Annette Mori's Blog, page 41

Identity Crisis

I’m having an identity crisis…no not about my sexuality. There is absolutely no confusion there because I am 100% a lesbian. My identity crisis has to do with my writing.

My debut book Love Forever, Live Forever was considered paranormal by some readers. For the rabid fans of paranormal, I suspect it fell far short of the mark. I often described it as a love story that happened to have paranormal characters because first loves was the central theme not vampires and shape-shifters.

The next story, The True Story of Valentines Day was a free short story that I suppose some would consider fantasy, complete with dragons and set in a medieval time frame. However, the fantasy purists might find it sorely lacking in the elements of what they would consider a true fantasy. I saw it as a love story. Shortly thereafter, I wrote Two Elves In Love which was another free story and I don’t think there is a category for that one. Is there a holiday genre I wonder?  The elves were not your typical fantasy elves, but instead one  was an elf in Santa’s workshop and the other a Keebler elf…as in the cookies!  I love cookies.

I had a dream and the next book, Asset Management materialized as romantic intrigue. Shortly after Asset Management, I wrote Out of This World which was barely a sci fi book. I call it sci fi light because once again it was a love story first and the sci if element was almost an afterthought. 

When I wrote Locked Inside, I never intended for readers to consider the book as young adult. In reality, I wrote the book because I wanted to do a contemporary romance that was just a tad different than a normal formulaic novel. It was nominated in the contemporary romance category and not young adult, but I suppose the age of the main characters created the notion that it was in the young adult genre.

I was continuing to hear that contemporary romance is queen, so I wrote The Ultimate Betrayal. However, I could not resist throwing in a unique twist to the age old story of betrayal. So…back to the drawing board and The Review was born. This was going to be a straight up romance, but then I got the idea to toss in a mystery. One review noted this book was a mash up..kind of like two songs that get mashed together. In this instance, I mashed together romance and mystery. This is where I had my aha moment.  I realized that every single one of my books is in essence a mash-up. Perhaps I should invent a new sub-genre called “mash-up”.

The new book coming out in February titled, The Termination is sort of a dystopian romance. However, in my typical fashion, you can’t really call it a dystopian novel. I don’t even believe it can be categorized as dystopian light and after you read it you’ll understand why.

So, you see, I have an identity crisis as a writer. In the same fashion as sexual exploration, I keep dabbling in the various genres trying to decide which one I like. I’ve found I like them all not unlike….oh never mind….Perhaps I just have a ravenous, experimental, open-minded attitude and enjoy an immense need for variety in my life. Or maybe it is just a product of my ADHD. One thing you can count on in my novels is that they will always have a love story…so part of the mash up will be romance and the book will always end well. I like reading happily ever after, so that’s what I write.

If you’d like to read how I jump sub-genres or mash up novels, you know the drill…click on one of the links below.

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Book Reviews – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly…

This past weekend I started a thread on a familiar topic…reviews. I genuinely wanted to understand the difference between a performance evaluation and an evaluation of a book. Since my day job is as a Human Resources executive there are clear guidelines regarding feedback: praise in public and correct in private.

One response that made perfect sense went something like this (I’m paraphrasing): a book is a product and reviewers don’t evaluate the person, they evaluate the product. That’s a fair statement and yet there are times when a reviewer doesn’t merely critique the book, but let’s their critique seep into their disdain for the author. In addition, let’s face it the product (a book) is always very personal to every author and that for me muddies the waters.

Everything in life is evaluated it seems. You are probably evaluating this blog right now as you read it. We can’t help ourselves. I’m drinking my coffee and thinking, “mmm, just the right amount of cream, but it’s just a tad bit too cold. I’ll stick it in the microwave.” Of course my coffee isn’t going to cry because I said it’s too cold.

I drink wine and every time I take a sip of something new, I’m giving it a review. My reviews are not very discerning and generally start and end with either, “I like it,” or “I don’t like it.” Sometimes I can even tell you why, but most of the time I don’t really think too long and hard about it. It’s the same way with books. I have to stretch to consider the reasons why I like a book and because I’m a glass half full kind of person, it’s damn near impossible to tell a person why I might not have liked something I’ve read. Sometimes I can tell you if I’ve been uncomfortable with the topic, but that’s as far as it goes. I actively seek out the positive, it’s what I do.

Ironically, I work in the healthcare field and clinicians do not seek out the positive for the most part because they are taught to look for what’s wrong with the patient. I suspect you will never hear a healthcare provider talk about a lung x-ray in this fashion, “Well you see this spot here, that’s a bit of pneumonia on the right lung, but look at the left lung it’s so beautiful not a single hint of pneumonia.”

 

Since I love talking wine, let’s go back to that topic. I don’t drink red wine at all. I don’t like it….there I’ve said it publicly (shit now I have this uncomfortable rolling feeling in my stomach). I know this doesn’t mean that red wine isn’t good. In fact, everything I been told suggests it’s better for you than white wine. Thus, when a reviewer says this wasn’t my cup of tea, I understand that. When a review is vitriolic, I admit it, I squirm.

In my research, I found this scathing review of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, “How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery.” Then there is this personal attack to James Joyce for Ulysses, where the reviewer says, “Ulysses appears to have been written by a perverted lunatic who has made a specialty of the literature of the latrine…”

MY REVIEW of those historical reviews  is, “that’s just mean.” See, I told you I suck at reviews. This got me to thinking about how much reviewers are reviewed (say that three times), because again, we love to evaluate everything in this world. In my research, not only did I find a lot of places where reviewers are evaluated, there’s an actual award called, The Hatchet Job. From all the photos, it appears as though the critics bask in the limelight of receiving this prestigious award for writing the most scathing review of the year.

When my wife and I go to a restaurant and the service or food is bad, my wife always want to tell them because she says, “how will they learn otherwise.” I, on the other hand, touch her on the arm and plead with my eyes for her not to say a word. When the server comes to the table and asks, “How is everything?” I politely nod and say, “fine.” This is the only time I will tell a lie. My mother taught us this growing up and I cannot ever seem to shake it. I don’t want to hurt the chef’s feelings. No amount of argument will ever get me to change my philosophy on this. Yet, I do agree that if someone doesn’t tell the chef – how will they know. The difference for me is that if I ever did want to provide that gift of feedback to the chef, I would do it in private and not share it with the server.

The thread I stated took an interesting turn as we talked about how these Facebook groups are a bit like a book club, where you talk about your likes and dislikes on the chosen book while having coffee with your book club buddies. I wondered about how easy it would be to fit 300 people into my small condo. In addition, there were some opinions about whether authors should be allowed into the club. It gets a little hairy when considering that issue, because many authors are both readers and writers and a few are reviewers. I think that everyone can agree that Reviews are extremely important to the author, good, bad or ugly. I suppose any review is better than no reviews. Although Amazon has affected the old adage that bad press is better than no press, because their ranking formula somehow factors the review ratings into the rank and ranking matters a lot, which is why I think this is always such a hot topic.

This line of conversation took me on a new tangent. I vaguely recalled Oprah Winfrey’s book club and I wanted to find out whether she ever discussed cons to the books she’d chosen. I never remembered her doing that. What I found is that she did indeed highlight the positive and invited the author to speak about their book. I never found evidence of her talking about dislikes.

If I had the technical expertise to start a Facebook book club, I think I’d want to model it after Oprah Winfrey’s, and my rules would be simple: The readers can only talk about what they liked or loved about the book and why. Now I know this will automatically eliminate a fair number of people, but I’d like to think that this type of club would serve my primary purpose for leaving reviews- to uplift those authors and have them continue to write. I am after all a reader first and I need my addiction. So who is with me? I’ll call it, Annette Mori’s Perfectly Positive Beautiful Book Club, where all books have inner beauty, just open the cover to find it.

I suspect as was evident in the thread there were passionate views about providing negative reviews publicly or not. Similar to firmly ingrained politics (yes, it doesn’t matter what is said in the debates or on the campaign trail, I know who I’m voting for), I don’t believe anyone’s perspective was swayed in a different direction…and that is okay. The thread was interesting and the dialogue respectful (as it should be).

I promised on my Facebook page to share a few more interesting facts I found in my research and then I swear this long boring blog is almost done:

• Reviews began in 1665 in the Parisian Journal des Scavans for the purpose of documenting findings, discoveries and inventions in the world of biology and technology.

• The first official “book review” as titled in a headline occurred in 1861, however I found other book reviews much earlier than that.

Coincidentally (no really it wasn’t a calculated question to cleverly market my new book), my book that comes out tomorrow is called, The Review. Here is the excerpt of the review written for the contest offered by the author:

Silver Lining’s latest book, Resurrection, has a depth of emotion that brings the reader to tears. When a book can do that for me, the author has reached the pinnacle of greatness. This isn’t Silver’s normal storyline, nor is it typical for this genre, but it is by far her best work and something no reader who enjoys Silver’s books should miss. I felt the anguish and despair of Angela, the main character, as Silver brilliantly brought the reader into her world. Although this was a world of pain, grief, and at times despondency, Silver left me with the feeling that in the end Angela was finally on a path of rebirth. A rebirth into a world where love could be just around the corner. This is a story that needed to be told, and that is evident in her words.

If you want to read the whole book, or any of my earlier works, you know the drill….click the links below.

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Covers and More…

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve participated in threads on covers, editing your work, overused descriptions, and the perception that writers need to apologize for not meeting every single reader’s unique taste in fiction.

Personally, I love the dialogue. I think it stems from my upbringing and the encouragement of healthy debate at the dinner table. I enjoy reading the different viewpoints and yet, I don’t ever want a writer to feel like they cannot do what they love…write.

Writing is a passion for us and some writers are more talented with character development, others with plot, some compose witty and engaging dialogue, and a few can write such a steamy sex scene that may cause dew in our pants (is that an overused descriptor?).  I can’t really comment on the technical competence of any particular writer unless they do their own editing work, which is rarely recommended, and yet on occasion necessary due to lack of funds. My point…yes I’ll get to it…is that it is a rare individual who can accomplish expertise in all of these areas, including a stunning cover that will entice most everyone to hit that 1-click button on Amazon.

How about one of these covers for my next book….because when I went created these covers, they left me breathless, and I wanted them too reach the depths of you’re sole. Of course there is no beach scene in the book, but theirs a water park…does that count?  Oh and for those of you who don’t understand evil sarcasm…I just couldn’t help myself….sorry. Just kidding none of those covers are what Nancy designed.

I tend to make fun of everything. I am that writer who most definitely violates grammar rules, doesn’t have the first clue about what an appealing cover is (I leave that to my wonderful cover artist), and will most likely continue to use the occasional cheesy overwritten cliche, because I kinda like some of them.

In the beginning, I wanted to try to please everyone. I wanted to continue to hone my craft. Yes, I’ll still listen to feedback because it truly is a gift, but I won’t apologize for imperfection because that is who we all are – imperfect people attempting to reach a reader and make a positive impact on their lives. Writers, I implore you to not take things too seriously and continue to produce those imperfect creations that I adore reading.

Really, I ain’t kidding. I loves to read. So keeps um comin. Te he he…

I promise you won’t receive any criticism from me. I know how hard it is to produce the finished product. I read this blog out loud and decided to keep it exactly the way I wrote it. And another thing, I like the … it does not bother my eyes in the least.

If you want to read my imperfect work…you know the drill…click the links below.By the way the real cover for my book coming out on October 1st is the first cover below.

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Adaptabiliy and Humor

What the heck?  What do adaptability and humor have in common? Over the past two days I’ve been embroiled in the opportunity to learn and network with my colleagues in the healthcare human resources profession. It’s a great group of people because despite the normal perception of human resource professionals, when you get us away from our organizations all the rules and stuffiness go right down the toilet. I’m even more unconvetional (go figure) because I don’t need to leave the workplace to lose my stuffiness.

The first part of the conference was a session on the best selling book, Streghtfinder. I took the test to find out what my strengths are (thank God the test didn’t reveal my weaknesses or you would still be reading this blog well into the night or given up hours ago) and at the top of the list was adaptability.

In the adaptability description, there are words like unflappable, easy-going, go with the flow. In order to maximize my strength the handy dandy book says I have to stop responding to every whim to accommodate people. That got me to thinking about a recent thread that identified all the overused phrases for writers to avoid.

Of course my temptation was to scour my current work in progress for any of the phrases identified and then make sure neither main character had blue or green eyes (also overused). Furthermore, I needed to stop using physical descriptions as sentence starters, such as the Raven-haired beauty….Of course, I also needed to eliminate too many uses of the character’s name, she, or her. I wanted to ask those that gave these suggestions, how do you possibly identify who is doing what to whom? Don’t people want to know whose finger made their way into….oh never mind.  Now I know I am exaggerating, but the point is that when I try to please everyone, I please no-one. Adaptability should not mean changing and tweaking to the point that the book is no longer any resemblance to my original vision. Side note: Full confession here…while searching for a funny graphic for cliché I came across the picture below and I have to say that this is not something you would typically see in a lesfic novel… so I’m going to have to find a way to weave it into a book somewhere! Doesn’t this just say romance you?

The second day of the conference focused on humor and the importance of that in our lives. The speaker recommended surrounding yourself with funny people. I wholeheartedly agree, which is why I love my wife. She makes me laugh. It is also why I hang out on Facebook so much. There are some very funny posts and people on Facebook. I get at least one laugh out loud moment every time I go to Facebook.

If there was one strength I wish I possessed it would be the ability to write humor. I’ve been told that there are laugh out loud moments in my books, but they weren’t really intentional and I don’t think any of my books could be considered humor. Yet, I am always delighted to hear when someone found a passage funny because I do believe in the power of humor.

I think my wife would say she is not a funny person by nature, but I believe that the moments that are the most humorous are those zingers that sneak in and catch our funny bones just right. She is a master at those. Every time I go to a conference, the first question I am asked is, where is Jody? That’s my wife. She is the life of the party and stays later than I do at the mandatory fun events in the evenings. Everyone loves my wife. I’m sure there will be a collective groan when I decide to retire because they won’t miss my presence at these events, they’ll miss my wife’s. She keeps us all healthy with her humor.

If you want to find those passages in my books where I managed to accidentally write something humorous…you know the drill…click one of the links below.

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Romancing the Reader…

Over the past couple of days I’ve been contributing to two different threads about a familiar topic, lesbian fiction and the subtle or not so subtle pressure to make everything about romance or love. We hear it all the time from publishers, speakers, and the actual research data that Michelle Hagans so generously shared with us (thanks I grabbed the slide). Romance is Queen. The drumbeat is so repetitive; it feels like a tired politician’s slogan.

Every time this thread rears its ugly head, readers come out of the woodwork insisting they want something other than the formula or they insist they prefer paranormal, mystery, fantasy, general fiction, or sci fi over traditional romance. I wonder why all these readers don’t tip the scales? It is easy to say, just go ahead and write what you want, but if the publishers won’t publish it and no-one will read it, what’s the point. Writers will say they don’t care, but I call bullshit and not for the reasons you think. I honestly don’t believe most writers care all that much about the money, but they do care about readership. They want to know that they’ve somehow made an impact and you can’t make an impact if no-one reads your work.

In the threads we took a side trail regarding the fact that even when an author writes a sci fi, paranormal, crime, etc. novel there is the pressure to add a love story, even if it doesn’t fit. I had to think very hard to find any lesfic novel in any subgenre that didn’t have some love story or hint of a love story. Someone mentioned the great Katherine Forrest and her Kate Delafield detective novels and nope I distinctly remember a love story in those. Granted the person who caught Kate’s eye changed throughout the series, but in the end one character prevailed and made it into several of the latter books. I challenge you, the reader, to come up with ten lesbian fiction novels that had absolutely no love story at all. Here’s the rules:  if there is even a hint at love, attraction, or the two possibly coming together in a later novel, that one doesn’t count just because the couple did not consummate their love.  I can only think of two:  E  Runyun’s, A House of Light and Stone and AC Henley and Fran Heckrotte’s, Rapture: Sins of the Sinners.  Pathetic that out of all the lesfic books I’ve read I can’t come up with ten.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I love a good romance. I don’t even care if it’s formulaic. The book can even have all the cheesy lines like: she took my breath away, her touch was electric, I could see her pupils dilate in arousal, she licked or sucked, or brushed her fingers on my lips, or clit, or breasts, etc. etc. etc. Oh I feel like Yul Brynner in the King and I. 

That was the third really fun thread I was involved in this past week – Overused phrases we hate to see in a lesfic romance. Let me just take a mini side trip and post my satirical view of this that I coincidentally wrote before the long thread on this topic: 

It had been three years since Lyric had made love with any woman and then it seemed almost mechanical to her. Part A, her middle finger, goes into part B, her partner’s vagina and move is around a bit while part C lubricates the clitoris. Lyric nearly burst out laughing as her mind took this mini journey, but whatever Sawyer was doing to her suddenly garnered all her attention and her arousal went into the stratosphere. She no longer had any coherent thoughts other than, oh God please don’t stop what you’re doing.

Let me be clear I want to continue to read bushels of lesbian romance, but it is not the only kind of books I desire reading and I don’t require that the writer ensure a romance is attached. Just saying. However, if the readers truly want those break the rules choices, you have to feed the beast. Feed the rule breakers by buying their books and recommending them to fellow readers. Who are your favorite rule breakers and out of the norm books?

Speaking of rule breakers…can we also have some characters who aren’t the typical age range, handsome, gorgeous, with toned bodies. How about some 70-year-old women whose boobs hang down to their knees and stomachs protrude enough that they can see their weight gain over the years. After all, how are you going to watch your weight if you can’t see it?

I’ve not nearly been enough of a rule breaker yet, but I have danced along the edges and if you want to see how I’ve done that in my books, well….you know the drill…click the links below!

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Writer’s Distractions

As I cogitated (Gosh I love that word) over what I would explore as my topic for my weekly blog, I became increasingly distracted by ironically the idea of writer distractions. I’d had a fair number of them over the past week.

Originally, I wanted to talk about the question that came forth on The Therapy Café run by Darla Baker and KA Moll, because I was obsessed by their answers.  Darla assured me they would talk about this in a future episode. However, the real reason I decided I might not want to talk about that is the picture of my wife’s raised eyebrows when she got around to reading my blog. Sometimes she just shakes her head about my lack of any kind of filter.

The question for all your inquiring minds was, and I’m paraphrasing here, Should you have sex on the first date. I heard two no’s and one maybe and then I believe Darla might have changed her maybe (there was a lot of laughter and merriment going on so it was hard to distinguish).

Anyway…back to the new topic. I guess I got distracted again.  Big surprise. So here’s the deal. Although I do experience Writer’s Block on occasion, a much larger issue for me is what I call Writer’s Distraction. I can’t decide if Facebook has been a good or bad thing for writers. I know I’m not the only one who spends hours each night posting on their page, sharing posts, responding to posts and answering private messages. Wait…hang on…gotta answer that private message…damn just another, Hey Beautiful, from a creepy man from across the globe who I’ll block as soon as I finish this blog (a little tongue in cheek humor-see previous Facebook posts on this topic).

See, I can’t help it. When I hear the ding, I’m like one of Pavlov’s dogs; I stop what I’m doing and answer. This has seriously affected my writing of late. Instead of writing my one thousand words each night (a lofty goal I’ve completely abandoned of late), I hang out on Facebook. I’m addicted and I love it. Sometimes the chatter is so damn entertaining, I can’t break myself away. Other times the dialogue is just really interesting and again I can’t help joining in. So what’s a writer to do?

An ex of mine used to work at a women’s retreat center for writers on Whidbey Island called, Hedgebrook (Google it – a very cool place). It is set in an idyllic location with beauty everywhere… a very peaceful place with cozy cabins. Each writer spends the day alone writing and then they all come together for dinner and I suspect a bit of lively face to face conversation with like-minded individuals. I don’t think they have access to wireless so no computer generated dialogue.  I’ve wondered if I should apply, so it forces me to avoid distractions, but on the other hand, sometimes I get my best ideas hanging out on Facebook and chatting with others.

I think the real answer of whether Facebook and social media has been a good or bad thing for writers is, that it depends. On the one hand, I am sure that without Facebook not many people would have found me or my writing, on the other hand, I admittedly have taken to Facebook like a duck to water and I never want to get out of the pond.  I guess life is all about balance and I believe I don’t have that figured out yet.  I only know that I am overbalanced at this point and something has to give.  Unless…I lower my expectations about how many books I can realistically write in one year. More books means less Facebook interactions and I might miss all those wonderful conversations with other readers and writers. What to do….what to do? Any advice or suggestions?

If you want to check out what I have been able to publish before the addiction took hold…you know the drill click on the links below. Peace out, my Facebook friends…I’m off to try to write a thousand words. Recovery starts with one day at a time.

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Why Do I Write?

Why do I write? I posed that question to myself a few days ago (yes I talk to myself all the time – don’t judge) after posting a very short and apparently very shocking teaser. As I re-read the teaser, which was nestled between two other less shocking scenes, I had to gasp at what I’d written. It was intended to provide a bit of background for a character’s future motivation and the essence of who she had evolved into. I chastised myself because if I’d read that passage without warning and out of context, I too would have felt a considerable amount of discomfort. This experience got me to thinking about why I spend a great deal of my free time writing. It’s a hard question to answer and honestly I’m not even sure I’ve dug deep enough to provide the naked answer, but I’m going to try.

Before I head down that path, I want to share something I learned a few years ago. There is a concept called, The Johari Window. In one quadrant there are all the things we know about ourselves and others know about us as well. For example, I am a writer and am married to a beautiful woman. Completely open area. In another quadrant there are the things you know about yourself, but are completely hidden to others. I’m a sex addict (oh just kidding, I’ll never tell my deep dark sex secrets….). The Façade. The greatest opportunity for growth is in the third quadrant that I call, The Blind Spot. This is the area where things are known and apparent to others, but you yourself are completely oblivious. You tell me what those things are….please, pretty please because I want to grow. The final quadrant is where it gets really interesting. I call this quadrant, The Vortex. This is the place where everything is a mystery. I have a sneaking suspicion that’s where my true motivation for writing resides, all fat and happy in The Vortex. However, I decided I would at least attempt to analyze my motivation for writing.

I started out writing when I moved and my wife and I lived apart during the week and only saw each other on weekends. Quite simply, I was bored. A person with a combination ADHD and OCD should never be bored…it’s dangerous.

When my first story was accepted for publication, I continued to write because it was fun and I had a lot of ideas bouncing around my warped brain. My motivation was evolving. By the time I started my third novel, I started to shift to wanting to do more than simply entertain people.

I have a master’s degree in counseling education and the most rewarding work I engaged in prior to writing was as a college professor. At my core, I am an educator, thus the reason for sharing my background. On a side note college professors do not rake in the dough, thus, similar to writing, I’ve always had a day job as something else and teaching was always what I did in the evenings for the pure joy of it.

I digress (remember the ADHD)…back to why I write. By my fourth novel, Locked Inside, I started to have a compulsion to write about topics that cause people to think and yet still retain that underlying foundation of romance and love. Whatever I choose to write about, it has to contain a love story, but I wanted to also generate meaningful discussion.

My favorite theme to meaningfully discuss is the concept of beauty and it’s companion…the unique gifts that women bring to the table. Sometimes those gifts are not readily apparent or the woman works hard at hiding them. Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that I write because not only do I wish to entertain, I want to touch people in a way that they may or may not have experienced before. Sometimes, at least I hope I’ve managed to hit the mark, other times I suspect I miss by a country mile.

So…if you’d like to take some accurate or wild guesses at why I write after experiencing one or all of my books…you know the drill…click on the links below! Maybe you will fill in that Blind Spot for me!

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When Ya Gonna Write About me?

 I like to take risks because the greater the risk, the greater the reward. At least that’s always been my experience…Of course the flip side of that is the risks that cause a budding career to go kerplop.

Readers and writers who have followed my posts and teasers know I have a very risky WIP that I’m currently tweaking to increase its marketability without losing sight of my original vision for the story. Although I’ve received some encouragement from my loyal betas and a few others, there are undoubtedly readers who will hate the story for the same reasons the marketing giants don’t use average looking (by society’s standards) plus size models. Books, like television, movies, and magazines are selling a fantasy that begins with a beautiful, intelligent, woman who is perfect is nearly every way with the exception of maybe one or two minor flaws.

We read romance to take us away from real life and imagine that the heroine, who is warm, funny, accomplished, and drop dead gorgeous will fall in love with the likes of us.  There is evidence regarding what does and does not sell well and publishers have to pay attention to this. An even more compelling argument is that authors who write about the common Josephine or characters that really cross the line of abnormality in the reader’s minds, will turn off so many readers, that they’ll never recover that shaky base (especially true for newer writers like myself).  I kinda hate the word abnormal and the traditional view of what is considered beautiful and appealing. I sneak in a PSA (public service announcement) every time I can in my books.

Recently, I’ve read an increasing number of posts or private messages that readers want to see books about someone like them, whether it is about a person of color, a person with a disability, or an old, fat, dyke (those are the exact words a reader used – I swear).

I do believe that I will be able to make enough adjustments to my first draft and it will see the light of day, because I’m like a dog with a bone – I’m not giving up on my new favorite child. In the meantime, I’ve written a short story I plan to submit that will hopefully make the cut. The story is a nod to the small groundswell asking for stories about someone like them. I’ll do my part, if you (the reader) meet the writers halfway and prove the publishers wrong. Vote with your pocketbooks and support that growing market for stories about women who don’t look like Zena or Gabrielle. Go dumpy, middle aged, women with mousy hair and unremarkable eyes.

If you want to read my PSAs on beauty…yup…you know the drill…click on the links below.

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I’m A Word Hoarder

Gasp! I’m a word hoarder. I recently came to that shocking realization when writing a story that I plan to submit for the 2017 GCLS fundraiser. I’ve been open and honest about my OCD (or rather CDO) and also my hoarding tendencies during our major move from big house to small condo, but this was a brand new flaw that I am still trying to get used to.

So what does combining hoarding with OCD look like? I am a person who tinkers a lot with my works in progress. I tinker so much that for my first published books they assigned a final editor that had the job of fixing my book without any back and forth conversation.  Rightfully so, they gave me strict instructions to look through the final manuscript, learn from the changes, and ultimately approve it without any major re-writes. Sure I could veto anything I didn’t like, but even I wasn’t stupid enough to try to sneak in any major changes.

They have since loosened up a bit and I was shocked when the last editor involved me in the final editing process as much as when I am involved with beta editing. I almost longed for the past set-up, because it was a lot of work to be that immersed in the process!

Now….combine word hoarding to my propensity to tinker and the end product is a swollen bloated mess. I never want to delete any of the words I write. I only want to add to them.

Recently, I sent out the first draft of the short story for the fundraiser to my beta readers. Erroneously, I believed I was well within the word limit and marched along in my happy place, knowing I was going to add to the story after hearing back from my betas. One beta suggested I add a little transition to explain what happened to the ex, I happily obliged and she liked the new scene calling it, “perfect.”  She noted that not only did I fill in the gap, but I also gave more insight into the main character.  Another beta noted she wanted more about the experience at the GCLS con. I figured I had about another thousand words to expand on that so I remained gloriously ignorant eager to tinker some more.

I don’t know what possessed me to check the submission criteria, but I did and f&@kity f#%k f#%k, not only did I not have another thousand words to play with, I needed to cut a thousand words.

Well…let me tell you, that was painful. It was at this point the illumination happened…I am a word hoarder. I set about deleting unnecessary scenes or descriptors that might be redundant. I found a few I could delete without slicing a major artery. I hit the find button and typed in “that”…that (he he he) only gained me about thirty words. I kept looking at the word count and it kept mocking me. I started swearing at it. It didn’t respond other than to slowly reduce to nowhere near what I needed. Finally, I started highlighting big sections and then cringing when I punched the delete key. I was getting very close. The last thing I did was delete many of the markers that let the reader know who is speaking, because frankly it was obvious without the, she said. I believe the final two words deleted were, Jasmine said. I now have exactly 6,000 words which is the limit noted in the submission guidelines. Confession time – every bone in my body wants to take this story and make it at the very least a novella, because I am a word hoarder.

Editors help me hide this flaw, but if you want to see for yourself little of my malady…yup you know the drill…click on the links below which will take you to sites that enable you to buy my books! By the way, I obviously don’t have an editor for my blogs!

Affinity Author Page         Amazon Author Page

Randy Research

A running joke with fellow writers is wondering which “list” we’re on after conducting our internet searches as we research a variety of topics for our current works in progress.  Here are just a few of the items I’ve googled in the past that might raise a few eyebrows: Russian swear words (particularly bitch), how a silencer works, where can you inject a substance into a neck to get almost instantaneous results, can you really render someone unconscious with a well-placed karate chop, easiet gun for a woman to shoot, model of gun preferred by the FBI and my all-time favorite – the softest restraints + sex toys.

Sometimes, like last week, I typed in something that I believed was fairly innocuous and…OMG…a slew (yes I googled this and it was the preferred way to spell it over slough) of porn sites popped on my screen. I was reminded of my utter lack of education with anything on the remotely kinky side of sexual intimacy.

I’ve been very transparent about my Vanilla leanings and have deliberately taken steps, albeit baby steps, to seek more knowledge so I can write more enticing sex scenes. I suppose I still have a long way to go because when I typed in lesbian skeet shooter for a new story percolating in my head, I could not bring myself to click on those porn sites to see how what I typed could possibly elicit those results.

Shout out to Velvet Lounger who kindly stepped up to the plate or slid into it (he he he) and offered her assistance. After finding what I’d uncovered with my search (apparently you had to type it in in exactly the same order), she informed me and all the Facebook readers closely following the posts (degenerates-all of you) that it referred to in a two word nutshell – female ejaculation. So there you have it, your sex education lesson for today’s Vanilla lesbian.

I was surprised by the number of people who did not know what it might be, so I suppose, Vanilla or not, I am in good company.

Recently, I read something in Ali Spooner’s new book about a gadget that you can operate remotely. Yes, you too can give your partner pleasure from a distance with the push of a button. Wow, shut the front door, huh? I had to ask her if that was for real and she assured me it was. I won’t tell you if I purchased one or not, but I did thoroughly research my options and read every single review for the various brands.

Normally, I don’t read erotica, but when I got a PM from a fellow author who specializes in the genre, I thought what the hell, I should buy one of her books so I can support her writing and further my education. I found the book very enjoyable. This is a brand new sub-genre for me to explore (as if I don’t have enough reading materials). I wonder if I can write it off and consider it “research”. Maybe that goes for that egg I….oops just kidding….

Physical research is a whole new topic to explore in another blog. I still haven’t gotten a clear answer on whether I can write off all the pineapple I’ve been purchasing since I heard that urban legend. Don’t ask…because I’m not telling (my wife is gonna kill me).

If you want to see how I use what I find in my research…you know the drill…click one of the links below.  As a special treat I uploaded a video on my Amazon Author Page of my horrible speech at GCLS, so people can have a good laugh at my dorkiness.

Affinity Author Page         Amazon Author Page