The Flip of the Coin

Yeah, I know it's the holiday season, but at the moment I'm trying to ignore it, so I'm going with the theme!

Aren't all good attributes only the flip-side of something darker? Ambition is only a hair away from greedy, charm just a word away from manipulation, benevolence just a step from martyrdom, self-assurance a sneeze removed from assholery. Many strive for self-reliance and end up self-contained and lonely. Others look for an outlet for their love and affection and end up being used. Don't we always have to self-check to make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far and we let our best characteristics turn into the thing that makes everyone run when they see us coming, or turns us into the person who's always taken advantage of? And, as writers, isn't it just plain old fun to push our characters into choppy, ugly waters before we let them redeem themselves or find the upside to being what they are?

Even when it's something a character can't help, a place or situation they've been born into and can't escape, there has to be a downside to being... well... them. There has to be. Otherwise, what's the point?

In my latest release, Jaguar in the Sun, the hero Xbal is a jaguar god. Wouldn't being one be just freakin' awesome? He can shift into jaguar form, do magic (including a particularly intense form of sex magic that takes eons to perfect) and is immortal. What could be better than that?

Ahhh... well, that last one is the bugbear. Immortality. In a world where very few other beings live forever like he does. Love, which he's experienced in the past, is something to be avoided when you know there's no doubt you'll outlive your mate...and have eternity to mourn him or her. As Queen sang, "Who wants to live forever, when love must die?" Xbal isn't against love, he just wants no part of it because it hurts too damn much. There's nothing he can do about the immortality, but he can control his heart.

Or so he thinks.

Have a great holiday everyone, and see you all in the New Year!

Book four in the Unveiled Seductions series.

Cassandra Solinar has a bucket list and jaguar god Xbal Montegro is on it. About to undergo an essential rite she won’t survive, she wants to wring every ounce of pleasure out of the time left. Including discovering if Xbal’s sex magic technique is as good as rumored.

It’s no hardship for Xbal to accept Cassandra’s invitation for one erotic encounter, but far more difficult to let her go once he gets a taste of the explosive passion between them. Now he’s determined to hold on to her, no matter what.

Cassie can’t tell Xbal the truth about what she’s about to do. It’s illegal, but without her death the entire world will perish. It’s a job she’s been preparing for from birth, but the loss will be greater now. For in Xbal she finds a soul-deep connection she doesn’t want to lose, and the one thing she made a point of not putting on her bucket list—love.

Holiday Madness

This is the first year in many that I'm not working in retail, so I'm actually looking forward to the holidays. It was bad enough when I sold jewelry, and we fought for the chance to work on Christmas Eve, hoping to be the one helping those men who bought last minute and often impulsively. Worse yet when I worked part time at a craft store, because although by Christmas Eve the store was quiet, by then we had already moved on to the spring stock and it felt as though I'd had enough of Christmas already... in fact I'd felt that way since some time in October!

So I plan to "do" Christmas this year, rather than just throw the tree up a couple of days before-hand and pretend it was enough. And where does that leave my writing? I'm not 100% sure. I'm not used to being able to produce at this time of the year, so it'll be a novel experience (pun intended, hopefully) to actually have a bit more time to devote to it. With the kids grown and all having their own things to do, and most of our families far away, I think it'll be fairly quiet around here. Not ideal perhaps, since this is the time for families, but until I have a grandchild or two (looks innocent) I think this is how things will go.

Now just to entice my old witch of a muse to get her butt off whatever beach she's hanging out on and come home for the holidays! I have the next book in the Unveiled Seductions series to write. In the mean time, here's a sneak peek of my next release.

Coming soon from Ellora's Cave: Jaguar in the Sun Available December 4, 2013

Jaguar in the Sun

Anya Richards

Book four in the Unveiled Seductions series.

Cassandra Solinar has a bucket list and jaguar god Xbal Montegro is on it. About to undergo an essential rite she won’t survive, she wants to wring every ounce of pleasure out of the time left. Including discovering if Xbal’s sex magic technique is as good as rumored.

It’s no hardship for Xbal to accept Cassandra’s invitation for one erotic encounter, but far more difficult to let her go once he gets a taste of the explosive passion between them. Now he’s determined to hold on to her, no matter what.

Cassie can’t tell Xbal the truth about what she’s about to do. It’s illegal, but without her death the entire world will perish. It’s a job she’s been preparing for from birth, but the loss will be greater now. For in Xbal she finds a soul-deep connection she doesn’t want to lose, and the one thing she made a point of not putting on her bucket list—love.

A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

What Price Freedom? Invaluable!

Freedom is one of those human conditions we all strive for and yet can often be elusive, since there is a fine line between personal freedom and selfishness, the need to do your own thing balanced by the needs of others. The urge to follow our dreams versus the need to make ends meet. For most of us, these are the issues we battle with as we seek liberty—freedom to create what we want, be it a life, art, relationships, careers—but we should never forget we are the lucky ones. As a descendent of slaves I try to keep perspective by reminding myself that while I search for freedom to write what I want, to live as I like, it’s nothing in comparison to what my ancestors faced, and unfortunately what millions of people around the world still face.

Of course the search for freedom makes a wonderful plot point too, because it’s such a fundamental urge. In “Dragon’s Claim” my hero Talathion, an elf, has never known true freedom. Since the moment he was born his path has been set, the needs of his clan having to take precedent over whatever dreams he had for his own life. When his task is interrupted by an encounter with the dragon-shifter Hervé, Tala is left struggling to control his growing love for the other man, knowing there is no future for them. Too many others will suffer if he puts his personal freedom ahead of the task he’s been assigned.

And while Hervé can’t truly understand his lover’s need to do what the elf considers to be the right thing, he has to accept that the impulse to give, to elevate his clan through sacrifice, is an integral part of Tala’s character. He can’t love the man without accepting this facet of him, without accepting his freedom to be who he is at that most basic level.

And I think that is the ultimate freedom, being able to choose how we live, where and how much we sacrifice to build not only a good life for ourselves but for others. Without giving, without sacrificing for others and acknowledging those who have less, I don’t think we can truly appreciate what we have. So many people are bound in by expectations, traditions, the desperate need just to survive or the implacable control of others. If you are not one of these people, if you have the ability to choose where and how you live, what you present to others, how much of yourself you give, then enjoy that freedom. Enjoy it, and give thanks for it.

Once More, with Feeling

For me, love scenes are tough to write (gasp!) and sometimes tough to read. It seems there is, in some quarters, the feeling that erotic romance is basically stringing a succession of sex-scenes together. Yet it is, like any other genre, subject to rules. Yes, there is a heightened sexuality and frank language, but just as in any other kind of book there has to be a cohesive plot. Without one, you might as well be reading a bunch of those “true confession” letters in a men’s magazine.

And also each scene must serve a purpose—including the sex/love scenes. For me, when the love scenes are really hot you can almost bet your sweet bippy there is a new and thrilling shift in the relationship going along with it. Yes, the characters are having sex, slots and tabs as per usual, acrobatics, dominance etc. not essential (although sometimes welcome and even necessary, depending on the characters), but they’re also discovering something about themselves or their partner at the same time. While they’re doing that, the reader is learning about them too, and the heat is ramped up.

For me there has to be emotion, whether acknowledged or fought against, and relevance, or it’s just sex.

It could be the thrill of finally realizing the dream of having an encounter with the man the heroine’s been lusting after forever. Or perhaps the moment when a man looks at the person he’s having sex with and thinks, ‘Mine.’ Even the second when, scared spitless, one of the characters recognizes the very thing they didn’t want—love—has entered the equation. There are a bunch of different scenarios, instant attraction, resurgence of floundering love, angry sex, make-up sex, etc. that we use as plot devices, but the bottom line is if you don’t have emotion behind it and a reason for the sex, it just isn’t hot to me.

And let’s not forget there are scenes in books where the characters never even get undressed, much less get to actual sex, that can be hotter than the desert on a mid-summer day! The slow seduction scene that gets interrupted or is curtailed because one character knows the other isn’t ready is an example that comes to mind. Again I bet it's the heap of emotion behind it that makes the temperature rise.

So up the stakes, up the feelings behind the action, up the revelations and discoveries through the lovemaking and, in my estimation, the heat quotient rises too!

Anya

Journeys Through Seduction

Anya Richards/Anya Delvay books available from Samhain Publishing, Ellora's Cave, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chapters Indigo.

When Good Ideas go Bad and Then Good Again

Our theme this month has been about how the best ideas can go bad and because this month has an extra Friday, I get to go again!

I’ve had my fair share of ‘The Best Book Idea Ever!’ turning into ‘What the Hell was I thinking??’. Sometimes it’s been the plot, sometimes the characters, even extenuating circumstances (aka real life) but, in reality, it’s all me. They’re my ideas and, whoa Nellie, if they don’t turn out then who can I blame but myself? But it's not the end of the world, or even the end of the story.

Here’s a “for instance.”

In early 2012 Ellora’s Cave put out their list of sub calls, one of which was for tattoo themed books. I came up with an idea for four linked fantasy books revolving around the Midnight Café, a tattoo parlor in the world beyond the Veil, where all the characters of myth and legends reside. They were to be short novellas, and I had just over a month to get them written. I could do it. I was sure of it. I told my family I’d be pretty much unavailable for the next six weeks and hunkered down.

Then, in February our son Tom was in a horrendous auto accident* and everything, of course, got shoved aside. Thank heavens although he was terribly hurt we were assured he would eventually make a full recovery. And despite not having much time, I found writing therapeutic and actually cranked out two of the three novellas I’d planned, Fleeing Fate and Stone-Hard Passion, and they were released as part of the Pricked series.

Fast forward to June and things have settled down. I pull out the outline for book three and decide to get on with it. The plot involves a dragon shifter and Lady Luck, who’s a Fey woman. I write, hit delete, write some more, delete some more. It’s like pulling teeth. By now I think I must have been on crack when I decided this story had legs. Then it stuck me…The Fey woman actually should be a Fey man…

HA! I won’t claim the book flowed, because I struggled to get it finished—real life again—but once I got that point worked out, I knew exactly how the book was to go and Dragon's Claim, book three in my Unveiled Seductions series came to life.

So, for me I’ve found sometimes it’s a matter of finding the stumbling block and tearing through it to turn a bad idea into something I can love.

*My son Tom’s accident was caused by his Type One Diabetes, which he’s had since he was four years old. In a rush to get to work one morning, running late, he fixed himself breakfast to go and jumped into his car. Unfortunately he didn’t eat quickly enough and his blood sugar dropped. He doesn’t remember anything about what happened next, but the end result was the accident.

They don’t know what causes Type One Diabetes and there is no cure. Every year the Brenda Novak Auction raises funds for research into Type One Diabetes and it is an awesome way to help, as well as get some wicked deals on all kinds of cool stuff. By the time you read this the auction may be over for this year (May 31^st is the last day) but if not, go and take a look and get a last minute deal. If it’s too late this year, make sure to check it out next year!

Building a Book, One World at a Time

I think any author sitting down to write fiction is automatically doing some level of world-building. Contemporary authors are creating towns or businesses or situations for their characters, historical authors are trying to decipher the past and envision how things were then so as to decide whether their characters’ situations fit. Every author who does it well, I think, deserves kudos just for maintaining cohesion in the world they’ve created from the start to the end of a book!

But when it comes to world-building, I really take my hat off to the Sci-Fi and fantasy writers who create entire worlds from the ground up, fleshing them out with people, countries or planets, customs, etc., sucking us into places so real we half-expect to look up from the book and actually be there. In the past, memories of how the masters tackled the task pretty much kept me away from dipping my toes in the romance fantasy or sci-fi pools. I just wasn’t sure I could get it right.

Then I had a visit from a Plot Monkey…

Well, it was more like a herd of the damn things, flying around in my head and making a blasted nuisance of themselves. Before I could explain to them I already had my next book started, they’d forced me to do a blurb for a Steampunk book. Putting it aside, I went back to the job at hand, almost, but not quite, forgetting about it.

And it might have stayed in stasis indefinitely if not for a pitch contest I entered with that blurb, where I kept advancing to the next round, forcing me to write first a full synopsis and one chapter, then three chapters, all on a time limit. Then the editor said she’d really like to see the full. With the hope of breaking into a new publishing house as a goad, and a self-imposed due-by date, I had no choice but to just dive right in. The end result, Beyond Prudence, was released by Ellora’s Cave in September 2011.

I think it was that sense of needing to get it done quickly, with no time to fret over overstepping my abilities, that really opened me up to taking more chances. When the Plot Monkeys came again, forcing me to outline four books set in a parallel world to ours where all the beings we humans think of as mythological live, I didn’t hesitate.

It still scared me spitless, but with a crap-load of research and the encouragement of one of my critique partners, Amy Ruttan, I started the series. Sending the first book out to my editor was nerve-wracking. Suppose the thought of a West African storm god and a banshee just didn’t cut it? Suppose there were gaping holes in my world?

I’m happy to report my editor contracted that book, and the next one too, which features a troll and a jinn. And a series was born. Fleeing Fate, released July 4^th, 2012 as one of Ellora’s Cave’s Pricked tattoo themed books, is also Book One in my Unveiled Seductions series. Book Two, Stone-Hard Passion, was released on July 27^th.

The lesson for me was not to close the door on an idea, at least until I’d given it a really good effort. While my books are short in comparison to some in the mainstream fantasy genre, and therefore aren’t as intricate, I’m finding world-building rather addictive. I think I’ll keep at it for a while, just to see where it’ll lead!

Balancing Act

While I was sitting on my couch, trying to think up a post for today, I found myself literally laughing out loud along with one of my favorite TV decorators, Nate Berkus. I (and probably the majority of women who watch his show) absolutely adore Nate. He’s handsome (albeit a little short, but hey, so am I!), charming, sweet, knows his decorating and is absolutely hilarious. What’s not to love?

It’s incidental to me that Nate is gay. He’s not flamboyant a la RuPaul, but he’s certainly not in the closet. What made me LOL today was some banter between him and a guest chef on his show. When Nate asked the chef why the little cakes were called ladyfingers, he was told it was because they were delicate and feminine. Nate retorted they looked more like his own fingers, and roared with laughter when the chef said, “I rest my case.”

I’m in the process of writing my first M/M romance, and while Nate isn’t the inspiration for either of the characters, I’m trying to capture the same sense of insouciance he projects about his sexuality and display it in both my heroes. They don’t live in our world, so I didn’t have to deal with real life issues such as coming out and the stigma that can still be attached to being gay. One hero is bi, the other has always been gay. Yet, even without the restrictions of potential social stigma this book is possibly the most difficult I’ve ever written.

That’s my own fault. I have a vision of these two men—both strong, both determined—and want to keep them that way while still showing their vulnerabilities. Neither of them is suited to be what I sometimes think of as the “softer” partner I often read in M/M books. Yet I find it helpful to remember how I handled a similar situation when writing What the Mistress Did, which started out as a prospective ménage with a bit of revenge thrown in and turned into a love story between the two women. Neither of them was weak, although the balance of power seemed to favor one over the other at the beginning. It was a matter of discerning where they were strong and where they were weak, and allowing them to act according to those parameters in each situation that arose.

That’s what I’m trying to do with my two guys too, and only my editor will be able to tell me whether I’ve gotten it right or not. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I’ve grown to love them dearly and I hope others get a chance to meet and love them too!