No resting!

 "Rest on your laurels and you'll only end up with deadbranches."
I wrote those words to myself shortly after Ellora's Cavepublished my first book. Getting that first royalty check and realizingsomeone, several someones had bought my book and were reading it in theprivacy of their homes and that I didn't even know them was a heady experienceand I reveled in the wonder and glory of it.
But I fully understood the transitory nature of success andknew I'd have to keep writing stories readers wanted. I wrote everywhere—in thecar waiting for my daughter to get out of ballet class, in the doctor's waitingroom, in fact, anywhere I had to wait became an opportunity to grab some timeand write another page. Two of my books won awards and life was good. But I wasdetermined not to rest on my laurels.
And then we had several deaths in the family and I had ahard time. Some readers thought I'd given up writing. I hadn't. My motto keptme writing but the stories were darker and I published them under the name MysticShade with a different company. The three novellas I wrote for BDSMBooks crossthe line into porn and while sex sells, I think most of the readers who likeDiana's erotica didn't follow me for Mystic's books. As far as they wereconcerned, Mystic had no right to wear Diana's laurels even if Diana did write Stress Relief during this period (most reviewers thought this book went too far into thedarker sides of BDSM).
But time heals, the dark period ended and I realized manyprobably thought I was resting comfortably on my bed of greens since I hadn'tpublished much with EC during that time (except for the aforementioned StressRelief . I still like the interplay between Rand and Meg, even if thegeneral populace thought he went too deep). 
In fact, I was writing, but not wanting to end up with deadbranches, I moved in a different direction. Perhaps as a reaction to my darkperiod, my characters now wanted sweet romances with no BDSM at all. Grrr. Darncharacters. I self-published two works of short stories in the lighter genre ( Tales from the Ramayana and Timeless Love ) but was thrilled todiscover John and Lauren liked kinky sex in Services Rendered.You can imagine my relief!
But not resting on one's laurels means more than justpenning story after story. It means offering new ideas, new features, new stuffto the world at large. So I added some games to my website (which were justplain old fun to do!) and finally got off my duff and finished Hardship and Hardtack , a historical novel that's been a part of my life for overa decade. I decided to use a different name for that book so readers wouldn'tget confused and think they were buying erotic romance with a BDSM twist whenin reality the book is closer to a young adult telling of one soldier's lifeduring the Civil War.
And of course, there's my latest venture. Yes, I'm stillwriting erotic romance (have a new short story coming out in Jaid Black'santhology sometime soon) but I'm also branching out. Over the course of thenext seven months I'm offering a series of writing workshops on my blog. One workshop aweek (Tuesdays!) to help both newbies and professionals hone their skills andget some ideas.
I've been teaching writing for a number of years now and havebeen toying with this idea for a while. Each week I'll post a new workshop forfree (although I am accepting donations). At the end, when all the discussionshave been held and the "course" is finished, I'll gather it all together in abook, take down the posts, and publish it in a more traditional format. This isyour opportunity to help mold the book as we go. Each workshop will eventuallybe a chapter in the book. Just look for the "writing workshop" tag and come onalong on this new venture.
"Rest on your laurels and you'll only end up with deadbranches."
Here's to no rest…and with any luck…more laurels!