Simone Sinna's Blog, page 53

Shopping for Clothes in Rome ...bellissimo!

I have been to Rome three time before: once at 21 (you know, 16 countries in 16 days. Stayed 30 km outside of Rome and was rushed through for a glance at the Colosseum following a woman holding an umbrella and speaking stridently); second time with my husband but he and I were both married to other people at the time...but it worked out well as he was driving and I was navigating and because we weren't married we didn't yell once (this wouldn't be the case now, and not just because the traffic here is mad. Married people just can't drive/navigate together. And on the traffic- if crossing the road, walk right next to a nun and pray); third tiem with our kids during the world cup. Highlight was the Italians winning a match. So now, for the first time I have the luxury to shop, and with the knowledge that my husband's screenplay The Rosie Project was just sold to Hollywood.
I don't like chain stores (boring) or department stores (soul destroying), and designer label shops are just too uptight for me (and that's even before I get to the prices). But one after another, boutique shops in tiny lanes with clothes that are unique, different, elegant, fun...I am in heaven! The bank balance alas is now not. So I thought I woudl do the right thing and get all the tax rebates before the early morning dash to the airport Monday. Mama Mia!!! This is not easy.
First each store is atttached to a different refund chain (who  send their paper work to anywhere from Switzerland to Slovakia). This means trampsing from Pantheon to the Spanish steps, finding hidden away places on firts floors...and then fidning out that you still have to get it stamped at the airport and send back or they'll take off your credit card what they have just given you. Oh, and you can't have worn the clothes- there goes the refund from Milan's shopping trip.
But was it worth it? I am in love with the soft dark leather trech coat, the wonderful belt that it part leather part scarf, the scarf that matches the coat, the silk wrap...truly bellissimo! And I just hope my daughter likes what I got her for her 21st...if not I guess I will!!!

World Book Night London

I’d never heard of this, but then it has only been going three years and I’m not sure it has made it to Australia. The idea came from readers, writers and publishers that were concerned about the decline in reading. They get twenty books with permission from authors and publishers (who forgo royalties) and then a whole lot of volunteers go all around the country giving them away to people who don’t have books or read much. The collection chosen is diverse to say the least- from Casino Royale to The Secret Scripture and a lot in between.

Then on this night there are events where the authors and prominent figures to a reading. I was lucky enough to be at the London one held at Southbank centre on the Thames – via the artist’s room and cocktail reception.
As a non-Londoner the choice for the cocktail reception was inspired but let’s say, quirkily British? There is a history about this boat – inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and a boat he captained in the Congo – it is I think where Art meets Architecture. I gather it is used for small functions (doesn’t take too many more than ten) and at one stage you could stay in it for the night. It sits incongruously on top of the Hayward Gallery – and has stunning views up and down the Thames. London was kind with the weather it was quite magic.
The heart of it all was about books and authors; having a chance to meet them was interesting if I had read their book. Jo-Jo Moyes is gorgeous – as is her book Me Before You which I am in the middle of. David Nichols (One Day) was very supportive of the new writers and I didn’t give him too hard a time about the ending (I’m reviewing it on this Thursday’s blog www.simonesinna.com). Of course my children were more interested to know that Charles Dance was reading as they are Game of Thrones die hards; I didn’t meet him but he did a reading worthy of Jeremy Irons who played the role in Damage, the book by Josephine Hart he read from. Sebastian Barry did an amazing performance of The Secret Scripture (an excellent book I read many years ago), and Lucy Fleming, Ian’s niece read one of his excellent essays on how to write a thriller- having just finished mine I was pleased to find I had followed all his tips! For those into history there was a vivacious presentation about the mistress of the Borgia that became pope (I never knew hair could be so sensual) from Sarah Dunant (Blood and Beauty) and a reading by Tracy Chevalier from the Girl with the Pearl Earring that made the touch of the ear almost impossibly arousing. But for laughs? Newcomer Graeme Simsion reading from The Rosie Project recently launched in UK and Italy, definitely left everyone smiling. 
(http://www.worldbooknight.org/books/2013)

The Rosie Project, lobsters and penguins...

It's now six months since we were up to our waists in water walking the Coast to Coast in Cumbria and Yorkshire, after each morning being greeted on Skype with the name of the country that had just bought The Rosie Project (my husband's first novel). Now we're back in London for the launch and I have to hand it to Penguin. Back then they sent us two wooden penguins in an orange suitcase along with cocktail booker and shaker- now we're drinking the cocktails as we look out of the 10th floor of the building on the Strand (I still feel like I'm on  a Monopoly board when I come to London). But several poor employees (I think they volunteered bless them) were out treading the pavements (it was release day)...dressed as lobsters. Why lobsters you might ask? Well doesn't everyone have a standardised meal systen with lobster on Tuesday...? Don Tilllman does, but you'll have to read about it...!

Blog Radio and erotic romance

I have now been writing erotica for 18 months and while I do thinking the writing expereince has vastly improved my writing and even to some extent my editing ability, the learning curve there hasn't been nearly as steep as the technological one! Before Simone Sinna existed there was no EBlog, website, twitter, google plus....or Blog Radio.
The Blog Radio is the newest addition to the repetoire. Courtesy of  tweet about what to do leading up to release day, there it was - get onto Blog Radio around release. Blog Radio? What? Where? Who? How?
It proved very simple and a lot of fun...though as I have had to ring into the USA from Australia for half an hour at a time, it is likely to cost me a good deal more than I sell from it! Haven't got the bill yet...
So I searched and found the ones appropriate for my book content and contacted them.

The first was with sex therapist Moushimi Ghose in California where we talked MFM and the attraction of the paranormal romance. You can still hear it I think on http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sexlovenrocknroll/2013/03/20/erotic-were-devils-and-ghost-vampires-with-simone-sinna

The second was a couple of hours ago, with Linda Mooney in Texas (love that drawl though she thought the Aussie accent - mine - added to the reading. Maybe in the sex scene hers would have trumphed though!) where we got to talk about Tasmanian Devils, contagious cancer and the Hendra virus, which inspired and form the background for my Were-Devils of Tasmania series, of which the fourth and final (even climactic....) The Ghosts' Release (ghost bats, as in vampires, not ghosts of the dead variety) is out tomorrow at www.bookstrand.com/simone-sinna. Here the first chapter on Linda's blog!
http://www.Blogtalkradio.com/other_worlds_of_romance/2013/04/02/simone-sinna-is-my-guest-author-on-april-1st

One more to go on Thursday! I'm now hooked into the blogradio and listen on my iPhone whenever in a queue, waiting etc! Check it out; easy even for the technophobes.

Being a star...Springsteen and what we can learn from him

I have worked on a number of small very low budget short films (and one full length but that’s a story all of its own) and have been always struck by how hopeful and nice the actors are- this has generally been young things donating their time in the hope of making it big, but it does include a few moderate stars of Aussie cinema, including the grand old man of Australian cop shows Bud Tingwell’s last movie. He was well into his eighties and donated his time to help the students. In the film he played an elderly father in a nursing home (it’s been on ABC a few times) and between takes he wandered around into the kitchen (where I was the caterer) and had a chat. The actress who played his daughter was equally as charming.
One hears stories of getting to Hollywood changing you. The Russell Crowe tantrums. But you do also hear of the stars who work hard to keep their feet on the ground.
In general I think Rock Stars don’t succeed as well, or maybe just the young ones don’t- if you survive the youth then you mellow. Last night I saw Bruce Springsteen who must be the role model for the gracious survivor. The concert was stunning. Three solid hours and he was on stage the whole time and looked like he enjoyed every minute. The audience certainly did! He took the whole band (minus drummer and keyboard players) on a tour and came within touching distance. He has a lot of charisma.
Unfortunately not all the audience was as gracious, and I was a bit taken aback by the dotting fans (average age 50-55 I would say!) getting so carried away they had to touch him and at one stage put an arm around him and almost stopping he moving (this was a guy- the girl he danced with was reluctant but more appropriate in finally letting him go!). It struck me that this is the price of stardom- people loosing perspective about you, and not just teenagers. The obsessive fans that went through Dylan’s bins were not that young either.
He gets well paid, he enjoys his job. But in the end he is just a singer (albeit a great one and a great entertainer) just as actors are just doing a job. We really should remember this- not just for them but to keep our own lives in perspective and not dream too much about being rich and famous. I look at the best seller list and dream of my name there. But if it was I guess I would be wishing it was first rather than tenth or that it was the NY best seller list. For the moment I’ll content myself with obscurity and get back to dreams… and edits….

Bagging, Bitches and being Brave

It has become something of a national sport. No, make that International. Everyone seems to be in on it, even Michelle Grattan, a respected political journalist, and Germaine Greer. I won’t call her respected though she deserves some for her earlier work. But really? Drawing attention to our prime minister’s large arse? I can’t say that thought hasn’t gone through my mind, just as I have wondered about Hilary Clinton’s hairstyle (or lack of it, though lately it has been better) but I guess that’s inevitable when you have a high public profile. I think varying male politician’s need to lose weight or get a hair cut too.
But two things have me thinking on this a bit more. One, an ongoing pouring out of emotions from my fellow romance/erotica writers about the tendency for some authors to bag others. It seems that in the fight to get that extra book sale women (and this is primarily females) and giving bad reviews and dissing other peoples books so there is less competition.
Book reviewing is an interesting area as I have reviewed a number of books of authors I have no connection with which appear on Good Reads, and few of fellow Siren authors whom I don’t know personally but feel that they are in it with me and I like to be as positive as possible. If I can’t give three or above I don’t review it, but even then it can be tricky because in reviewing romance I have different criteria to say reviewing Gone Girl (ie ones that get International acclaim). It’s not that I want to can them either, but a four and five on the thriller scale is different to a four or five on the romance scale. That is largely because of different audience and interest in story (which I think is essential but isn’t always part of the romance genre). Cowboys aren’t really my thing, nor new age men that do the house work (I’m talking fiction here, not real life…) but it is very common in romance and I think that has to be taken in. When writing a review, having been on the end of a bad one, I always try to highlight the good things and if there were problems mention what could be improved. ‘Crap’ and getting personal has sent my fellow authors off crying and put them off publishing. This isn’t how to help the sisterhood nor to feel good about yourself.
The second thing to get me thinking was a launch I went to today of a networking website ‘Who Is She’ and. And it is International Women’s Day after all.
So first- at the launch Christine Nixon spoke. An ample sized ex-Chief commissioner of police who has weathered all the problems of being a woman at the top, and of a male dominated workforce. She was inspiring as much for her good grace as what she achieved. I loved the fact that in the midst of her worst crisis her mother (aged 88) told her ‘you can always come home you know.’ Christine is 58. Still, says something about being a mother and daughter – one of the more positive things that I don’t think need negate women as being powerful. I have a Chair in my academic discipline but I don’t want to be head of department, not because I am concerned about being torn down but because life it too short and there are other things to do. Some of women not being on boards etc may be because they have better perspective than their male counterparts, not because they are being discriminated against.
But it doesn’t mean that women are not being discriminated against, that perhaps they need to Lean In and be more confident (Sheryl Sandberg’s book). But how can they hope to be if submitted to the media barrage designed it seems to head any woman with any sense running from public office?
 At the launch I got a copy of Mary Crooks from the Victorian Women’s Trust’s book ‘A Switch in Time’. It is sobering reading. She follows the media coverage of global warming and our first female prime minister, with reference to how the media also address other powerful women.  Some (not all) of this media is women. She puts on one side of the page what the columnists say: “utterly dysfunctional…we don’t have a leader…incapable of addressing challenges.” On the other side is the Governor of the Reserve Bank stating how well our economy is going. This is on a background of our shock jock and cartoonists saying she (our PM) ‘this excuse for a woman’ should be taken out to sea and dumped overboard in a sack and ‘I’m over this lying cow.’ ‘Deliberately barren’ came from another politician, male. ‘A menopausal monster’ from a caller (this could be funny in Chick Lit I accept…).
This isn’t just in Australia. There is a ‘I Hate Nancy Pelosi’ Facebook page asking her to be hung, Sarah Palin has been described as masturbation material and Hilary Clinton stereotyped as a bitch. What we are told and shown fits the images the media choose and do not tell the whole story or give us the whole person. They just feed our paranoias and biases.
So rise above it and feel empowered by seeing beyond the gender biases, review books without ulterior motives and read media reports with a healthy dose of scepticism. Be brave and have your own opinion ... but be a bit kind too.

Thrill Me! Tales from the Perth Writers Festival

Just back in the early hours of the morning from Perth where I got to hang around with the celebs (care of husband who was invite speaker) and attend sessions and get to meet some interesting authors. Highlights:
1. My husband of course! There to talk about the Rosie Project which got a GREAT review in the Age last saturday and the Guardian in UK where it isn't even out yet. He spoke about transforming it from a screenplay (along with Steve Worland, author of Velocity who has worked in Hollywood), becoming a hit (along with young adult author of The Age of Miracles, Karen Thomspon Walker) and about comedy with Benjamin Law (Gayasia - now this giuy is funny!) and Chicklit author Zoe Foster.


2. Key Note address by Jared Diamond who at 75 has a mind like a steel trap and spoke for half an hour about alll the societies that don't treat the elderly well (USA, and Aus included though at least we don't bump people off or even discrimminate as the USA does).


3. 50 Shades of Chick Lit with Zoe Foster (The Younger Man, yep 30 plus goes out with a 12 year old...well it just seemed like that was the age of the men her friends were dating so she turned it into a story), Susan Johnston (100 Lovers and is really a literary writer, lovely stuff about sex with a mango and eating a croissant) and Anita Heiss (author of Am I Black Enough as well as Manhattan Dreaming and Paris Dreaming "Choclit"- her term not mine- a truly funny inspiring woman).

4. Thriller Sessions (what I am currently writing and even my erotica has a story with lots of tension) with LA Larkin (an Aussie-Brit who writes action thrillers that read like guys books but she is an attractive sassy woman. For "Thirst' her latest book she went to Antarctica to do research, but I swear it was just cos she fancied a few weeks away with some Russian sailors...), Steve Worland and Andrew Croome (Midnight Empire).


5. Looking forward to reading Parker Bilal's book but have to start at beginning with The Golden Scales as I gather the background story about the unrest in Egypt develops.

6. Margaret Atwoods line for signing was long, but Andy Griffith's, who writes kids books, had a line that must have been 200 metres long!

7. Drinks at the bar...

So what did I learn? Well more what was confirmed?
Writing is work!
Friends don't get this and shouldn't turn up randomly expecting you to go out for coffee- don't answer the door!
Most writers have real jobs as well so find a time and write.
Turn off the wi fi! Or at least stop the emails popping up. Steve Worland is often researching so keeps it handy.
Get that first draft finsihed, then go back and imporve/rewrite enhancing the characters.
Your characters- think them through throughly, from what they look like and how they walk, to what school they went to, what movie they like and how they talk.
Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite....okay, so now? Off to rewrite...

The Importance of the Cover in Selling a Book

As the wonderful artists at Siren do my covers, with a little bit of my thoughts sometimes influencing them, I hadn't really thought much about the importance of book covers until my husband's book which came out on Australia last week in in 32 otther countries in the next months. These countries have invested heavily in The Rosie Project and want as much as he for it to be successful...so the cover has become a topic of much discussion. While they ulitmatey make the final decision, they check with him first. Sometimes distributing companies also put in their thoughts.

Given the phenomenal success (sales wise) of 50 Shades of Grey AND that EL James was adamant about the cover being relatively neutral, this has had me thinking. I'm not a marketer nor artist, but I do want my books to sell!

Personally I think 50 Shades cover is a little misleading...it suggests a good deal more elegance and sophistication than the book delivers. BUT if it had a scantily clad woman and a bare chested man holding a whip on the cover...would it have sold all those millions? I so don't think so. Ebooks make the genre anonymous....but so did 50 Shades's covers.

The Rosie Project was (surprise surprise) going to have a rose on the cover in Aus. But this was abandonded for a more male friendly cover. One of the other countries is thinking of pink and roses and hearts... great if it were Chick Lit or a romance, but it's a love story, a romantic comedy, and told from a male point of view that men find funny. It's hard enough to get men to read fiction, let alone ask them to read something with roses. My son bought 50 Shades of Grey (hated it) but wouldn't be seen dead with a book that had a rose on the cover.

Of all my covers, the first, Embedded is my favorite- and my husbands. Interestingly, the only one without a bare chested male on the cover. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with a bare chested male, but....it is nice to leave something to the imagination.


I have my final of the WereDevils of Tasmania series cover ahead of me, and it will need to be like the other three (and I do look forward to see who they have playing my character!). But after that? I wonder if trying a man with clothes on, or the 50 Shades approach is worthwhile?

Is Stephanie a Slut... or When is a One Night Stand Ok?

It's hard enough negotiating the world of dating, but writing about it some years after being in the arena so to speak isn't any easier!

When I conjured up Stephanie Beauman of Embedded, Expose and Exclusive I was vaguely modelling her on the heroines of the Black Lace novels that had kept me company in between partners. This publishing company isn’t producing erotica any more, but was based in the UK and had feisty out there heroines both historical and contemporary. Many of the “rules” were followed (no children, no incest) but some did have bodily functions (didn’t do it for me) and while there was always a hero she ended up with, the hero wasn’t necessarily all that good and noble and the heroines had a good dose of lust and took no prisoners- meaning sometimes sex with someone other than the hero.

This is not allowed in current US erotica publishing houses by and large, and Stephanie only just got away with her enthusiasm for sex and the opposite sex because she wasn’t in a relationship and once she was (the end of the book) she was ‘faithful’.

So in real life?

There seems to be some doubt for some time in many cases as to whether one is in a relationship. Stephanie wasn’t going to ring the bar tender back in New York to check when she got the offer from Matt in the first class lounge…but she takes up with the Handy man and it is starting to look like a relationship…

Certainly there have been some reviews that thought she was too promiscuous, and those that liked it also often found her well male attitude to sex a little much. Yet we accept this from men… average life time sex partners for women is 8-11 (some twitters or is that tweets suggested this discovery coincided with them discovering they were sluts…) but the estimate for men starts at 16. God knows how many Hugh Heffernan has had (okay I accept he isn’t your average guy). My gay (male) friend lost count after 1000 (he has been in two long term loving relationships and the attitude to ‘unfaithfulness’ seems to be a little different. In heterosexual relationships we women seem to be there to put a brake on).

My attitude was this is fiction and meant to be fantasy. A bit of healthy safe sex where no one gets hurt and there’s a mutual bolster of feeling attractive…what’s not to like?

Go for it Stephanie… okay by the end she’s living happily ever after (monogamously) but it was fun getting there…

So just how erotic does an erotic author need to be outside the pages of the novel?

It's all imagination, right?

No one actually does this stuff ...do they?

I think this summarises the position of my mother and daughter and I'm happy for them to keep this position, well at least in relation to me. I mean children are meant to think they are the result on the one and only occasion (or four in my parents’ case as I have three sisters). And my mother was not one of the swinging sixties set.

I know one successful mainstream Mills & Boon romance writer and saw a documentary on a group. All these were middle aged or older and to say the least, conservative and well not obviously outwardly romantic. None looked like Barbara Cartland (okay she was still writing when she had false teeth and breasts probably looked like teabags but she dressed in style and Princess Di was her step-daughter). None had ever had sex. They just kissed and swooned a lot, I swear.

I have lots of great on-line friends who are erotic fiction authors but haven’t met any. How much can you judge by a photo? There are an interesting mix of actual author photos (range from conservative to ‘there could be hidden depths’), hot web sites, a never ending supply of hot male photos (where do they get them? Are they risking copyright by pinching them off the web or do they have a good deal on bulk photo purchase? I have a friend with a hot son and have thought about making him an offer but I don’t think my photographic skills would do him justice. And my daughter would probably die). I’ve had a few interchanges when we have both been tipsy suggesting there might be some interesting research being pursued…But is it necessary? Desirable? Fiction is 30% your life, 30% someone else’s and the rest made up. Can you choose which is which? Can you write erotic fiction using your experience with 5-11 partners (this is claimed as the average for women in research so my daughter can relax, this isn't a confession where I ahve forgotten the last 6) for the sex scenes? Or is this the 30% complete fiction?Okay having researched the sex writers (nonfiction) on what really happens out there, my educated guess is this:
1.      Characters are more fiction than not because the rules say we have to make them ‘noble’. In real life? Ah well we might try our best but let’s face it, there aren’t too many Mother Theresa’s and besides she was celibate.
2.      The MFM, MFMM, etc is the fiction of the millennium…but only with respect to the faithfulness and HEA. The better written ones…have had some research involved. Swinging, swopping didn’t die in the 70’s. The USA may be hung up on monogamy but they are just serial offenders…the divorce rate is huge and there is often an overlap …
3.      The MM written by men…well do I need to say? Though my gay friend thinks his life is considerably more colourful. But then if you’re living it rather than writing about it you don’t have so many rules…
4.      Erotic fiction writers …are a wee bit wilder than other writers. Go girls (and guys!). And when we can, we enjoy the research…
Get Simone Sinna’s latest book The Ghosts’ Return! http://www.bookstrand.com/the-ghosts-returndiscount until Jan 31st midnight Texan time! MFM, ancient curses, a race against time, ghost vampires and were-devils. Paranormal Aussie style.