Tamara Larson's Blog, page 4

Fair Market Value - Sneak Peak

So I've published a sneak peek of the first chapter of my next Kingston Brothers Novella on my sad website. Check it out at http://tvlarson.shawwebspace.ca/

The actual book won't be published for a few months but it is in the works and I'm hoping readers haven't forgotten me entirely. I haven't published anything since June 2013. I know. Amazing how quickly time goes by.

What's different about this one? Well, James Kingston, our hero, wasn't always the alpha male you'll see on the cover. He's a former geek with a chip on his shoulder who's struggling to escape his brothers' broad shadows.

And how about Lauren, our heroine? Well, her libido has been on lock-down for a long time and a night with a non-verbal Kingston Brother may be just the thing to help her overcome her past.

Sound interesting? I hope so. Thanks for being patient and I'll let you know when I have a firm release date.

You always remember your first.

I have always enjoyed writing a good love scene. Ok. Maybe “love” scene isn’t that accurate, but sex scene sounds like seventies porn music should be playing in the background. So, I’m going to use the L-word to describe one of my favourite parts of writing erotic romance. (Dialogue is also a lot of fun. Particularly the guy’s part. They can say shocking and hilarious things without being judged quite as harshly for some reason.)

Here’s how I got my start.

When I was around 13 my family moved to Southern Ontario and I would have to take the bus to school. The route meandered all over the county and took about forty minutes. My classmates and I were always looking to entertain ourselves on these trips. (Usually this involved someone being cruelly taunted for their questionable wardrobe choices. Yes, I was usually the one being mocked.) One of the things we would do was pass around books we considered pretty hot stuff. It seems tame now but we seriously thought The Thorn Birds and Flowers in the Attic were racy.

We didn’t actually sit around reading the entire books on those long, cold bus rides. No, we would just read the spicy sections. The objective was to shock and titillate each other but I think this activity also gave us a valuable education. I know it was an eye opener for me. The first time I heard about a woman performing oral sex on a man I thought it was a joke. Who would want to do that? “Gag me” was the universal response to that idea. (Remember, it was the eighties.)

Eventually we ran out of reading material. There were only so many paperbacks we could pilfer from our mothers’ collections without being caught and not many of their books met with our dirty requirements. So, we decided to write our own love scenes. The results of this experiment were mixed. One particularly disturbing example described the fictional couple dining on “dried cum” after sex. Like it was a delicacy or something. Yes, really. Not sure what kind of twisted world the author of that piece of fiction lived in but I’m pretty sure I was traumatized by the idea. (Thanks Alana.) For years I thought this odd custom would be expected of me if I had sex with a boy. Needless to say, I wanted no part of it.

Not all of the examples of amateur erotica were horrifying. There was, of course, a lot of flowery prose and bad grammar but at least a few of the girls could write. Then it was my turn. Writing assignments for teachers and for my own enjoyment were nothing new but this was different. I would actually get an honest reaction from my audience. Teenage girls can be so cruel, especially if they sense weakness and I was definitely an outsider. Being new and desperately shy didn’t help matters. I suppose I considered those girls my friends at the time but they were also my tormentors. I knew they would cheerfully crush me if they felt my effort was too naïve or too raunchy. I felt positively sick as I handed out the photocopies of my first “love” scene and waited for their reactions.

This is the part where you want to believe that I won them all over with my writing. Happy ending time. Yay! That would have been great. But no, it didn’t happen that way. But my fellow bus passengers didn’t call me Horny Helen either. (Yes, one unfortunate fledgling writer got saddled with that particular nickname as a direct result of our little writing experiment.) What did happen was that I got to witness people reading my work and genuinely enjoying it. None of them would actively admit it, but I could tell. It was good. I’d entertained them and that gave me more pleasure than reading any love scene from any book ever could.

That’s when I knew I would be a writer someday.

In some ways, I’m still riding that bus, anxiously waiting for a reaction from my audience and hoping, just hoping to give them what they want from a good book.

What makes a great romance novel hero? Part One.

Is it his rock-hard, eight-pack abs or his other rock-hard body parts? Maybe it’s his ability to say the exact thing to make his woman forgive him for whatever dumb-ass thing he’s done? Or is the attraction that whole bad-boy, can’t-be-tamed, damaged alpha-male thing that drives us wild?

All I know is that the characters that have made me feel the most tingly over the years were, well, kind of assholes.

For instance, the first time I read Gone with the Wind I fell deeply in lust with Rhett Butler. And he really was a bit of a douchebag. Yes, he was charming and devilish but for the most part: what a big skid-mark. And I couldn’t get enough of him. I would speed-read through the Scarlett/Ashley & gross battlefield scenes just to get to the pages that mentioned him. When I finally saw the movie I was devastated. Clark Cable was not the Rhett I’d envisioned at all. He always seemed a bit smarmy to me. That weird mustache and slick hair. Yech. Of course, I was into Shaun Cassidy at the time, so Rhett’s hair really should have been feathered. Not a big look for the Civil War, but certainly an improvement over Clark’s helmet head.

Through my teens and twenties I read about a thousand Harlequin romance novels. (On the sly, of course.) None of the heroes of these books compared with Rhett but a few came close. Then I discovered the amazing Linda Howard and fell in lust again. This time with Gray Rouillard, the irresistible stud from After the Night. And Oh MY. What a human wedgie he was. But he was so hot it didn’t matter. This book made me want to write a character like him. Someone who was so charming he could get away with ANYTHING and women would STILL love him.

More recently, my taste has taken a disturbing turn and it’s all Christian Grey’s fault. Yes, there’s problems with the Shades of Grey series. No, I didn’t LOVE the books but that character had me riveted. Just like Rhett and Gray. And make no mistake, he is an abusive asshole. If your friend or sister was dating him you’d tell her to run to the nearest police station and slap a restraining order on his adorable, dominant ass. But as a character he was fascinating. The unbelievable wealth certainly contributes but I think it’s the damaged and complex character that draws readers to the books. Let’s face it, we all love a project and he is the ultimate fixer-upper. And he does know how to make that red room a fun place to hang out. I certainly wouldn’t say no to a tour.

But the question remains, why do we love jerks so much? Or is it the whole package? If Mr. Grey was a middle-aged janitor with a receding hairline, would we still find him so sexy? Unlikely, but it's his badness that makes me want more. How about you?

The Case of the Missing Naughty Novella

If you go back a few blogs you’ll find an entry regarding Verena Vincent’s retirement. Who’s that? Well, that’s my other pen name. The one my family doesn’t know about because she writes slightly raunchier novellas. Nothing too extreme. No sex with sasquatch or tentacle beasts, but definitely a spicier version of my usual work.

I’d released two novellas under this name. (Kayla’s Cowboy Fantasy and Holly’s Dream Lover Fantasy.) They weren’t terribly popular but they were fun to write and gave me an opportunity to indulge my dirty mind so I decided to push the envelope and delve into the oversaturated paranormal erotic romance genre. The result was an experiment called, The Vampire’s Last Virgin. This was a failed experiment, at least in terms of sales. I didn’t care. I thought it was a fun, sexy book and the few people who were kind enough to review it were quite enthused about a sequel because I’d purposely ended the story quite abruptly, with a sequel in mind. (The Vampire’s Former Virgin.)

Then something bizarre happened. VLV disappeared entirely from the well-known e-book retailer where I do most of my sales. And get this: it was removed because of content. In other words it was censored. My understanding is that the title suggests underage sex. Yup, the word "virgin" apparently gets the perverts all riled up and no one want to incite the dirty old pedophiles by using the wrong word. Nevermind that the virgin in my story is in her twenties and engaging in consensual vanilla sex with A MYTHICAL CREATURE. Not exactly shocking compared to some of the content out there.

I was initially somewhat resentful at this retailer for making such an arbitrary decision but it also made me feel like an outlaw. I`d always written such tame erotica but now my work was banned. That`s how bad-ass I am. But then reality slunk back in and I realized that they can do whatever they want. If I`m dumb enough to pick a title which causes red flags to go off then I deserve to have my book removed without warning. (Though a small, cynical part of me wonders if they would have made an exception if the book had actually sold.)

I was able to release The Vampire`s Last Virgin through another e-book publisher so it can be found. But now the question remains: what about the sequel? I really feel that I owe the people who read the first book some closure for those characters. But the majority of VLV’s readers bought the book through the site that later banned it. Even if I finished Dani and Alex’s story, very few people would actually get a chance to enjoy it because I can’t change the title at this point. So it would also be banned. Seems like a lot of work for very little payoff.

And isn’t that the point? The payoff? The answer to that question is “NO.” I don’t write because of the money. I would actually make more working a second part-time job, so why do I do this exactly? I do it because I have something to say - something that I want to share with the world, even if it isn’t great literature or even good pornography. It’s what I do. And that’s exactly why Verena Vincent is coming out of retirement. And why I suspect there will be yet another banned book in my future. Am I a rebel, or what?

Would you ever?

So, one of the most common criticisms I hear from readers is that my female characters are a bit on the slutty side. Meaning they get down to some dirty shenanigans with their alpha males much too quickly. (See Lost & Found.) Frankly, I agree with this analysis to some degree. In real life I have never been pawed by a gorgeous detective within five minutes of meeting them. Unfortunately.

The truth is that romance novels aren’t realistic at all. And that’s exactly why I write (and read) this particular genre. It’s fantasy. Maybe not science fiction or paranormal level-type fantasy but it’s supposed to be outside the bounds of reality. If I wrote about my real life the written account of it would read quite a bit more like a sit-com than a romance novel. (See previous blog, “Is a cat tree worth an international Incident?”) For instance, last night I didn’t jet off to Paris with a dominant billionaire. Instead a friend and I put together a bed after a few cocktails. Probably not the best time to handle power tools but we got the job done without a single trip to the emergency room. That’s my reality. And if I wrote about my reality last year it would have been more like a depressing medical drama. And not the sexy McSteamy-type either.

Why am I pondering this now? Well, because the heroine in the erotic novella I’m currently writing is also in the middle of a quandary. You see, she’s an over-the-hill virgin and she’s arranged to meet a gigolo in a tropical location to finally get some sexual experience. However, she meets a man on the way to her devirginization location and is tempted by him instead. Realistic? Uh no. Fun and sexy? You bet your vibrator.

So imagine yourself on a plane. You’re single and alone. Now, look across the aisle. Sitting there is a man. Not some pot-bellied, sweat-pant wearing, mouth-breather, but a god in a dark suit. We’re talking Brad Pitt’s face (twenty years ago) combined with Hugh Jackman’s body (ten years ago) and he’s looking at you (Jared Leto’s eyes) with interest. And then he smiles at you. And it’s not an arrogant smile or even a seductive smile. He’s just being friendly. So you return his smile with one of your own. You have five hours to kill, and you’re both traveling solo, so why not pass the time talking to a gorgeous stranger?

You spend the next hour in conversation with this breath-taking creature. You discover that not only is he so beautiful it`s hard to look at him directly, he`s also intelligent, funny and best of all, nice. Yes, really. He’s very nice: likes animals and children, volunteers at the local soup kitchen and best of all, he has no idea how incredibly attractive he is.

You have a glass of wine and talk some more. Your conversation inevitably turns to sex and now he’s looking at you with some real heat. It’s obvious that he’s interested in doing more than talking. And you want him. Badly. In fact, you can barely concentrate on your verbal responses because you find yourself staring at his lips and wondering what it would be like to feel them on your skin. You stare at his hands and imagine them sliding down your body, cupping your breasts and then lower, much lower. And then your attention shifts to his lap and it’s all you can do to remain in your seat…

Now, be honest. Would you ever consider joining the Mile-high Club under these circumstances? I know I would and I’m pretty conservative in real life. Is this scenario likely to happen? Nope. But who really cares? I don’t know about you, but reality stares me in the face every day and it’s kind of unattractive. There’s no escaping it. What I need when I read a romance novel is that pure escapism from ugly reality. And that’s what I hope to give to my readers too.

Is a cat tree worth causing an international incident?

So this is a post which has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with making an idiot of myself twice in one day.

Last week I abandoned my cat, Finn, during a fire alarm in my building. So I was feeling a little guilty. (It turned out to be the result of some vandals taking a sledge hammer to the sprinkler system instead of an actual emergency so he is fine, just more skittish than usual.) To relieve some of my shame and make it up to him, I ordered a giant cat tree from an American company and arranged to have it shipped to one of those postal outfits on that side of the border so I could save myself $300 in shipping costs. I work close to the border, so no big deal, right?

Oh so wrong. I've done this many times and usually it takes about 35 to 45 minutes. Not yesterday. Not even close. When I finally got to the border crossing after waiting for 40 minutes I was shocked and appalled to see them shutting it down. The crossing guards threw down orange cones and I thought something was happening. Like a bomb scare or an international incident of some kind. Turns out someone had triggered their radiation sensors so ye olde Homeland Security went into emergency mode. And guess who it was? Yup. ME!!! I'd had a heart scan two days earlier and the radiation from that procedure set off their equipment like crazy! Can you believe that?

Needless to say, the next hour wasn't a lot of fun.(Though Customs Officers Ramsey and Van Dyke were really pleasant and efficient.)I got to see that room where they do orifice searches which was pretty exciting. No, I was not violated. They just checked to make sure the radiation I was transmitting matched the type indicated on my letter from the hospital. (Good thing I was carrying it.)

When I finally got my passport back and was able to leave the border behind I found myself in a situation. You see, I drive a small car and thought the giant cat tree would be in pieces. Nope. Six feet and sixty pounds of upholstered wood do not fit so I had to get the toothless fellows in the shipping department to help me wedge it in there. This involved moving my seat so far forward that my muffin top was brushing the steering wheel and the cat tree itself was resting on the glove compartment door. It's so close that I can use it as an arm rest. And I have to go back over the border like that. Looking like the craziest cat lady EVER!!

And all because of a fire alarm. (OK. And my own stupidity.) But I did learn two things: 1. I will never wear my comfy, polka dot onesie again. My neighbours all stared at me during the fire alarm. Didn't help that I was wearing it with neon running shoes and carrying a giant purse. Stylish ensemble, no? 2. I will avoid the border at all costs while undergoing treatment, just in case... Unless of course, I find the perfect lamp or table. Then all lessons will be forgotten.

Getting my groove back

Yep. I've been neglecting my blog lately. I'd like to blame my new lap top which seems to freeze every single time I try and save a blog entry but this is really just a lame excuse. The truth is that getting back to work after ten months of medical leave has been more challenging than I ever expected. I have a tendency to nod off on my couch like a little old lady around 8:30 at night, which makes writing anything just about impossible.

That being said I see signs of improvement all the time. It's all slowly getting better. My hair is growing back, which is fantastic. Having had long hair most of my life it's bizarre working with a few measly inches of the stuff. I'm doing a sort of Justin Bieber pompadour right now and hoping people aren't assuming I'm a transsexual. Not that there's anything wrong with that but the boy hair combined with the boy chest isn't exactly making me feel sexy.

Which brings me to my next lame attempt to shift the blame away from my own laziness. You see, the hormone therapy has pretty much crushed my libido so the spicy parts of my books are still a challenge but I'm hoping that will improve soon. I caught myself checking out a construction worker the other day so my interest in men and their fabulously interesting body parts must be buried in there somewhere.

But enough about my stupid cancer recovery. I'm doing great and that's really all that matters. Besides, if you're reading this you probably want to know when you can expect my next book. Well, the Kingston Bros book I was working on, "Fair Market Value" is going to be delayed. About halfway through I realized that I couldn't really go ahead with my plan to bring my own medical issues into the plot line. Cancer just kills the sexy and there's no way of getting around it.

I want my books to be fun and entertaining, not depressing or scary. So I will need to re-work it to reflect a lighter tone. But I can tell you that Serena will make an appearance but Karl will not play a major role. He will be back in another Kingston Brothers book but his storyline will not be advanced anytime soon. I know he's not the most popular but I love a good villain and he's a chilling character I can't wait to re-visit.

In the interim I am working on a new Delta of Venus Inc., book under my other pen name, Verena Vincent. This should be completed in the next few months, so I hope you'll check it out. I'll put a notice up on Goodreads before I publish it on Amazon.

Until then, thanks again and I hope 2014 is full of good reads, big laughs and much love for you all.

Editing The Love Laws

This book has been part of my life for a long time, so it was interesting going back through it and watching my writing change over the years.

The first couple of chapters, for instance, were actually written several years ago. I started The Love Laws immediately after I wrote Lost & Found. But when I received several rejection letters from publishers for L&F I figured there really wasn't any reason to continue writing.

Then, when I finally self-published on Amazon I decided I should finish Kevin and Jamie's story. (Just a note here: I really wish I hadn't named my hero Kevin. The name really doesn't suit him but it was too late at this point. I was crushing on a bartender with this name at the time I wrote it and had no idea he was a bit unstable. Note to self - do not name characters for people.)

Unfortunately, when I got back into writing The Love Laws I found that I'd set myself up for failure. The premise was too big and there was too much going on. I wrote a few chapters and gave up again. I wrote another short novella, came back to The Love Laws again for a chapter, and then wrote something else.

Finally, I was ready to get serious. And my left breast went homicidal on me. This, of course, interfered with finishing this book. It was actually supposed to be done months ago. I'm really sorry for the delay. You have no idea how much pressure I felt to finish but some days just made it impossible.

Mostly I'm happy that the book remains light-hearted and fun despite the fact that I wasn't really feeling all that happy-go-lucky through the writing process. The last two-thirds of the book was written after my diagnosis and subsequent treatment and I'm very proud that my own personal demons didn't leak into the story at all. I'm saving that for the next book. (Yes, it's a new Kingston Brothers novella.)

The Love Laws, however, didn't entirely escape my personal issues. Something is missing from it. The sex. Don't get me wrong. There's still a few hot scenes in there but it's not as steamy as many of my other works. I hope you won't be disappointed, but looking like a giant baby didn't exactly put me in a sexy mood. 

In conclusion, The Love Laws provided me with an excellent distraction during a rough time. I hope it can provide the same for you. So please enjoy it and I look forward to your comments.

Looking like Lex Luthor threw me for a loop.

Yes, that's a lot of alliteration in my title.

Until last month I was fairly confident I was not going to lose my hair. Even when my oncologist told me, point blank, "Oh yes. It's going. Get used to it," I thought somehow I would avoid it.

Yeah. I was wrong. It started falling out in drifts exactly two weeks after my first chemo treatment. I experimented with cutting it short but it was still making a fast retreat. So I had it shaved down to stubble. Then I noticed that I stuck to my pillow like velcro and I ended up waxing it off. Yes, seriously. Now my head is a giant white dome with a few odd pale sprouts. It was light brown before so I'm seriously hoping it doesn't come back in grey. That would be so uncool.

And how does this impact my writing? Well, The Love Laws should be out next month, so I'm happy to report that I am still working hard to bring Jamie and Kevin's story to light. They're a fun pair so I'm grateful to have them as a distraction.

As a person going through cancer treatment, however, being bald has had a huge impact. I'm okay with rocking the boy chest after my bilateral mastectomy. I even kind of like the freedom of being braless. Less laundry.

But walking around in the world marked as a sick person is really not agreeing with me. I'm turning into a bit of a hermit. This is good because I can write, but otherwise I dread being around people. The curious stares and sympathetic glances of strangers have a tendency to make me feel sorry for myself. Which I abhor.

So, if you're out and about and you see a woman wearing a hat indoors or one who is brave enough to go commando-head, please do not draw attention to her situation. If she's anything like me then she will promptly break out in snifffling tears and run away. Embarrassing for everyone.

 

Does writing matter?

Yes, I write erotic romance novels, but I'm also a big reader. Especially lately since I've been on medical leave. I have developed a very close relationship with my Kindle and often read the work of my fellow self-published authors. I've discovered a few great talents this way, but I'm also pretty shocked at some of the poor quality of writing I've encountered.

Now, let me preface this by saying that my work is by no means perfect. I should use a proofreader. (I actually did have an excellent editor for "Lost and Found" but we lost touch.) I realize that I misused the word dawned in "Open House." (Should have been 'donned.' Damn it. So embarrassing.) But overall, I feel like I put a lot of work into my writing and have enough understanding of the English language to actually feel confident in the product I put out. Not perfect, mind you, but certainly not offensive to the majority of the population.

So, this is what I don't understand: how can a self-published author put out a product that is blatantly poorly written and still be wildly successful?No, I'm not talking about "Fifty Shades of Grey." (See my earlier post.) 

Why am I asking this? Well, I recently read an erotic romance that looked promising because of the dozens and dozens of rave reviews, but when I actually started reading it, I was shocked to find that the writing was barely literate. I mean, we're talking sixth grade writing level. And apparently the author had numerous second readers. Why wouldn't someone tell her that she needed to review her grammar, take a creative writing course, and stop relying on spell check to catch all her errors?

I would never talk smack publicly about another writer. Good for her that's she's getting all those rave reviews and probably raking in a lot of cash for a work that probably took her all of three weeks to crank out. But what is going on with the readers? What do they get out of this? Do people no longer care about the writing? Should I stop giving a damn too and just slap a couple sex scenes together without considering plot, characters and proper grammar? Have I been wasting my time sweating over these details?

No, I haven't. At the end of the day, I need to know that I haven't duped my readers into believing I am a real writer. I put in my best effort into maintaining standards of writing that I've been taught because I respect my readers and never want them to feel cheated, which is exactly the way I felt when I read this poorly written but very successful novel recently.

What really concerns me is that the self-publishing movement may actually be encouraging people to NOT care about their product. And eventually that will hurt us all because no one will take us seriously.

But yeah. I am a little envious...