Anne Calhoun's Blog, page 7

In Which Anne Forgets To Ask Her Husband If Writing Erotic Books Is OK

I’ve been doing this for a while now, and when I tell people what I write, one of the questions they frequently ask is “What does your husband think of that?” There are usually two subtexts under this question. One is “OMG you write TRASHY SMUT and your husband must not know because if he did HE’D PUT A STOP TO IT!” The other is, “Wow. Your husband must be One Happy Man.”

Cue the eye roll.

My flippant answer to either subtext is “I didn’t ask him.” If I’d decided to write literary fiction, in which a tiger and a man discuss the meaning of life while adrift in a boat on the ocean, no one would ask me that question. If I’d decided to write essays or short stories targeted for The New Yorker, no one would ask that question. But throw a little (okay, quite a bit) of sex and an extra player or two into the mix and people get…twitchy.

It’s kind of amusing.

The truth is that my husband’s been urging me to write romance for almost the entire duration of our marriage (coming up on 19 years) because he loves me and he knew I wanted to do this before I admitted it to myself. He admires the covers (and makes soothing noises about the less attractive ones). He helps me brainstorm on date nights. He consoles me through rejections. My writing time takes priority in our house. It doesn’t make any difference to him that I might be writing a scene involving a firefighter, a widow, and an EMT, all naked and naughty. I’m writing. I’m a writer. It’s what I do, who I am. He doesn’t judge the content of my subconscious.

As for the One Happy Man…yeah, it’s totally handcuffs and riding crops and “one night of passion that changes everything” around here because I’m totally taking the most intimate moments of our married life, fictionalizing them, and selling them on the internet for money.

Sarcasm aside, we did discuss the consequences, especially when it appeared I could make a career of this. I’m not in my life alone. We have a child. People are mostly supportive and kind, but occasionally stupid and cruel. These are not good reasons to reject a desire and a talent, however modest.

The third subtext to the question “What does your husband think about this?” is a genuine, gentle curiosity, untainted by OMGSMUTSMUTSMUT or a rather lurid inquisitiveness. In those cases, I tell the truth.

He thinks it’s awesome.

Random Favorite Quote

Every so often I read something in a book written by someone else that clarifies my own thinking on what I write. One paragraph from Lois McMaster Bujold’s Komarr, does exactly that. The book is a mystery and a sci-fi adventure, but it’s also a long, detailed, brillant setup of the woman the intrepid Miles Vorkosigan is going to woo and win in A Civil Campaign (one of my favorite books of all time). Miles has many, many faults, all of Darcy’s pride packed into a malformed body, and Ekaterin’s now-dead husband, Tien, was socially conservative and fiscally heedless. She’s attracted to Miles but deathly afraid of being stifled again. In a really brilliant scene, Ekaterin asks about Miles’ past lovers, a telling question to ask any man.

Miles goes on to give a really charming, funny account of Elena, Taura, Elli, et al, and in each case he starts which who they were when he met them, and who they are now. In every case the woman has grown, changed, stretched into someone truly spectacular. Jumpship captain. Admiral. Surgeon. Empress.

To Ekaterin this is pure, cool water in the desert:

“Tien had protected her proudly, she reflected, in the little Vor-lady fortress of her household. Tien had spent a decade protecting her so hard, especially from anything resembling growth, she’d felt scarcely larger at thirty than she’d been at twenty. Whatever it was Vorkosigan had offered to this extraordinary list of lovers, it hadn’t been protection.”

Yes. Exactly.

In Which Anne Gives Up Sugar

…for a very brief time.

Let’s start over.

Hi. I’m Anne and I’m a sugar addict.

While I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, like all joking there’s an element of truth to the humor. I won’t say chocolate runs my life, but I will admit to cravings that pop up at the same time every day. The line between “dessert is one of the food groups” and addiction is thinning, rapidly. I’m also curious to test the assertions that avoiding sugar evens out the daily highs and lows, and improves sleep. So this is both a fast, and a not-quite-double-blind-controlled-study. Just one woman, and her demons, with a fridge full of raw cookie dough (thanks, Mr. C. for playing The Adversary for the next two weeks).

How am I doing so far, on Day 4? I’m a cranky bitch. Thanks for asking. I’m also a little dismayed at how badly I crave a treat after lunch, or a mid-afternoon treat, or dessert after dinner. But what I learned yesterday is that what I attributed to a post-chocolate-covered-grahams crash is actually a post-lots-of-time-with-people crash. (A good friend calls this an “interactive hangover”.) Maybe higher levels of sugar in my blood makes it harder for me to discern what’s good for me and what isn’t.

Because challenges are more fun with rewards at the end, it’s also a giveaway!

My goal is to fast from sugar until my birthday, which is just a couple of weeks away. I started the fast on Monday, August 26 ; other commitments kept me from blogging about it until now but I’m going public with the challenge. Post on any of the blog updates about The Torturous Sugar Fast of 2012 and you’re automatically entered to win your choice from my backlist. Tell me about your favorite desserts. Say something encouraging, or supportive, or even “you are CRAZY, not that I’m judging” and you’re in.

What’s in this for me? If I get through three weeks without sugar, I’ve promised myself I can make our family birthday cake, which is a triple-layer chocolate cake with whipped cream between the layers and chocolate icing. Made from scratch. I counted up the calories in this cake and stopped when I got to 10,000. It’s a towering mass of sugar-sweet delicious, and a great way to celebrate turning…well…older than I am. I might lapse into a sugar coma after three weeks without, but I’ll take that risk.

Stay tuned for daily updates. Let’s hope the cranky bitch is replaced by someone of beatific serenity, or I might end up celebrating my birthday alone.

And the winners are…

Laura, Chris Bails, and @NancyHolland5 from the twitter side of the contest! Please email me your addresses and I’ll mail your copies today in the hopes they arrive for a great long weekend of reading. anne at annecalhoun dot com, with the usual substitutes

Thanks for entering!

Mira Lyn Kelly Giveaway!

Labor Day weekend’s coming up, which means you need extra reading material. Lucky for you I’ve got books to give away! Never Stay Past Midnight is Mira Lyn Kelly’s latest Harlequin Presents Extra release and it’s AWESOME. I love Mira Lyn’s voice, so fresh and sharp, with a great twist on the typical Presents storyline and characters. See below…

 

“You are so wrong for me.”

Levi had to agree—he was. He was leaving Chicago in a few short weeks. He didn’t do commitment—ever. But everything about this night, this girl, was so good. So right. Until at 11:59 p.m. she got out of his bed, got dressed and left!

What had he done? Things had hardly started and she was off! Yet he was bored with simpering women he couldn’t get rid of. Elise was a breath of fresh air. How was he going to find her…and get her back in his bed—for the whole night this time? It seemed Mr. Levi-and-Leave-Them might have found the one woman to leave him begging for more.…

Jane at Dear Author gave this book a B+ review.  I’ve got 3 copies to give away. Just post a comment and you’re entered, or you can enter on Twitter with the #miralynrocks hashtag. Contest ends tonight after I take Small Boy to Tae Kwon Do, so somewhere in the 9-ish range? I’ll post winners late tonight or tomorrow, so check back!

 

In Which Anne Makes A Knitting Analogy

Starting a new knitting project takes a fair bit of concentration, especially when the project involves new-to-me techniques. After I finished my niece’s baby sweater, I wanted to start on a similar sweater for me but had to order needles. In the meantime I started another baby sweater knitted entirely in garter stitch. Very simple. Good for brainstorming and thinking through book problems. Busy hands free up the subconscious to send up ideas, if not answers. Sometimes I get snippets of dialogue. Washing dishes has the same effect.

The second project I started was a maybe for me. It’s Lucy Neatby’s Sea Lettuce scarf. When I travel I like to buy yarn and patterns from local shops featuring local designers and fiber artists. Some people buy snow globes. I buy yarn. In Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia I got a skein of Handmaiden sock yarn and Lucy’s pattern. Despite the pattern picture, which looks like the test knitter used leftover baby sweater yarn (so pink! so blue!) I took a chance on a “spiraling, frilly, short-row extravaganza”.

Just because I buy a pattern or yarn doesn’t mean I’ll finish the project. Sometimes you get into the pattern and you hate a) the work involved b) the way the yarn looks as you knit it or c) both. Here’s the Sea Lettuce scarf:

Sea Lettuce scarf

When I finished the setup wedges I stopped to consider whether or not I wanted to continue or if I’d turn the yarn into socks instead. Good news: I like the way the short-row extravaganza’s turning out. The colors are dark enough for fall/winter, which is when I’m most likely to wear it, but that little splash of electric blue would work well in the spring and summer, too. It’s an interesting knit, with colors changing within the rows and enough complexity to keep my attention but not stressed about working on it.

I do the same thing when I get an idea for a story. I work with it a little, knit up a swatch, so to speak, and then step back and think about it. Do these characters have enough color and complexity to keep me (and readers!) interested? How are they coming together? Good tension? What about secondary characters and subplots? Sometimes you’ve got to rip back rows you’ve already knit; sometimes in writing you throw out whole scenes, whole subplots, whole characters. Sometimes you need a break from a project in either medium.

Keep working. Keep a project with you at all times and knit a few rows in your down time. Do the same with a notebook or voice recorder, and your book will move along, too. Books, like sweaters (or spiraling, frilly, short-row extravaganzas) take time and perseverance. The end result, however, whether the perfect, soft scarf to wear with jeans and a white T or a book you’re proud of and can’t wait to share, is well worth the effort.

Baby Sweater on the Cutest Baby Ever!

I’m what’s known in the industry as an unreliable narrator.

This is actually my son’s stuffed dinosaur wearing Elizabeth Zimmerman’s February Baby Sweater. My niece is due to arrive very soon, so I’m glad I finished it on vacation.

Rexy wears this very reluctantly, I can assure you.

 

He’s all boy-dino, and I nearly lost fingers to those sharp teeth when I dressed him, but in return for raw meat he acquiesced and let me take the picture.

Guest Post: Beth Kery “Because” + Giveaway

The Serial Novel, Another Reader Choice

by Beth Kery

When I was first asked by Berkley to write a serial novel, I was a bit dubious. Wouldn’t people be upset that they weren’t offered the book all at once? As I began the intensive, unique process of writing this book, however, I realized that the serialization process doesn’t limit readers’ choice. It increases it.

Because You Are Mine is one novel—Francesca and Ian’s steamy, addictive romance. Each “Part” consists of two hefty chapters and releases every Tuesday starting July 31st for 8 weeks.

People have busy lives. There are those who will appreciate the idea of consuming a book like they would a television episode. I like the idea of the element of time being more controlled, so that the ‘episode’ can be talked about simultaneously, using social media and other pathways, giving the romance community and readers something immediate to share.  I know I’m often telling my husband that I can’t ‘commit to a movie’ at the moment, but how about a television show? I think some people feel the same way about a novella or serial versus a full novel.

The nice thing about it is, voracious readers who consume an entire novel in hours aren’t left out of this experience, by any means. People demand availability of choices in this day and age, and this publishing model offers that. For readers who insist they must have the book all at once, there’s always the option of waiting until the book is fully out and available. There was a lot of behind the scene work that went on to get this book to the public so quickly. For my part, I worked my butt off, although it was totally a blast to be so submersed in the writing/editing process. Keep in mind, if Because You Are Mine had been done under the traditional publishing model, readers wouldn’t put eyes to it until next winter, at the earliest, probably not until spring of 2013. The publisher allotted a huge amount of energy and resources to make these extra choices possible to readers.

But aside from the unique release of the book, it’s Francesca and Ian’s story that I’m so excited about. I like to describe it as a little bit Cinderella, Pretty Woman and Fifty Shades of Grey, and a lot Beth Kery. I hope you’ll take the journey with Ian and Francesca in whatever way you choose, and have as much fun reading this sexy romance as I had writing it.

Thank you for having me here!

Beth

Readers: you can find more about Beth and her best-selling, hot books at her website:

www.BethKery.com

Follow these links to the first two installments of the Because series. Part two is out today!

Because You Are Mine Part I: Because You Tempt Me

http://www.amazon.com/Because-You-Mine-Part-ebook/dp/B008JHXOKY/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

Because You Are Mine Part II: Because I Could Not Resist

http://www.amazon.com/Because-You-Mine-Part-ebook/dp/B008JHXUTO/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

Beth’s gifting a copy of the first installment Because You Are Mine to one lucky person who comments!

Backlist Glom

Alison Kent recommended thriller writer Karin Slaughter‘s Fallen just before I left for vacation. Once I realized it was a series, and a freakin’ good one, I borrowed the first two from the library, then picked up a couple to read on vacation. Once I realized the Will Trent series was connected to her previous Grant County series, I had to read those, too. Which lead to this picture of the first page of my Kindle.

This list extends into the 2nd page…a total backlist glom. I’m reading Beyond Reach now, but slowly, after inhaling Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn yesterday. I know what happens at the end of Beyond Reach (no surprise to anyone who started a Slaughter-fest with the Will Trent series) so I’m ready slowly. Despite the characters’ glaring flaws, I’ve come to love them. Happiness, like justice, is a difficult thing to quantify. These books don’t end with everything all right for everyone. They end with some characters a little better off than they were, and others a little worse, still others dead. I’ve absolutely loved the ride.

What’s on your Kindle?

50 Shades of Puns

The Tall Ships were in Halifax while we were visiting, so we took Small Boy down to the harbor to see the big wooden boats (and ride the zip line). $5 got a ticket to tour all the ships. We saw the US Coast Guard barque Eagle, the movie version of the Amistad, the movie version of the Bounty, and a few other neat ships. Then we got ice cream at Cows, an ice cream shop headquartered in PEI. The ice cream was good, served in waffle cones made right in front of us, but even better was the merchandise. T-shirts galore, all featuring silly and/or clever puns on pop culture. Some examples:

Cow of Duty: Moodern Warfare

Farmbook

Mootube

Angry Herds

And then there was this one:

50 Shades of Hay

I didn’t buy it.