Daisy Harris's Blog, page 44

Revision Advice: Know What Your Book is About!

I'm fairly certain the line between a published author and an unpublished one has something to do with revisions. We've all heard stories of writers who can whip out a perfect manuscript in one shot, but I think that's a literary urban legend. I'm with Ernest Hemingway who said, "The first draft of anything is shit."

Ernie's observation begs the question, "How can I mold this steaming pile of words into something that resembles a story?"

Everyone's got their own process for turning lead to gold, but my biggest, number one goal in revisions is to figure out what my story is about. What is my point?

Because without a point, there's really no reason to write a story, and even less to read one.

In Mere Temptation my point was that true love means growing up and closing the door on some of your options. In Mere Passion, my point was that a person is more than the sum of his beliefs. Shark Bait? Being loved for yourself is more important than getting "that guy."

And yesterday I sat down with my WIP, The Gods Must Be Horny, and realized my point is "only by pissing some people off can you earn the love of the people you really care about."

Once I knew what my book was about, I got tons of information on why certain things weren't working. For example, I have a subplot in which a character's father figure acted like a dick and then learned the value of diplomacy. This subplot DID NOT WORK! Why? Because my book is about how you can't please everyone all the time.

I can't have a subplot that goes directly against the point of my book.

Harry Potter was all about good triumphing over evil, despite tremendous odds. How well would the series have worked if there were scenes littered throughout where Rowling said, "Well, good and evil are really relative terms. Everyone is just doing the best he or she can"? NO! In Harry Potter there was "good" and "evil." They fought each other. Yes, there were nuances, and characters who contained a little of both. But by and large evil=bad, good=good.

So if my story is about the times one has to abandon compromise in order to grow as a person, the last thing I want to do is throw in a scene that encourages compromise.

What about you? What is your current WIP about? Do all your scenes and plots point the same direction? Or are there some stragglers pointing the other way?

The Period Versus the Question Mark

Today I welcome to my blog the lovely, talented, and extremely naughty, Tiffany Reisz! (She writes BDSM erotica for Harlequin.) As a juxtaposition to Ike's post a few days ago, she'll be arguing *against* Happily Ever After endings.

So, without further ado, welcome!!

*****

Allow me to begin by first thanking Daisy for letting me guest on her blog and apologizing to her for taking two months to get the damn thing written. I never knew getting a book deal would make it so hard to, you know, write stuff. And the topic at hand is certainly not an easy one. I know I'll offend at least half of Daisy's readers but I write BDSM erotica so if I don't offend somebody once a day at least, I'm not doing my job right.

And They Lived Happily Ever After. The six most boring words ever written. When I was a child of about twelve or thirteen, I devoured historical romance novels. I ate and drank their vanilla love scenes, their passionate embraces, their totally unrealistic depictions of two people falling in love and staying in love for all eternity. I read so many romance novels that I thought that's how love worked. Someday I would fall in love with someone who *gasp* would fall in love with me back. We'd get married. We'd have kids. We'd never ever fall out of love. The End.

Then I grew up. And I fell in love. And he loved me back. And it was sunshine and orgasms for everybody. We were talking kids, talking marriage, picking out rings. We were going to live happily ever after. The End. Period. Full stop. Then one night I went to bed smiling myself to sleep over the true love I'd found at the tender age of eighteen. The next morning I woke up and I hated him. Literally hated him. It was as if a fairy had come in the night and broken the love spell I'd been under for the previous six months. I felt suffocated by his constant attentions, annoyed that he seemed to have no interests in his life other than me, bored by our teenage attempts at a sex life, repulsed by his body that had gained twenty pounds while we were together. I discovered then and there that falling in love with someone and him loving you back was no guarantee of happily ever after. I learned, horror of horrors, that two people can fall out of love with each other. The period on my life turned into a question mark—what now?

And thus ended my love affair with romance novels and their full stop endings. I am thirty-two years old now. I am not married. I have no children. I don't have a boyfriend, I have a lover. We can see other people but I don't because I'm too busy building my writing career. I have an IUD because I have zero interest in having children now or ever. When friends get married, I have to fake my smiles for them. The last two weddings I attended ended in divorce or separation in under six months after the wedding. I am cold, practical, and ludicrously happy with my life. And when I write, I don't write romances.

I write erotica.

Here's what I like about erotica. Erotica novels don't have to end with periods—literal or metaphorical. They can end with a question mark. It doesn't have to be "And they lived happily ever after. The end." They can end, "The end…or is it?" In my Spice Brief Seven Day Loan, the two protagonists don't end up together. I got some negative reviews for that alone. And that shocked me. My female lead, Eleanor, is only 23. She knows her lover in the story for all of one week (hence the titular Seven Days). And a few readers wanted her to give up her whole life and commit to a veritable stranger. That doesn't sound happy to me. That sounds crazy. Plus Seven Day Loan is a little prequel story to The Siren, my full-length novel coming out in November. To marry off my Eleanor at twenty-three would be to effectively end her adventures, to give her a full stop ending to her crazy life. By thirty-three she's grown up, made a major career change, and has become a whole different person. Marrying off my Eleanor at age twenty-three would have killed the sequel. She's a rich, weird, wild character and no one book can contain her. You try to put a period on her life, and she'll grab it and twist it back into a question mark. She knows exactly what she wants out of life—but will it change? She finds her true love—or does she? Her story will end on the last page—or will it?

This post isn't an attack on marriage or kids. It's an attack on a trite ending that's been done to death. Even if an author doesn't intend to write a sequel for her book, I'd like to be able to write a sequel in my mind. That period at the end of "And They Lived Happily Ever After." is like a wall the reader can't see over. And the best way to break down that wall is by ending with a question mark. The End?

And thus ends my blog post. Or does it?

*****

Tiffany Reisz lives in Lexington, Kentucky with two roommates, two dogs, two cats, and one hedgehog which doesn't belong to anyone who lives in the house and no one is actually sure how he got there. She graduated with a B.A. in English from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky and is making both her parents and her professors proud by writing erotica under her real name. She has five piercings, one tattoo, and has been arrested twice.

When not under arrest, Tiffany enjoys Latin Dance, Latin Men, and Latin Verbs. She dropped out of a conservative southern seminary in order to pursue her dream of becoming a smut peddler. Johnny Depp's aunt was her fourth grade teacher. There is little to nothing interesting about her.

If she couldn't write, she would die.

www.tiffanyreisz.com

littleredridingcrop@gmail.com

Business Stuff I've Learned from my Husband

So I married a photographer.

Everyone thought I was nuts.

Everyone thought he was nuts, too– but in his case, they're right. My husband swims with sharks, boats with whales, and camps on the side of mountains for days waiting for a split-second of sunrise.

If I wasn't married to my husband, I never would have had the guts to try writing fiction, much less get it published. From him, I learned it's possible to eventually make money at something that seems, on first glance, completely insane. But I learned a lot of other stuff too. So here a few things I've gleaned from watching his 10 year career.

1. It takes a long time to become an overnight success.

I grew up with the motto: If at first you don't succeed, you're a failure and should give up. Alas, that doesn't get a person very far in life. The truth is, everyone struggles at the beginning of any new endeavor, and as I've learned from my husband, "the beginning" is measured in years, not months.

2. At first you have to shout into the void.

My husband fondly remembers his first presentations– populated by his parents (who are incredibly supportive), his friends, myself and our then-infant daughter. Those early talks would have been far less attended if my husband wasn't so motivated to get people there!

Nowadays, Jon's presentations and classes sell out, often creating waiting lists long enough to require the scheduling of another class or presentation.

What a difference a decade makes!

3. You are not entitled to make money the same way people in your field used to.

This is a hard one for people to wrap their heads around, but when Jon began in photography, all the big-name guys made crazy dough via a few very successful stock agencies. The photographers who were lucky enough to get a lot of pictures in with Getty Images early on made lots of money, those who got in the game later, less so.

But digital changed all that. Almost as soon as Jon started his career, the advent of digital photos and the rise of 99 cent stock agencies like iStock decimated Getty's sales. The old model didn't work anymore, and some said one could no longer make it in the photo biz.

My husband sold fine art prints during the real estate boom to people who needed to fill wall space. When the housing market collapsed, he started doing photo safaris– capitalizing on the zeitgeist of folks with money who'd just lost huge chunks of savings and were suddenly thinking they may as well have some great experiences in life.

He rolled with the punches, and adjusted his business model to fit market trends. Jon always says, "If something worked for someone 30 years ago, it has absolutely no relevance to what's going to work for me today.

As an author, I'm constantly reminding myself of these lessons. It's a long road to get to where I'll be in 10 years. And by the time I get there, it may look a lot different than "success" does now. What I hope is that, like my husband, I'll have the fortitude and determination to get that far.

FAIRY TALES CAN COME TRUE — Hunting for that Happily Ever After

A guest post by Ike Rose, my fellow author in the My Sexy Valentine anthology.

The last line of my story in "My Valentine Prince" is: "And they still live Happily Ever After. Like in a Fairy-tale." This is part of a string of images about fairy tales flowing from the beginning to the end of the story.

At the start of the story, Jim Harahan is a closeted gay 23 year old blue-collar college grad in 1975 who finally finds a gay bar and meets the man of his dreams, Max. When they wake up the next morning "James became a fairy-tale Prince freed from a curse by a magic kiss." The images continue from there.

Some are deliberate based on the use of the words "fairy" and "queen' by some of Jim's new friends in the same way many minorities adopt slur language to claim it for themselves. Unfortunately, Max is a sailor, and after a passion-filled week, must leave. James has four effeminate pals who call themselves "the fashion queens" and offer their support as his "fairy godfathers".

Some of the images were my twisting around of familiar fairy tales for funny dialogue: "'Then why are you eying him like Lusty, Snow-White's favorite dwarf, while he's grinning at you like the Big Horny Wolf ready to devour Little Red Riding Hood's humpy big brother?'"

But most of the fairy tale images revolve around Jim's quest for his Prince Charming at his favorite bar, "The Blue Falcon", where:


"…the regulars played this ridiculous bar-game, Some Day My Prince Will Come. Each man created a supposedly witty second line to follow the first line from that song, often punning in "Come/Cum". No one tried rhyming.

One evening, someone sang the first line. The first guy punned, "With my bad luck, he'll cum with some other stud!" That pretty old line earned some snickers.

The next man went for the "fractured fairy-tale" approach, "And lucky me! I'll be off visiting my Wicked Stepmother." That got some applause for originality.

It was Jim's turn. They looked at him expectantly.

James stared back like a deer trapped in headlights, then blurted out, "And Prince Charming will take me away from the dump on his white horse into the sunset." He got a standing ovation, making the sturdy stud blush.

Jim's secret was that since coming out, he'd discovered that he was a romantic, desperately searching for Prince Charming. Jim loved sex, and easily found plenty of willing partners with his growing confidence and looks, but Jim wanted to find his true love…

He'd heard that to find Prince Charming, you had to kiss a lot of frogs. Jim though sourly that most of the frogs he'd kissed and bedded since Max left had turned into trolls and ogres who belonged under a bridge."

One critic praised the story while being surprised by the romantic gay men — after admitting to not being much of a fan of m/m erotic romances. I realized that in this day and age, so many non-gay people still buy the stereotype of us gay men as sex-driven.

Jim is me, circa 1975. I was that closet romantic, searching for my true love, and I found him by accident twenty-nine years ago. We're still together. I say "by accident"; I had a picture in my head of my "Prince Charming", but the man who pursued me until I gave in and dated him was nothing like that image.

Happily Ever After can be had — if you stop struggling and allow the Universe to bring it to you.

FAIRY TALES CAN COME TRUE — Hunting for that Happily Ever After

A guest post by Ike Rose, my fellow author in the My Sexy Valentine anthology.

The last line of my story in "My Valentine Prince" is: "And they still live Happily Ever After. Like in a Fairy-tale." This is part of a string of images about fairy tales flowing from the beginning to the end of the story.

At the start of the story, Jim Harahan is a closeted gay 23 year old blue-collar college grad in 1975 who finally finds a gay bar and meets the man of his dreams, Max. When they wake up the next morning "James became a fairy-tale Prince freed from a curse by a magic kiss." The images continue from there.

Some are deliberate based on the use of the words "fairy" and "queen' by some of Jim's new friends in the same way many minorities adopt slur language to claim it for themselves. Unfortunately, Max is a sailor, and after a passion-filled week, must leave. James has four effeminate pals who call themselves "the fashion queens" and offer their support as his "fairy godfathers".

Some of the images were my twisting around of familiar fairy tales for funny dialogue: "'Then why are you eying him like Lusty, Snow-White's favorite dwarf, while he's grinning at you like the Big Horny Wolf ready to devour Little Red Riding Hood's humpy big brother?'"

But most of the fairy tale images revolve around Jim's quest for his Prince Charming at his favorite bar, "The Blue Falcon", where:


"…the regulars played this ridiculous bar-game, Some Day My Prince Will Come. Each man created a supposedly witty second line to follow the first line from that song, often punning in "Come/Cum". No one tried rhyming.

One evening, someone sang the first line. The first guy punned, "With my bad luck, he'll cum with some other stud!" That pretty old line earned some snickers.

The next man went for the "fractured fairy-tale" approach, "And lucky me! I'll be off visiting my Wicked Stepmother." That got some applause for originality.

It was Jim's turn. They looked at him expectantly.

James stared back like a deer trapped in headlights, then blurted out, "And Prince Charming will take me away from the dump on his white horse into the sunset." He got a standing ovation, making the sturdy stud blush.

Jim's secret was that since coming out, he'd discovered that he was a romantic, desperately searching for Prince Charming. Jim loved sex, and easily found plenty of willing partners with his growing confidence and looks, but Jim wanted to find his true love…

He'd heard that to find Prince Charming, you had to kiss a lot of frogs. Jim though sourly that most of the frogs he'd kissed and bedded since Max left had turned into trolls and ogres who belonged under a bridge."

One critic praised the story while being surprised by the romantic gay men — after admitting to not being much of a fan of m/m erotic romances. I realized that in this day and age, so many non-gay people still buy the stereotype of us gay men as sex-driven.

Jim is me, circa 1975. I was that closet romantic, searching for my true love, and I found him by accident twenty-nine years ago. We're still together. I say "by accident"; I had a picture in my head of my "Prince Charming", but the man who pursued me until I gave in and dated him was nothing like that image.

Happily Ever After can be had — if you stop struggling and allow the Universe to bring it to you.

Consent, effin' Gorians, and Why I Don't Write BDSM

OK, "Don't write" is a bit of an overstatement. I'm writing a BDSM-type short right now, and some who've read my stories (especially Shark Bait) might argue that I have a fair bit of BDSM-in-disguise in my work.

However, here's the thing: this short is kicking my butt– and why? Because it's contemporary. And as Cassandra Car pointed out to me last night, that means it's supposed to be real.

But what is "real" BDSM? Now, now– if you're a practitioner of the "lifestyle" don't chime in too fast! What I mean is: what is more real, the practices people perform in the community, or the fantasies I have in my mind?

As an author, I normally write my fantasies, then tone 'em down for prime time. But if I write BDSM, I have to write how I would choreograph my imagination in a quasi-scripted, pre-negotiated way. Um, less hot. Way less hot. I'd rather ditch the flogging scene than have my characters talk about it.

When I was in college, sexual negotiation was all the rage. In the uber-PC early 90s, a boy was supposed to ask if he could kiss you, then ask to touch your boob. What did I read during this time? Anne Rice's Beauty Series. We all did! The statutory-rape-condoning, completely non-consensual, BDSM masterpiece.

The Beauty Series had nothing whatsoever to do with reality. And hence, I loved it.

I would smack a guy who asked permission to kiss me. I mean, grow a pair for the love of Pete! If I don't want to kiss you back, I'll say, "no." The word no has worked pretty well for me over the course of my life, I've seldom needed anything harsher or more involved.

It's been pointed out to me that my short story read as non-consensual since the man didn't give the heroine the choice to leave. But…but…they'd just met. And they were in a public place! Why would he need to give her permission?

It's America, not Afghanistan. If a woman wants to walk out of a restaurant, she doesn't need a man to give her that option. Any woman who's freaked out in a situation has the right, nay the responsibility, to leave.

Similarly, he told her to bend over– told not asked. But, um…last I heard, women in 2011 America didn't have to do things a man told her to do. If you follow an order, it's because you want to.

"Daisy, come here and suck my cock."

If I go ahead and do it, my husband can safely assume I wanted to suck some cock. If I say, "Not now honey, I'm writing a blog post," he can assume I wasn't into it. Simple!

This brings me to safe words. I think safe words are great, important, fantastic! Necessary in "official" or "real" BDSM. But you only need them in situations where you and your partner have decided he (or she) won't stop if you say, "no." If you're planning to scream, "Oh god, please stop, I beg you!" while s/he inserts ginger up your butt, and you want him/her to disregards your request, then by all means, you need a safe word!

But in this life place, where everyday couples (and groups!) toy with power every day, "no" usually suffices. Or stop. Whichever you prefer.

The funny thing is, I had a big discussion with Delphine Dryden, Scarlett Parrish and Julia Broadbooks yesterday on Twitter about consent in erotica. It started because I expressed my disgust at Gorian philosophy. (Link not provided, and I strongly suggest you don't google.) In particular, I lamented that Gorians have turned me off male-Dom BDSM for the forseeable future.

The discussion turned to the Gor books– to which I replied I hadn't read them. I don't care what's in the books! It's an imaginary, fantasy world. People can fantasize about whatever they want. What disgusts me is that people would take what may be a perfectly hot fantasy and turned it into a sick excuse for abject sexism.

Misogyny sucks. People who practice it can suck my imaginary, fantastical, non-consensual balls.

Misogynists bite because they ruin my fantasies! I want to be able to fantasize about being weak and helpless and out-of-control, not *actually* be weak and helpless.

In my imagination, dominating males know I'm strong enough to stand up for myself. They know if I'm handing over power, I do so out of my own free will– not because they didn't give me permission to behave otherwise. The Dom of my fantasies trusts my intelligence and strength.

Now that's hot.

***Late addendum: I totally understand that in some BDSM relationships, the sub hands over so much power to her Dom that she wouldn't leave her seat without his permission. However– my point is that for every 1 couple engaged in that type of relationship, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of couple engaging in less formalized forms of power-play.***

Consent, effin' Gorians, and Why I Don't Write BDSM

OK, "Don't write" is a bit of an overstatement. I'm writing a BDSM-type short right now, and some who've read my stories (especially Shark Bait) might argue that I have a fair bit of BDSM-in-disguise in my work.

However, here's the thing: this short is kicking my butt– and why? Because it's contemporary. And as Cassandra Car pointed out to me last night, that means it's supposed to be real.

But what is "real" BDSM? Now, now– if you're a practitioner of the "lifestyle" don't chime in too fast! What I mean is: what is more real, the practices people perform in the community, or the fantasies I have in my mind?

As an author, I normally write my fantasies, then tone 'em down for prime time. But if I write BDSM, I have to write how I would choreograph my imagination in a quasi-scripted, pre-negotiated way. Um, less hot. Way less hot. I'd rather ditch the flogging scene than have my characters talk about it.

When I was in college, sexual negotiation was all the rage. In the uber-PC early 90s, a boy was supposed to ask if he could kiss you, then ask to touch your boob. What did I read during this time? Anne Rice's Beauty Series. We all did! The statutory-rape-condoning, completely non-consensual, BDSM masterpiece.

The Beauty Series had nothing whatsoever to do with reality. And hence, I loved it.

I would smack a guy who asked permission to kiss me. I mean, grow a pair for the love of Pete! If I don't want to kiss you back, I'll say, "no." The word no has worked pretty well for me over the course of my life, I've seldom needed anything harsher or more involved.

It's been pointed out to me that my short story read as non-consensual since the man didn't give the heroine the choice to leave. But…but…they'd just met. And they were in a public place! Why would he need to give her permission?

It's America, not Afghanistan. If a woman wants to walk out of a restaurant, she doesn't need a man to give her that option. And yeah, he was her Dom in that they'd built a relationship on the internet– but still, she has a brain. Any woman who'd freaked and not into a situation has the right, nay the responsibility, to leave.

Similarly, he told her to bend over– told not asked. But, um…last I heard, women in 2011 America didn't have to do things a man told her to do. If you follow an order, it's because you want to.

"Daisy, come here and suck my cock."

If I go ahead and do it, my husband can safely assume I wanted to suck some cock. If I say, "Not now honey, I'm writing a blog post," he can assume I wasn't into it. Simple!

This brings me to safe words. I think safe words are great, important, fantastic! Necessary in official BDSM. But you only need them in situations where you and your partner have decided he (or she) won't stop if you say, "no." If you're planning to scream, "Oh god, please stop, I beg you!" while s/he inserts ginger up your butt, and you want him/her to disregards your request, then by all means, you need a safe word!

But in this life place, where everyday couples (and groups!) toy with power every day, "no" usually suffices. Or stop. Whichever you prefer.

The funny thing is, I had a big discussion with Delphine Dryden, Scarlett Parrish and Julia Broadbooks yesterday on Twitter about consent in erotica. It started because I expressed my disgust at Gorian philosophy. (Link not provided, and I strongly suggest you don't google.) In particular, I lamented that Gorians have turned me off male-Dom BDSM for the forseeable future.

The discussion turned to the Gor books– to which I replied I hadn't read them. I don't care what's in the books! It's an imaginary, fantasy world. People can fantasize about whatever they want. What disgusts me is that people would take what may be a perfectly hot fantasy and turned it into a sick excuse for abject sexism.

Misogyny sucks. People who practice it can suck my imaginary, fantastical, non-consensual balls.

Misogynists bite because they ruin my fantasies! Plus, they insinuate that a woman in a restaurant can't leave without her date's permission, and would be too shy or insecure to say no if the guy told her to spread 'em.

In my imagination, dominating males know I'm strong enough to stand up for myself. They know if I'm handing over power, I do so out of my own free will– not because they didn't give me permission to behave otherwise. The Dom of my fantasies trusts my intelligence and strength.

Now that's hot.

The Self-Destructiveness of an American Writer

Today I welcome to the blog my antho buddy, the lovely and talented, Em Petrova! Here's her snarky look at writer-ly life (with much alcohol) and an excerpt of her story, Bachelorette, from the MY SEXY VALENTINE anthology!

*****

The life of a writer:

10 am: Wake up to the tooth-grinding noises of jackhammers and picks on every crease of your brain.

10: 01: Grapple on your nightstand until you find your bottle of Stoley's and bring it to your lips before cracking open an eye.

10:02: Spill copious amounts down your bare chest. Hmm. Curious. You went to bed fully dressed. Perhaps a mystery lover accosted you during the night. Or the aliens returned.

10:38 Wake up again.

10:39 Where are you?

10:50 Stare at the cobweb in your corner has given you a stunning idea for your story. Cobwebs, spiders, and pigs.

11:30 Stumble through apartment, stopping on the way to your desk to rifle liquor cabinet.

11:50 Half bottle of fine bourbon downed to fortify you for the written word. After all, Hemingway said, "A man does not exist until he's drunk."

12:00: God, a Bloody Mary sounds good, doesn't it?

2:00: Wake up slumped over laptop, wondering if you have more bourbon, where the fuck your clothes went, and what that great idea for your novel was. In that order.

2:01: Slip out of your chair to the floor. Curl into the fetal position and rock. Pee a little.

2:10: Fuck it. You're a great writer, but no one understands you. No one, that is, except Jack Daniels.

*****

Bachelorette-by Em Petrova

a novella from My Sexy Valentine, a Valentine's Day Anthology available from Sizzler Intoxications

EXCERPT: RATED R

Kiki emptied the box of candy Conversation Hearts into her palm and nudged them with a chipped fingernail. She plucked out a pastel green heart which read, "home run," and popped it into her mouth. Then she dumped the handful of "I love you's, UR Cute's, and Call Me's" into the trash.

Her stomach burned from adding more sugar to the bottle of champagne she'd downed today. What the hell time was it? Her head pivoted on the sofa cushion, where she reclined like a French courtesan in a filmy white nightgown. Her bridal nightgown. Trimmed with antique lace, and tiny seed beads that outlined her voluptuous breasts. The one Reardon was supposed to strip off her in the penthouse suite of the Waldorf Astoria on the first night of their honeymoon.

Heaving a sigh, Kiki leaned over the sofa and located another bottle of Grand Siècle champagne. The bottle opener lay on the side table, along with the wedding announcement done in beautiful sheer vellum and hand-lettered by a calligraphy artist, sporting the happy couple's picture.

Her stomach flipped at the physical confirmation of her dashed dreams. No Park Avenue home, no foil-wrapped wedding gifts. No handsome groom, smiling at her from the altar at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. No, just one hundred crates of the candy hearts that she'd ordered as a fun twist on their Valentine's Day wedding. When Reardon hadn't liked the idea of the cheap candy hearts spoiling their upper class reception, she should have seen it as a red flag.

She popped another green heart in her mouth and crunched it up. Her molars were jammed with candy, and she'd probably gained five cavities in the past week since her fiancé had jilted her. Didn't matter now. The instant Reardon told her he couldn't go through with the marriage, her life had ended. What did a few blackened teeth matter?

Kiki reached for the champagne, which they were to toast at the reception by candlelight. Her eyes swam with tears. Her nose was raw from blowing, her throat burned from emitting countless sobs. The days leading up to the breakup were a whirlwind, but she sliced them apart bit by bit, trying to find the root of the problem. What misstep had she made?

Across the room, her cell vibrated on the marble-topped table. She cracked her eyes and glared at it. Over the past week, the phone had ringed incessantly. At first, she jumped up, tripping over her ivory heels to get reach it, breathlessly hoping to find Reardon on the line, begging her forgiveness. She had images of him appearing at the Paris flat where she stayed, bouquet of winter roses in hand, grinning his toothpaste ad grin, hair falling boyishly over one eye.

The phone stopped vibrating. Kiki began counting aloud, swigging from the champagne bottle between numbers. "Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty." She raised the bottle in toast to the cell as it began its tireless vibration again.

"Hi, Daddy," she said into the empty apartment and without budging from the sofa. "Yes, I'm fine. Just came in from a run. You should see Paris at this time of year. Yes, the tulips are up. The Champs Èlyssès is glorious. Can't talk! I'm meeting friends for brunch. Capote sends her love. Byeeee."

Her English bulldog, Capote, lifted her head from the satin cushion by Kiki's feet and gave her a disgusted stare, unhappy to be roused from her sleep by the sound of her name, or pissed that she was trapped in this apartment with her master for the eighth consecutive day, with only the twice daily relief of a walk in the park with Olivier.

Olivier worked for Kiki's father in the Parisian branch of his business. One call from Daddy, and Olivier had come running. And thank God for him too. Without him, she'd be out of champagne.

The cell lay still, and Kiki brought the bottle to her lips. She had to pee, but if she stood up, she knew the world would tilt. She was horribly drunk, but still lucid enough to remember every final word of her breakup with Reardon. How she'd dropped to her knees and clung to his thighs and begged him. How his fingers felt on the crown of her head as he said his parting goodbye.

Alone. Smashed to fucking bits. No Spode China, no Waterford Crystal. Just half a million candy hearts, a fourteen-thousand dollar Vera Wang gown, her faithful doggy, and champagne.

Kiki tripped to her feet and stumbled into the side table. The antique lamp toppled with a crash, and she clutched her head as the noise penetrated the sensitive creases of her brain. Capote's manicured paws hit the floor and she started her low growling bark, further shattering Kiki's head.

Kiki sank to her hands and knees and crawled toward the bathroom as fast as she could with her legs tangled in a nightgown and a bottle tucked under her arm. She was going to puke. Wouldn't Reardon love to see her now? Maybe he'd suspected this side of her all along—the self-destructive trashy side. The woman who could stay drunk for a week, wearing only her bridal garments.

As she made her slow way to the bathroom, she sniffed her underarms. God, when had she last bathed? Maybe it was time to get out of this god-awful nightgown and wash her hair. It was stuffed into a messy bun, not unlike what she would have worn under her veil. Without the greasy locks framing her face, of course. Capote ran along behind her, sniffing her other unwashed parts.

Em Petrova is a writer of hot, lover of all things coffee, devotee of books, and worshipper of the iPod. She penned her first novel at the age of twelve, and after gaining an arts degree, has returned to her literary roots. She loves to dig deep into the souls of her unique characters and uncover their secret desires when she doesn't have her nose in a great new read. You can find more about her sexy stories at http://www.empetrova.com

Other Works by Em:

Runes

Tattoo Dream

Isolde's Wish: coming March 1 from Loose Id. Watch the trailer!

Sideline: Video Promotions

I made this little video to promote the lovely Danica Avet at her interview at Rachel Firasek's blog TODAY. I thought I'd post it here for your viewing pleasure, and to let you know about her fantastic giveaways!

Movie on 2011-02-08 at 18.02

Interview with a Reader

The other night I left the house. Shocking, I know. In doing so, I had drinks with a group of ladies and found that I'd accidentally stumbled upon a networking event.

Egads!

So, I had some interesting conversations with people *not* in the publishing industry about the packaging, distribution, and presentation of erotic romance content. Now, I say "content," not books, because books are…well, they're a specific thing, of specific length. Up until recently, they were all made of paper and had covers. E-books basically mimic "real" books.

The group was divided as to whether they prefer to read paper books or e-versions. Most agreed that for erotic romance, e-book was preferable due to the smexy covers.

Yes! Yes, I said it! These urban, professional, sexually-liberated women were embarrassed about walking around with a picture of a naked, man-scaped hunk under their arm. I was as shocked as you! (Just kidding– I wasn't shocked at all, though I know a lot of people in romance think being shy about covers is heresy.)

What did surprise me was the wide variety of formats the group wanted to read. Some liked full-length novels, or even sagas. Others preferred short stories. Many agreed with me that the sexier the book, the smaller the screen we wanted to read it on. One particularly enthusiastic woman argued left, right, and center that erotic content should be short-format and subscription-based, like a periodical. She wanted 1000 word stories to read after a long days work– before masturbating and falling asleep.

So the whole thing got me started thinking about publishing. I mean, I assume publishers go out and talk to regular people, right? Ask them what they want? I hope they've asked more than the three or four people I did.

I started to wonder how publishers decide about story length and how they decide how to charge for books. For a while now, I've been thinking it would be cool if someone tried a subscription model. I mean, that's how a lot of porn sites make money, right? Ditto the New York Times Online. A periodical model could make money through advertising!

Anyway– I learned a lot talking to readers who have no stake whatsoever in publishing. Said people know nothing about the industry, and one might think they have nothing of value to add. But these people are our customers. Without them, we'd have no one to whom to sell.