Janine Ashbless's Blog, page 93

Eyecandy Monday: the last post

Welcome to the last Eyecandy Monday I'll be posting. Over the years I've thoroughly enjoyed sharing the excellent pics - sweet, hot or downright filthy - that I've come across on Tumblr, Facebook or Pinterest, but I'm afraid there will no more from here on. I have to be a good girl now. Because I'm not a photographer, and the Eyecandy pics aren't my own creations. *sigh*

What else shall I finish with than some sexy minotaurs, eh? It's what I'm noTAURUS for, lol... And if you don't like them (or my crap bovine puns), at least you can be glad it's all over!

And next week? Well, I'm starting a new Monday theme which I hope will be cockle-warming too. See you then, hopefully!

The Wheel turns again

I've started writing the second novella in my series The Wheel of the Year. :-)

Tempted Romance

Brace for a BIG Cover Him with Darkness catchup:

There's a new imprint in town - Cleis Press has officially announced the launch of Tempted Romance (the title was chosen by Romantic Times readers, yay!) in autumn fall this year. And the launch title?
MY NOVEL!

"The launch title for Tempted Romance will be Cover Him with Darkness by Janine Ashbless, slated for a September 22 paperback release. In addition to paperback editions (priced at $14.95), the imprint will publish in e-book, audio, and iOS apps."

Note the new release date - you won't have to wait until October after all if you pre-order :-)


Cover Him With Darkness will be followed by Mitzi Szereto's new anthology Darker Edge of Desire: gothic tales of romance. Since CHWD started life as a short story in Mitzi's Red Velvet and Absinthe gothic anthology, I cannot think of a more appropriate and wonderful pairing.

I am so chuffed I'm practically steam-powered!

The first reader reactions to advance copies have started to appear too:


And Rose Caraway has reviewed it in full!

"This book was truly a fantastic read. Janine Ashbless amazed me over and over again ... Yes, this book is an erotic romance, but there is also gunfire, car chases, attempted murder, Vatican soldiers, impassioned priests, and my favourite - sexy, sexy angels and demons.
Yeah... Gimme... hard."

Thank you Rose!

I got lucky at Smut by the Sea

So last Saturday I went to Smut by the Sea 2014, the second of its name :-)


This year, as well as the stalls and the coffee and the lovely smutty readings, we had writing workshops from Victoria Blisse, K D Grace and Lucy Felthouse, which involved some challenging "write it where you sit NOW YES NOW NO EXCUSES" exercises. Which worked for me really well, to my surprise. I'm normally such a procrastinator!

Kay Jaybee, our evil paddle-wielding hostess
"Is she headed this way?"
"Oh hell, yes she is!"
And I got lucky.

You can tell I'm spitting out a particularly filthy word, can't you?On the erotic tombola, that is...
Last year all I won was a pen, damnnit. This year the Stars Were Right (and there were free pens) so LOOK AT THE LOOT I CAME HOME WITH!

Cuffs and a mask, a giant bottle of lube, a mug and a couple of vibrating cockrings.

As you can imagine, I wasted no time, once home, in making use of my prize:


And talking of tea ... the lovely Jennifer Denys not only kept me awake while driving, but treated me to a full cream tea in Scarborough town, where I was surprised to discover through much experimentation that my fave decadent combination of cream and jam and whatever on top of a scone is ...



Butter.

I did not know that.

It was a great day - well done to Victoria and Kevin for putting so much work in and organising it!

More event reportage from Tilly Hunter / Nano Vaslen  (marine biologist) / Bella Settarra

Eyecandy Monday

 
Time for a celebratory tipple - the very first advance review for Cover Him with Darkness has gone up, and it's a beauty! From The Sexy Librarian:

  "Gimme vampires, werewolves, ghosts--even gremlins if you must, but those creatures pale in comparison when it comes to proper angels and demons. Janine Ashbless has me crushing so hard on her right now. It is no secret that I love to flirt with the devil in my own writing, but "Cover Him With Darkness" had me wet and poised.As readers it's what we want, right? A story that pulls us in and tears at the fabric of our most raw and basic desires until we are bare, exposed and the object of some kind of ultimate desire, in both body and soul. A story that makes us want to be feasted upon until our own lust is finally satiated"

Thank you Sexy Librarian!

Rik Mayall

Comedian Rik Mayall died this week. I was gutted. He was only 56, and I'd grown up with him on TV since my teens. He was a rubber-faced genius who mastered being repulsive and yet strangely compelling right at the same time.
In tribute, here he is telling a fairy story for his series "Grim Tales".
(Warning: there's lots of chocolate and kissing in this one!)

It's COMING!

Oh. OH.
It's been spotted in the wild. We have proof!
The harbinger of dooooooom -
IT LIVES!

Rose Caraway has posted this instagram pic on Facebook - which means that review copies of Cover Him with Darkness are going out to magazines and reviewers and people on the Cleis List.

I am feeling giddy and delighted and a little bit queasy.

Le Petit Mort

I've just subbed a paranormal erotic story - it's a vampire tale, sort of - that verges on horror. Because it was intended for an erotica collection I worked quite hard to keep it sexy rather than scary. Well, too scary, anyway. Let's hope the editor sees it that way!

So I've been thinking about Erotica v. Horror. Two separate genres, though clearly there is a potential overlap as there is between all forms of genre fiction. I actually started out my career writing horror, then switched to erotica (thus, incidentally, working my way down the literary pecking order. Some big name horror writers do write smut, or have done in the past. But they like to keep that a secret).


The two genres actually have a lot in common, I believe:

The plot structure is often similar for both genres. They both work really well (best, many might say) as short stories. In both Horror and Erotica the ideal is to end at the dramatic (or literal) climax, with no cooling off period. In longer fiction the aim is to create an ascendinjg ladder of excitement in the reader's mind, based on set-piece scenes interspersed with tension-ratcheting lulls.The author above all aims to evoke a visceral reaction - whether fear or arousal. The best horror or erotica stories bypass the rational brain and go straight to the body. They make the heart race (in both cases) and they make the skin crawl or the genitals swell. These are primaeval responses designed to cope with crisis real-life stimuli, and to be able to evoke these reactions by the written word alone takes a surprising amount of skill. You are wresting control from the reader - and that thrill is exactly what fans like. Because this is a stimulus-response reaction, even the most keen readers in both genres can become jaded. This may lead authors toward a dangerous trap of making the stimulus stronger (MORE BLOOD AND GUTS! / BIGGER ORGIES! HUGE STRAP-ONS!), but this is not a game the writer can win in the long run. Far better, in my opinion, to sneak up on the reader with something they hadn't anticipated, and reveal to them the depths of their vulnerability. If you can convince readers of the devastating allure of a hole in a woollen stocking (like in The Piano) or the terror inherent in a closed door (like in The Monkey's Paw), then you are doing it right as a writer.Both genres are subversive. They aim to convince you to suspend your faith in the laws of society, in the normal tropes of interaction between people, and to accept - temporarily - that there might be other, often more powerful and dangerous, possibilities. They both say "What if the world didn't work the way people tell you it does?" Both genres draw their power from overturning social consensus and restrictions.

If you are interested in reading examples of my erotica that I'd class as horror too, try:
Lord Montague's Last Ride in Cruel Enchantment
Cold Hands, Warm Heart in Dark Enchantment
At Usher's Well in Fierce Enchantments
and Red Grow the Roses.

Eyecandy Monday

What's that - you want yet more tattoo pictures? But there are ladies present!






The tentacles are back!

See what happens when you let me on Pinterest?

Tense

I was never taught the rules of grammar at school. I have no idea what any of the tenses are called. I just write by instinct.

I seem to have got away with it so far, but there's always this sense of anxiety. Particularly as I do write a lot of stories with complex nested flashbacks...