Daisy Harris's Blog, page 36

Because I Am Awesome…

This! This is the book of awesome!

I'm pretty full of myself today. Why? Because RTBookreviews reviewed LUST AFTER DEATH and gave it four stars!! Don't wanna click through to read? Here's a snippet…

Those looking for a dark, spicy and different sort of paranormal tale will not want to miss this!

Oh yeah, baybee! Dark, spicy and different!! (As opposed to morbid, smutty and weird.) I don't plan to come down from this high for a long, long while. Though I promise—I'll use the crack for the forces of good. Namely, to get Love-Bots, book 3: Built4 It written as fast as possible.

It's a tough thing as an author to maintain confidence. And oddly enough, positive reviews and reader acclaim only go so far. The problem with positive feedback is that there's never really enough of it to stop self-doubt from creeping in the back door. (And not in a hot, sexy way.) The hardest part for me about truly wonderful moments—like getting an awesome review or a gushing email from a fan—is that I dismiss the elation too fast. Never one to rest on my laurels, I toss said laurels into a trunk somewhere and literally forget that I ever earned them.

So I'm working on enjoying my laurels more. For example, I've taken to taping certificates and awards on my wall. (Okay fine, only one. But that's all I could find in the 5 mins it took to come up with this idea.) There's an award certificate floating around somewhere for Mere Passion too, but I need to find it. And I really should find and dust off my college graduation thingy. Heck… I won an award back in college for chemistry. I should find that! Get around to framing it 20 years later.

There's nothing quite like a visual depiction of one's awesomeness to remind one of the fabulousness of themselves. I'm all about the visual depictions lately—as evidenced by my brainstorming wall of fantastic for Built4 It. On the one hand, having a giant mind-map of my work-in-progress on my wall is a little dream-inducing, it also gets a fire under my butt to write like the wind. The sooner I finish a draft of Built4, the sooner I can take down the Wall of Doom and start a new Wall of Doom for my next book.

So yeah—if you rock (and I'm sure you do!) flaunt it! Bang your own gong, toot your own horn, plaster your achievements on your wall or screen saver, or forehead. Tell anyone who'll listen. Bask in your awesomeness for a while. And then get your ass back to work.

What was your last proud moment? Did you celebrate and boast? Or did you smile quietly? (Or worse, minimize the achievement in your mind?)

Sunday Six: Studenstein

This week's six come from my upcoming release, Studenstein. It's the sequel to Lust After Death and should be out sometime in September.

* * * * *

He stretched out on the bed, not bothering to hide his nudity. Some lifers, he'd heard, felt awkward naked if they weren't hard, but Royce didn't have that problem. He arched his arms behind his head. "And if you don't mind my saying so, you seem like you could use a good, hard nut."

Shani grabbed some sweats out of a drawer and threw them at his head. "Put some clothes on!"

SOMETHING TO GET YOUR TEETH INTO—Guest Post with Scarlett Parrish!!

Hurr hurr – did you see whut ah did thur? Teeth? And this is a post about vampires! *sigh* I give in.

Okay, so when I first had the idea of writing a vampire novel, I was eighteen years old and many moons away from discovering my calling as a smut-peddler. I may not yet have realised my full, perverted potential, but I'd read many a vampire novel and still indulge today.

I first read Bram Stoker's Dracula when I was seven years old (yes, really) and it sparked a lifelong fascination with the undead. Being allowed to stay up late to watch Hammer Horror films also had something to do with it. In my teens I discovered Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire and also read The Vampire Lestat. I didn't get any further along in the series because TVL took me so long to get through I envisioned spending months on subsequent novels.

But by far the best (in my not-so-humble opinion) vampire novels are Freda Warrington's A Taste of Blood Wine, A Dance in Blood Velvet and The Dark Blood of Poppies. Sadly, they're out of print in the UK now, but you might be able to get second-hand copies on Amazon or eBay.

What makes them different is Warrington's use of something called the Crystal Ring, a dimension vampires can step into which is parallel to ours, from which they can view our world. However, we would not be able to view it, so to ordinary human beings, when a vampire slips into the Crystal Ring, it's as if they've vanished, become invisible in an instant. While in the Crystal Ring, vampires can travel at speed to any other location on earth, but they can't gain access to it while weakened, say, by hunger/thirst or blood loss.

I really do recommend seeking out copies of these three books if you can. They're set during Edwardian times and utterly delicious. Full of lust, longing and fangs. What more could you ask for?

In the meantime, you could always try a little something I wrote, called A Little Death. *cough*

So, commenters – what are your favourite vampire novels and movies?

# # #

Scarlett Parrish lives in the U.K. in the small corner of her flat not currently overrun by books. She can often be found drooling over James Purefoy or searching for the perfect chocolate bar. She believes most fleshpeoples (except James) are evil and much prefers the characters in her head. On the occasions she ventures out, Scarlett is always accompanied by her BONER—Black Omnipresent Notebook of Erotic Romance. One never knows when inspiration will strike. Sometimes she'll visit the cinema, alone but for the aforementioned characters. Another favourite pastime is listening to 30 Seconds to Mars and thinking about Shannon Leto's tattoos. A chronic insomniac, she writes most of her dirty books in the middle of the night and loves to keep her e-reader stocked with erotic romance to occupy her down time.

# # #

Seeing dead people is all very well…unless one of them wants to kill you.

To Mallory Sharpe, vampires are a fact of life. They exist, walk the streets, and for the most part mind their own business. As a second-year university student, she doesn't pay the undead much attention until she meets Jonathan Cutler. He has needs, and blood is only one. The other, Mallory is more than willing to help him with. After all, he has but one rule: to never spend more than one night with a woman. He won't get attached, or consciously put anyone's life in danger.

Another vampire, Cian Ambrose, isn't so troubled by conscience. Mallory's fair game, a weapon to taunt Jonathan with. In fact, it might be fun to make her his grail, or living blood donor, and Cian Ambrose doesn't take kindly to the word no. He hasn't heard it often in his one hundred and fifty years and it usually results in the other person ending up dead.

So with Mallory's tolerance for undead guys running very low, Jonathan has to re-gain her trust, stop Cian killing her, oh…and for God's sake, not fall in love.

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content and graphic language.

###

Author blog: http://scarlettparrish.blogspot.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/scarlettparrish

Buy A Little Death here: http://www.loose-id.com/A-Little-Death.aspx

Sunday Six: LUST AFTER DEATH

This week's six comes from my latest release, LUST AFTER DEATH.

*****

Behind her, she heard Bane fall to his knees. The scratchy hairs of his thighs touched the insides of her legs, and Josie tilted her pelvis higher, in a move so profane it felt sacred.

"We don't have to do it like this." Bane's voice was thick with lust.

Josie looked over her shoulder. "I want to."

*****

Want more? Buy it now at Ellora's Cave. (Or wherever fine smut is sold!_

Care and Feeding of a Muse

Each person's muse is different. Some are like a reservoir in a drought-ridden country, and require time to fill. Some folks have muses that seem to grow stronger the harder they work them. Some muses are seasonal, only working at certain times of the year (or the month.) My muse is like a firefly with ADD—a million ideas all the time, but not always the strength or calm to carry them through.

For writers, the challenge is to work with the muse you've got. It can be hard—we all want the hardworking muses, or the ones who respond eagerly to writing programs and publishing deadlines. It's easy to envy those whose imagination flows easily into stories without time for plotting or rewriting.

Much as I'd like a straightforward, linear muse, I've decided to love the muse I've got. And in doing so, I'm working on ways to harness the firefly. No matter what I do, I seem to turn out a story every 2–3 months. So clearly my muse is doing something right. I just wish I trusted her more, that I could rely on her. That I could know when the words I wrote would be words I'd keep. At least more than 50% of the time.

So here's a few things I've been doing lately to work *with* my muse, not against her. Feel free to try them yourself!

1. Allow yourself to think in circles.

Recently I've started doing mind-maps of characters, problems and arcs. And here's the rub: I do it on paper. Sure, there are programs that would allow me to map bubbles and shapes, but it's not the same as pen and paper.

The best part of mind-mapping is that I can think in circles instead of straight lines. Whether my arrows start out going right or left, they always find their way right…then across the bottom…then up the left side…then across the top. In other words, I think clockwise!

What a breakthrough! No wonder I can't outline to save my life. I don't think from top to bottom, I think in circles. …and that's okay.

2. Don't impose order until you have to.

There comes a time in brainstorming that you just…can't…stop…yourself from writing the story. The books I've written the fastest were the ones I let ferment that long. Sure, you can wing it on the keyboard. And maybe that'll work. Perhaps you can even strong arm your muse with word count goals. However, those word count goals will be easier to meet if you've visualized a lot of the story beforehand. Some people can think and write at the same time, but not me.

3. Get physical!

Much of my best brainstorming happens when I'm riding my bike or doing yoga. Your body understands things your mind never will. Think about your characters while getting hot and sweaty, and it'll be easier to get your characters hot and sweaty.

4. Work with your hands

This was a tip I got from a business development friend of mine. I thought he was crazy when he suggested I build my story out of Legos. But today I decided to build my story out of play dough, and it was GREAT! It didn't hurt that I made the play dough myself and mixed the colors with food coloring. My goal was to understand the "shape" of my story.

To me, story shape is a big deal. Unless I have an almost three-dimensional concept of how the tale will develop, I can't even begin to write it. When I started adding glops of play dough, I thought the process was nuts. It was just balls of flour and water. There was no rhyme or reason except that I created colors for different characters. Even that only occurred well after I started building.

I didn't set out to create anything that looked like a shape, I only mapped what I saw as the characters doing what I thought they might. It looked like nothing at first. Then by the end…

It had shape! Heck, it looked like a KISS face. Or a freaky, sick-and-twisted smiley face—which pretty much epitomizes my writing style. It's a story! One that needs more detail, sure, but a "thing" nonetheless. And that's one more step to channeling my hummingbird-on-crack muse.

5. Trust…don't rush

In this biz, it's so easy to feel the pressure to produce, produce, produce. To get from point A to point B as fast and clean as you can. But a lot of muses don't work that way. My muse gets from A to B by way of Q, F, and Omega. But my muse still gets there. What matters is learning how to trust that path. Thinking in circles doesn't take any longer than thinking in straight lines—once you give your muse permission, take off your muse's blinders, and set that firefly free.

HAPPY WRITING!

Awesome Rotating Add by the Ladies at Long and Short

Hi Guys!

I decided to run an ad in Long and Short Reviews later this month. As part of their package, they design the ads for you, and I have to say that this is a GREAT feature. I highly recommend that if you want to do paid advertising, you consider Long And Short Reviews.

Check out the awesome!

How Much Marketing Should a New Writer Do?

Well, the answer to that question depends on who you are.

If you are a. Someone who's gone to the trouble of reading this article, and b. Inclined not to market any more than you have to? Then the answer is this:

A fucking shitload. Way, way more than you previously thought.

If you are a. A natural marketer, and b. Inclined to do everything you can to get your books the best start in the market. Well—you people aren't even reading this. I don't know why I'm talking to you. You're off on a marketing website and working on your blog tour and are too busy to be bothered wringing your hands over whether or not you should be pimping your work.

…I shall waste no more time on you. Y'all are doing fine…

*Turns evil eye to the rest of the class* *Points* See! See those people! They're doing the right thing.

If you're like me, you'd rather write than promote. You believe that of you "write a good book the readers will come." …Or "cum"… or both. You figure you'll write 5 or 10 books a year until you get a following because gosh darn it, you DO NOT WANT to have to whore yourself.

Or update your website with your newest and most flattering reviews.

Or, um… go around telling anyone about your books. Because…well, secretly you wonder if they're not all that good. I mean, if they were good, people would have noticed…um, that's what people say, right?

WRONG!

I say it again, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Waiting around to be noticed is no way to run a career. Heck, it's no way to run a life! Can you imagine if you sat in your house, hoping someone gave you a job because you're so hardworking? How many job offers do you think you'd get?

People do not know things are good unless you tell them they are good.

So here are some things that you should do, if you're a new author like me.

1. Have a website and update it regularly. And by regularly, I mean about 10X as often as you think you should.

2. Do a blog tour. I have yet to do one, and I'm really sad about this. I'm planning my first blog tour for my newest release, LUST AFTER DEATH, this September. Yeah– I put it off as long as I could. This is my fifth single-title and my first blog tour. Shame on me.

Goddess Fish promotions runs a great blog tour package. So does The Bookish Snob. As do many others. They're not all that expensive, especially if you compare them to the price of a conference.

3. Every day before you start writing, find a new outlet to promote your work. Look at free advertising in places like AllRomance Ebooks, Whipped Cream, Smexy Books, Fresh Fiction. Offer to do guest blogs, interviews. Find great spots to place your free-reads, if that's your thing. Don't be scared or shy. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WRITE YOUR WORDS UNTIL YOU SEND ONE EMAIL ABOUT PROMO.

4. Between each book you write, pause for promo. That pause can be a week, two weeks, four weeks. But give yourself TIME. It's scary at first, not to get words on paper. But even if all you can do is write and place a free-read, DO IT.

5. Learn some rudimentary graphic design and make yourself a damn banner already! And some promo items, and maybe an ad or two. Facility with photoshop or GIMP will make this whole promo thing a lot less painful.

6. Don't get embarrassed. Do you think your books are good? If the answer is yes, then you're doing people a favor letting them know about your books. Take writing courses, hone your craft. But when push comes to shove it's fine to *tell people* about your product.

And again, and again. People need to be told a lot. More than you think.

For example, I've often felt like I promo way too much on Twitter, only to have a reader contact me on twitter asking, "Do you have any books out?"

0.o

As with most things, my advice is: Be a big, ol' whore. If you worry you're a slut, you're probably not. And when it comes to promo, most people are downright prudes.

Happy whoring!

Teaser Tuesday

My hero Royce is slightly less creepy, but you get the idea!

My new Ellora's Cave book, Studenstein is contracted and the cover request is off the the cover-makers! YAY! Here's a little taste…

*****

Shani pretended the way his fingers shook as he grabbed hold of his cheeks and opened was part of the act, let herself believe that he gasped because he'd been programmed to respond that way. Still, when his head dropped between his forearms and he shivered, she placed a hand on his damp shoulder and squeezed. "You okay?"

TSTL Tuesday: Morality and Marketing

Some folks are natural marketers…and by that I don't mean they love SPAM or hard-sell campaigns. I mean—some people are good at convincing folks of their position. Maybe they happen to enjoy writing things that fit well into established genres, or they ask for guest-blogs as easily as they ask someone to pass the salt. Those folks may not even feel like they're marketing.

Then there's the rest of us. For many, many writers promoting our books feels like a first time on a snowboard. We feel jittery, like the ground is slipping out from under us. And unless we force ourselves to muscle through those first 5 or 10 or 50 crashes, we're bound to give up altogether. The adage, "Just write a great book and readers will come" is absurd. Perhaps if you write for a publisher that does tons of in-house marketing that's true. And, like…your publisher does your blog for you…and tweets and does FB updates for you…and hires an actress/model to show up at signings and conventions in your place…

Yeah, in that case you don't have to market at all. That publisher would be orsum. Wonder if I could write for them?

From time to time pundits pundit-ize about new authors who market too much. Usually this is about Twitter/FB/Goodreads and is meant to shame certain writers into better behavior. The problem is—the only people listening to that sermon are the ones who came to church. Only those who *already* feel uncomfortable about how much we market are paying attention.

The wanton hussies of social-media could give a hoot what the pastor says. They're too busy scheduling Twitter updates, crowing about their victories, counting their money. They're probably thinking something I've been thinking about for a long time, which is, "If you don't like how much someone markets on FB/Twitter/Goodreads, unfollow 'em!"

I have to remind myself from time to time that I'm not in the business of making everyone love me. I'm in the business of writing and selling awesome books. I like to be liked. Heck, everyone does! And I certainly don't want anyone to *dis*like me! But if I'm spending my day promoting my lovableness, I'm not spending my day promoting my books. And as wonderful as I may be, my personality don't pay the rent.

So, I'm hoping pundits will go easier on the "don't market" thing. Yeah it can be squick-worthy and uncomfortable watching new authors trying to market. (Myself included!) But have you ever watched someone learning to snowboard? It's horrible! They flail about and do face-plants constantly. It takes a long time for them to learn the right moves-how to position their bodies, how to grip the mountain. If you can stomach the embarrassing gaffs, those snowboarders carve up the mountain in no time.

Looking as if they're not even trying.

(Filthy) Six Sentence Sunday

These six have me blushing. Who writes this smut?? 0.o

Oh yeah, and they're from LUST AFTER DEATH, the first book in my Love-Bots series!

*****

He whispered guttural curses and groaned, his fingers playing along the tendrils of her hair.

With a slow smile, she pulled her lips from his length and grinned up at his shocked expression. She turned on her knees, and then lowered her face slowly to the floor, stretching her arms over her head.

Josie swerved her hips to one side then another, swaying before him. Behind her, she heard Bane fall to his knees. The scratchy hairs of his thighs touched the insides of her legs, and Josie tilted her pelvis higher, in a move so profane it felt sacred.

*****