Oh, the joys of multi-tasking. So I’m sitting here, writing some Pleasure and Purpose (my book for Berkley Sensation) and it’s going along swimmingly. At the same time, on the same computer, I have a little video window open, and I’m watching Queer as Folk! Mmm, mmm, I love me some Brian Kinney.

Funny thing is, I’m actually getting more work done while watching Brian than I was before I turned him on. Heh. Boy, I wish I could. Turn him on, that is. Yeah, yeah, I know he’s fiction but…did I mention I looooooove me some Brian Kinney?

As Lauren and several others have pointed out so recently, it’s summer. This means I spend a lot of time during the day wrangling kids and running kids around and doing stuff with the kids and playing Wii with the kids…and generally, you know, being a mom. Which means at night, I write.

And finally, finally, after months of struggle, each word like pulling teeth…this story is…

Sweet.

Oh, it’s sweet. It’s like eating candy, licking syrup from a lover’s lips, standing in sunshine after too many days of rain, waking in the night and knowing the alarm won’t go off for another six hours. I’m enjoying it. The words are flowing, the story  makes me happy.

So I’m gonna type type type, type type type! And finish this story so I can go on vacation in a few weeks with a clear conscious! Yay!

And now I’m off to drool over some more BK and write my Mary Poppins Handmaiden — I called her Mary Poppins, you see, because just like MP she swoops in and is all “CLEAN UP THIS MESS, SPIT SPOT!” and the mess gets cleaned up. My goodness, I wish I could be that commanding and be OBEYED!

But isn’t that the joy of writing? Living vicariously through our characters, even for a few minutes? Wheee!

Okay, so it’s late and clearly I’m tired, and Brian Kinney is making me a little giddy. But so is this story, and I can’t tell you what a relief it is!

Yay for me! Yay for dominatrix Handmaidens! Yay for QAF! Yay for late night writing! Yay for summer!

Tell me what you say Yay! About and I’ll put you in a drawing for a signed copy of Tempted.

I know you all have one but…it’s all I got.

M

Out of all the parts of a story I might find myself struggling to get down, it’s always the beginning that leaves me obsessing for days, if not weeks. I just want it perfect. Something to grab the reader and keep their attention engaged till the chapter end and hopefully long after. Of course, I realize what grabs one reader might not grab the next. But perhaps there are certain elements that are more liable to gather a stronger audience in short order.

I would love to know what grabs you? What kind of story opening is most likely to get you reading and keep you reading? Are you a fan of the opening murder scene? Perhaps a steamy scene that starts right in the heat of the moment? Or a life altering decision?  Do you like a bunch of narrative up front so you know the characters ASAP, or would you prefer to get to know them over time and instead have the story be what starts out ASAP?

I just got my hands on author copies of Sweet and Sinful, my next Aphrodisia which is out in mid to late July. From all those who comment, I will select two winners to receive signed copies. One thing, It is an erotic romance, so if you do win, be prepared for plenty of steamy heat!

~ jodi

I have a new cover.  I’m so excited about this one.  It’s the second anthology that I’ve been in with my writerly friends the Allure Authors.

Isn’t it purdy??  I love it.  Avon has done an amazing job of branding our covers. 

ALLURING TALES II: HOT HOLIDAY NIGHTS releases November 2008.

What is your most wicked fantasy?

Seven steamy tales that are sure to heat up the holidays from the authors of the immensely successful Alluring Tales: Awaken the Fantasy. Each of these authors uniquely brings something special to her story–perhaps a bit of paranormal, or humor, or fantasy. And together they have created one of Avon Red’s most popular anthologies.

If you haven’t read the first one, it’s on sale for $3.99 at Barnes and Noble online.

Do you read anthologies?  What have been some of your favorites?  What would be your dream anthology?

Mine would be one with:  Kim Harrison, Rachel Caine, Patricia Briggs, Rachel Vincent, and Vicki Pettersson

I had a whole blog started about bathing suits and blogs and how they’re alike in that you want both to make you look GOOD and not make people want to throw up into their mouths, but I figured we’d all heard that before and we knew better than to be morons in public on our blogs, so I’ll just stop right there and talk about something else, ‘kay?

Now if only I had something to talk about. 

We’ve covered hot guys, we’ve covered writing about sex, and we’ve talked about inspiration, the muse (or lack thereof) and the fact that as professional writers it’s our job to put our butts in the chair and hands on the keyboard and write instead of farting around all day on the ‘net or playing the Sims 2 or Guitar Hero on the Wii. We’ve covered music and movies and upcoming books. 

What’s left?

Well, I’d like to talk about all of that again and then some — how being a writer means that everything  you do, every moment, is somehow always tied into the work. At least it is for me. I collect stories the way some women collect shoes. I want to learn about people because listening to them talk about their lives and what’s going on in them helps me find new inspiration every single day. Because even though I have a pretty deep well, not everything I pull up out of it is fit to see the light. Sometimes what comes up in the bucket stinks and falls apart into sludge and I have to throw it away. It really helps, sometimes, to have someone else’s bucket to scoop from.

Something as simple as the story of how a couple met can springboard me into a whole, vast wonderland of WHAT IF. A comment, a phrase, a casual mention of someone’s favorite song can all lead me to add the small details to a character that make him real to me (and hopefully, to you.)

My best friend since junior high got me a t-shirt that says “Be careful, or I’ll put you in my novel.” And that’s so true. Everything I see and hear finds its way, somehow, into the work. Most of the time I change it to protect the not-so-innocent, but it still came from something I came across in my day.

I look at the world through a filter. I listen. I pay attention. And then I get lost in the world inside my head; I let down the bucket and pull it up and sift through the contents and hope to find something worth using. Sometimes I remember where it came from. Sometimes I don’t. But in the end, it’s all big jumbled mess inside my head and I do my best to mash it all together into something palatable.

I can’t imagine what it would be like NOT to be a writer. I can’t imagine how it would feel not to spend so much time taking WHAT IF and turning it into AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. I can’t imagine not…imagining. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What is one thing about yourself you can’t imagine ever changing?

M

All kinds of stuff happening in Laurenland these days! First look at the pretty cover I got for my next Cascadia Wolves book, Fated!

I do love this cover so much! And I just finished first round edits this last weekend so that’s another thing done (thank goodness!)

And then I’m over a third done with Relentless now! Yay!

This vblog entry I did late last week will give you a bit of an idea of what Relentless is about and who the characters are.

Oh and this week I’m at Novelspot doing the Behind The Scenes Blog this week! Come over and say hello.

So it’s Monday and June already. Where did the time go? I’ve got a book due July 31 - Relentless, it’s moving along nicely and I’ve reached the beginning of the real meat of the story so it’s all about pacing right now and trying to keep all the story threads in order. After July 31 I have another deadline in mid September and then another in October and another in January.

I’m heading to Ohio for the Lori Foster Reader Get Together next weekend and I’m very excited. I get to see many of my friends and I always make new ones. If you’re going to be in the area, please come by the signing on Saturday to say hello. I won’t get a lick of writing done, but i’ll have a good time, LOL.

I made a book video for my July release, Reading Between the Lines and I’m now officially addicted. You can check it out at my Lauren blog if ya like.

I also managed to read Lisa Kleypas’ Sugar Daddy and LOVED it and Noelle Mack’s Wild and also enjoyed it very much. Don’t know what I’ll read next, my tbr pile is huge!

Writing life is uber busy and that means I’m happy because to me, busy means I’m selling books and people seem to like them.

I’ve been so busy I haven’t been online as much to look at blogs but a quick peek this weekend has reaffirmed that as a good thing. Oy, authors, come on. Just you know, maintain in public. No, it’s not always easy to be gracious but unless someone brings it to you, why on earth would you go trolling at other blogs to seek out drama? Just. Stop.

Stop whining about bad reviews in public! Everyone gets bad reviews. Nora Roberts, most likely the most well known author in romance and one of the very top sellers absolutely gets bad reviews. I see her on blogs and I never see her whining about bad reviews. I get em and I know every single author on this blog as received them. They come with the territory. Sometimes they’re spot on and hit on a weakness. Sometimes they hurt like whoa! Sometimes they’re nasty and personal. Sometimes it’s clear the reviewer hasn’t read the book. But always, they’re reader opinion. Shrug.

I’m not saying authors can’t speak online about things they find important. I’m not saying we have to be Stepford Authors either. But I’m saying hold your sh*t together in public because you cannot win. You will always look thin-skinned and it’s not going to change any minds.

The “back” key is one of my favorites on my keyboard. You have the luxury of hitting back and not revisiting places you don’t like. Being in the public eye to a certain extent means you have to deal with all sorts of stuff. Most of it is pretty darned cool but some of it is unpleasant. Shrug. Thicken up your skins and grit your teeth. Save the hissy fits for your BFF via IM or you’ll be the new blog fodder and while you can amuse yourself by thinking any publicity is good publicity, it’s just not.

Ugh. Okay to wash away the rantyness of the end of this post, how about a contest? Tell me about your TBR list and some stuff you’ve read recently and enjoyed. I’ll choose a winner, or maybe even two this Thursday afternoon and post the winner.

Good luck!

**WINNER - I’ve been away since 4 am Friday, excuse the delay, I just walked into my door twenty minutes ago - KAMMIE - you’re my winner. You win a copy of any available book on my backlist in whatver format they’re available in.  Just email me your choice and I’ll get it your way!

It’s that time again. End of the school year madness. Gym shows, scouting graduations, school award shows, field trips…half days! OHHHH, half days, how you torture me. I mean, c’mon, we all know those kids aren’t doing any WORK those half days. Either just give them the day off, or keep them the whole day! Mama’s got to work!

Okay, so I digress.

See, I’m staring down the barrel of a loaded pop-gun, here. I have a book to finish and another to finish edits on, and my kids are going to be underfoot in a couple weeks and…I kid you not…every single day between now and then seems determined to undermine my best efforts at writing.

I knew it would catch up with me. Oh, the idle days of internet surfing, the hours of Queer as Folk, the Sims2. Yes. I admit it. I lost myself in “leisure” time when I might have been pounding out the pages. So why, then, does it feel like I’ve been working non-stop without a break?

It’s that way with writing. Maybe it’s that way with lots of things, but since I don’t DO those things, all I can say is…I always feel like I’m writing. Even when I’m only thinking about writing. When I’m actually sitting at the computer and writing (a book, not a blog entry) I’m thinking about how I’d rather be watching QAF or Supernatural. When I’m watching tv, I’m thinking hey…this could be great in a book. 

And now I’m looking forward to the summer and knowing that my writing time is severely diminished, and I think, man, where did all that time go? How will I finish this book and edit the other and edit this one and submit them both before school lets out?

The answer is: I probably won’t. But that’s okay, I’ve got time before deadline, and I’ll still be working. 

Did I have a point to this entry?

I guess it’s that there needs to be balance. Write when you have to, take time off when you can. But don’t let the time fritter itself away while you do other stuff; if your writing is your job, it needs to be done and on time, too. Not wasted.

I plan on working as hard as I can so I don’t have to worry about writing this summer. That’s the payoff! But I know I will be writing, no matter what I say about taking the summer off, because I just can’t stop myself…

M

Well its that time of the year again…royalty statement time.  You’d think I’d be happy for this time, but as it is, I’m not.  Why?  Because I don’t really truly want to see how many books I’ve sold.  I want to remain in this euphoric fog of delusion that I am selling my ass off.

When the truth is, I have no real clue if I am.

On one of my publisher’s loops we are talking about our statements and sharing numbers.  I think this is fantastic and will help all of us in the end, but I have a sense of trepidation every time I open an email from one of the members and see their numbers.  Do I really want to know that Author X is selling more than me?  Um, not really.  It is a huge blow to the ego.

On the other hand it really puts this business in perspective.  And really that’s what this authorly thing is, a business, a career.  And any information, whether it destroys me or not, is good to have to help me advance forward or take a different path.

But still it hurts like hell!

After comparing numbers it makes me wonder what really sells a book.  What factors go into one book doing better than another?  Let’s say they are equally well written and in the same genre…what makes one book sell more than the other?

Cover art - a better more evocative cover sometimes can give a book an edge

Subject matter - maybe one book is about vampires and the other about witches, maybe vampires are selling better

Publisher promotion - certainly that helps, getting that book and author’s name out to more people

Higher print run - goes with publisher promotion, a higher print run sometimes can mean the publisher has confidence that book will sell more in more places

Author promotion - maybe the author is a master at self-promotion

Positive word of mouth - I think this is one of the most powerful forms of promotion and can make a book

What say you?  Any ideas?

I finished Fated on Friday night and now I’ll let it sit for a week or so before I go back to edit and polish it up and then turn it in. Now I’m on to my next book for Berkley, which was called Fallen but now is in “looking at a list of new titles” land. I am sort of weird about titles, it’s really hard for me to write without knowing a title. I’m just that way.  Anyway, I got started on it and it will be my main project until I get it done, hopefully by the later part of June so I can have about a month to get crit and revise and polish.

I like to build in an extra few weeks so I can let the book sit and come back to it and also, if there’s something I need time for, if I get stuck or if I need to add something major I have the time to do it. Sometimes I have less time than other times but I’m lucky to have an agent and editors who’ve helped me set up my schedule to allow for that.

And on a totally non-writerly front:
Last night I saw that someone had done the cover to Dio’s Holy Diver.

Our little Ronnie James is not the spiffiest looking of male specimens but he’s got a great voice (and a perm!) And much like I don’t apologize for my writing of romance, I don’t apologize for my intense love of Dio.

So the band is Killswitch Engage (not necessarily a bad name and thank god not a single hot ironed emo boy in the vicinity - sorry Megan)

I like the “homage” to the original but if you notice, the mixing is all wonked up because this dude is all guitar effects and his voice isn’t RJD. And while I do admit I love the screaming stuff, weirdo that I am, it’s cheating on this song. Dio doesn’t need good looks or decent hair or a distortion box and screaming - because he can sing. I do dig the bald lead singer thing though - I just wish they’d ease back on having the instruments so overpowering you can barely hear his voice.

This rant brought to you by the number - I am too old. Also by pull your damned pants up, are you going to wear that and back in my day…