one of our number, has had scary health issues.

Over the years, some of us have been closer to one another than at other times. We’ve had our arguments and reconciliations, and periods when the chaos of life simply took us away from one another. One of us lives halfway across the world now, but when she’s back in the States, we always try to get as many of us together as possible. And we continue to plan our annual trip to reinforce that bond, year to year. We may not rub elbows in our daily lives the way we did when we were in our teens and early twenties, but I’ve always been certain that these girls (for I still think of them that way, though we’re all now middle-aged women) are as close as a phone call away if I had a true need for them. We’ve only maintained one rule as we’ve gotten older – we don’t talk politics, because we are all along the spectrum, from liberal to conservative. Every once in a while, we break the rule and tempers flare! Amusingly enough, one of those times happened not too long ago and helped spark the idea for my earlier GoodReads blog, “Let’s NOT talk politics.”

I wasn’t a person who enjoyed school, and I don’t look back with any nostalgia for it. What I do value is that circle. We have a standing joke that one of us is going to have to make enough money to buy the FM “compound," where one day we will be a consortium of elderly ladies who live together until the end of our days. Whether it ever happens or not, I’m glad for the proof that we still all find the idea an appealing one.

When I think back to our school years together, I remember that we were a special group, closely knit and supportive, though we were not from the same mold. We were The Breakfast Club – some non-conformists, some popular, some middle of the road, so I think we had a lot of the same elements a family has – plenty of differences, but supportive of one another regardless. I know those girls helped provide me a vital moral grounding that reinforced what my parents had instilled in me: to explore and become my own person, stand up for what I think is right, and believe in my own strength and independence in the face of whatever obstacles I encounter.

So as school starts for another year, my sincere hope is that all our future adults will have the good fortune to land within the arms of a similar support system, friends with whom to share laughter, tears, challenges and many good memories. And I hope they’ll have the luck I have had, to maintain those bonds with a few special friends even when school years have been left far, far behind.

Jamming at the Writer's Retreat

So this week, thanks to the patience and goodwill of my beloved husband, who managed our household of animals in my absence, I was able to spend five glorious days on a self-imposed writer’s retreat in West Virginia. I’ve had the good fortune of being a full-time writer since 2007, so the thought that might cross your mind is, “Okay, she works at home. Why would she enjoy going off somewhere else to write?”

Glad you asked that. I’m sure you’re all familiar with what life is like in a busy, happy, slightly dysfunctional (serious understatement) home:

1. Cell phone rings: It’s family member X, Y or Z, needing about 90 minutes of my time to discuss their lives, and yes, it must be NOW.

2. Jake (my golden retriever) is scratching. Why is he scratching so much? Does he need a bath? No, he’s hot. Okay, find another floor fan in the house and turn it on him; the one currently running (plus the ceiling fan) isn’t doing the trick. He’s holding up a sign that says “Give me a haircut or let me move to Alaska!”

3. Oh crap, was today the day the bug man was coming by to do the bi-yearly spraying? And next week is my six month dentist appointment. Then the car needs to be dropped off for service and picked up after lunch…

4. Henry the cat flings himself at the top of my office chair and squalls in my ear to inform me it’s two hours until lunch break, when he will get snacks. Just letting me know. He’ll be back in a half hour to give me the 90-minutes-to-go alarm. Oh, and if you close the office door, he knows how to open it, unless you wedge a chair under the knob like you’re in a cheap hotel room. Then he amuses himself by hurling his seven pound body at the door.

5. My husband needs to come in several times to discuss promotions, cover design and deadline issues. As well as to vent on why the current website glitch is making him want to beat his head against the wall.

6. Meg, my somewhat feral/unsocialized cat, arrives looking for laptime because I’m the only one she trusts for that, so of course I have to stop and pet her to help with the socialization process.

7. And do NOT get me started on what happens if I make the TERRIBLE mistake of starting the day by checking email, FB or Twitter, rather than launching right into my writing. There will be an email from a publisher that I feel must be answered, or a problem on the website I need to let Scott know about so he can fix it, or…or…or…and there goes two hours.

All of these things (and people, two- as well as four-legged) are important and necessary, but here’s the problem. As a fiction writer, when you stop working, even for a few minutes, it’s not like taking a coffee break before getting back to data entry. When I’m pulled out of my head, I’m pulled out of the scene, a flow of thought, dialogue, plot progression. It can take 10-20 minutes for me to find the creative flow and “groove” again.

Every writer learns to deal with these disruptions, because it is part of the job and the challenge. When I had a day job, I had the “no excuses” policy which I employ to this day, even for writing at home. “There is no excuse for not getting SOMETHING written.” I wrote many of my books on a ferry trip to and from work, crowded elbow-to-elbow with noisy tourists and fellow employees.

However, while that is the reality of being a writer, a “writer’s retreat” is a gift to yourself, the working vacation of an author’s dreams. Hours of uninterrupted creative time, nothing to stop me but me? Nirvana, here I come. It turned out I really, really needed this one. I had 75 pages left of the first edit round for Medusa’s Heart, and it’s the most action-packed and complicated part of the book. It took me three days to tear it down and work it back to a level I found satisfactory for a first edit round. When I was done, I’d doubled those 75 pages.

So that uninterrupted time is the best part of a writer’s retreat. But coming in a close second is the opportunity to have another author sharing that retreat with you, who has a compatible work style/personality to your own. Though many authors, including myself, are introverted, the chance to share a writer’s retreat doesn’t conflict with that. Your craft kinship allows you to brainstorm, work yourself out of corners and talk about all the nitpicky detail that goes into creating a story. The details that make our friends and family glaze and topple over in boredom are the exact same things that, when we have another author to talk to them about, synergistically charge us up in a fiery glow of creative energy. It emanates around out little condo and, if you are squirrels in the trees clustered outside, you’re hearing a lot of “Yes! Yes! Yes! That’s exactly what I mean!”

The other part of it is the chance to indulge in social shop talk to help you deal with the absurdities of the business and the ups and downs of managing your personal life with the demands of writing. Plus a hundred other big and little things that are simply “understood” without much explanation or justification needed when talking with someone else who shares your craft. This I’m sure resonates with everyone out there, regardless of your profession. We all need co-workers, even if we work in isolation most the time.

So my partner in crime on this trip was the incomparable author VJ Summers (also of the former Violet Summers co-author fame). We met a few years back at a conference and, though we often don’t see one another for long stretches, we have that great kind of friend chemistry that kicks back in whenever we reunite. She came with me to my very first BDSM con, the Southeastern Leather Fest (SELF) in Atlanta, which just solidified the friendship. To explain the amazing kind of person she is, I offer one irrefutable piece of evidence. When someone at SELF asked what our relationship to one another was, VJ said “She’s my bitch," without batting an eyelash. Lol…

In addition to providing one another a sounding board for our mutual writing glitches, headaches and pleasures this week, we also had a wonderful night watching Magic Mike XXL, went to see Star Trek: Beyond in a theater on top of a mountain, and shared pre-bedtime cocoa. OMG, VJ makes the best cocoa EVER. I highly recommend it when great sex is not available. It IS an acceptable substitute.

All that aside, as glad as I was to have time to work on my own writing and get VJ's input on Medusa’s Heart, it tickled me to pieces to see her creating again. She’s been on a bit of a hiatus due to the annoyances of Real Life, but she is one of my favorite authors, so I was delighted to hear how many ideas she has percolating in her busy brain! I’ve told her I’ll be sending her weekly nag reminders until she has them all ready for us. And I WILL be persistent.

To close, I’ll mention that, while I am on a writer’s retreat, none of this wonderfulness stops me from missing all my furbabies and husband, so after about a week or less, I am ready to return back to their bosom. But I come back creatively re-charged, and with enough work done that I’m not stressing as much about deadlines. I won’t snap off my husband’s head like a Ken doll each time he comes into my office to tell me important stuff about the business side of things. Well...not for the first several days at least (wink).

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Have you entered the Medusa’s Heart giveaway and seen the countdown page? Check it out here.