HOTBED - out now in the US!

This was not what Natalie had expected. The angry thing she held in her hand didn't seem to belong to the mild, shy man she'd believed she was sitting next to. He felt powerful. Primal. Dominant in a way that bypassed all words. She wanted to get down on her knees and...

Pride comes before a fall... but what if the descent becomes the wildest ride of your life? Two sisters - Natalie and Patti - become rivals when they challenge each other's daring on a dark, downward spiral where nobody is quite who or what they seem, and where transgressing sexual boundaries is the norm.

"Hotbed is a perfect showcase for Portia Da Costa’s inestimable talent." ~ Ashley Lister, Erotica Readers and Writers Association

Read Excerpt

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

--
Telly: Numb3rs Season 3
Choc/Yummy: Lindor Dark
Mood: harassed
Writing: IN TOO DEEP 350 words so far
Reading: in between books
RSI/FMS: very tired and achy


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

not too much to report...

Despite making heavy weather of it, I've managed to maintain my thousand words a day. Just. I'm not saying how much use a lot of the words are, but at least I'm laying stuff down to be edited... and if my WIP is supposed to be 70K words in total, I've actually done a quarter of that already!!!

Now this would be good news if anything of note had actually happened in the book yet, but it's another of my slow builders/starters and as yet, it's only really meandering along. I'm still at the stage where I think, how the blue blazes is this book going to be long enough? But I always think that, and I mostly reach some sort of tipping point before long where worrying whether I'm going to make the word count switches to... omigod, how am I going to get it all in??? I've a fair bit of a way to go with this one before that happens though.

This, I think, is one of the problems with pantsing. Which is what I mostly do nowadays. I used to write very detailed synopsis/outlines and send them to my editor. These were far longer than a synopsis ought to be, but not as long as a detailed chapter outline usually is... but I managed them somehow, even though synopsis writing is the work of the devil. But lately, I've just stopped doing them... which makes for a much more scary writing experience!

But, I was thinking about some plot bits in the bathroom this morning - again - and I'm wondering if I should make a plan for the rest of the book, based on these notes and a bunch of other stuff I've got jotted in my notebook...

Do you think I should? Would it make me fret less about the way this book is going? Or not going?

p.s. thanks to a blogging buddy, I found a great new site for procrastinating! It's just another excuse for me not writing, but at least this is in a good cause and it builds your vocab too! :)

FREE RICE

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it's a struggle...

to get into my writing today. I've been putting it off and putting it off because I've got what feels like a tricky bit coming up next and I'm not sure how to tackle it. I've done a couple of hundred words... but I'm really resisting getting to the meat of the scene. I'm rather afraid of it. :(

However, Mr Blue, Professor Hottie and Kuffer are respectively menacing me, cajolling me, and waving their claws at me from the sidelines... so I'd better shape up, hadn't I?

In better news, I've recently discovered that my very first Black Lace novel is to be reprinted next year, with a brand new and apparently very spiffing cover! No idea what it'll look like yet, but here's the link:

Gemini Heat

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weak bulbs...

I'm still grappling with motivation and tone... and the underlying 'whys' behind my characters' actions and attitudes. And it's tough. I keep getting slight light bulbs of inspiration, but they seem weak and not as compelling as they should.

Thing is, it used to be enough for me in my earlier books for people to just 'be' the way they are ie. sex maniacs a lot of the time, just because... But now, I need to know what made them that way, and what drives them, and what's affected them. They need to be more fully characterised so that they make sense to me, and thus make sense to the reader. I think this is important in erotic romance, more so than in straight erotica. And only confirms I'm writing [or trying to write] now what I should be writing... A proper believable romance with fully developed even if slightly twisted characters, rather than just sex for sex' sake stories.

But me being me, I've made things hard for myself by going for a first person viewpoint again with my WIP. Clearly, this makes for very rich characterisation of Gwen, the heroine, but it's bloody tricky to see what's driving the two hero/anti-heroes, Daniel and Nemesis. Nemesis can speak through his letters and perhaps other media like emails and IM, but Daniel's going to be a tougher nut to crack. But, I had one of my weak bulbs about him this morning. One which sort of works okay, due to a facet of him that's already in the story... bit of happy serendipity, really. It's not really a glimpse into his mind, but it's a way of showing things that have happened to him that casts a bit of a lightbulb glow on why he does the things he does and acts the way he does...

Need to get stuck in and write more of the mutha now..


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Wowee, I'm posting at Sven's Gym today!

Go here today to read my thoughts on why writing is like cats... or summink.

Meanwhile back at base, despite the best efforts of Team Portia [Mr Blue, Professor Hottie and Kuffer's Claws of Death] I only managed to get around 1K of words done yesterday. Yes, I know that's meeting my target, but after several over-target days, it feels like a letdown. But I had so many bits of jobs to deal with, not least of all weird stuff with my bank account. Not bad stuff - in fact it might be good! - but it still takes time ringing up places to find out what's going on.

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Monitoring my progress

Here's a photo of Genghis Khat aka Kuffer, pictured with the high tech recording device that I use to log my Sweat70 progress.

Thankfully, I managed 2K words yesterday, and 1.5K so far today, so my lip is safe for the time being...


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And we start again!

Agh, for the third time, I'm starting again at the beginning of IN TOO DEEP and reworking it! I know I ought to just move forward and fix afterwards, but in this case, it's got to feel right before I can be confident in it.

It's still the 'tone' issue. The book's not quite sure what it wants to be, and neither are the characters. I think the problem is that - and I may have mentioned this before - the book idea stems from a time *before* was was 'officially' writing erotic romance. Long before... It's one of a number of ideas I submitted to my editor, and he's expressed an interest in it several times, even though we slotted GOTHIC HEAT in before it finally became the time to actually write it. Basically, and originally, it was a 'women's erotica' concept, a woman's voyage of sexual discovery... but that's not so much what I want to write any more. I really want to write a romantic love story with a lot of sex, and marrying these two concepts is like the proverbial square peg/round hole [oooer] dilemma. I can see a way to do it, but getting the voice and everything right is a very delicate balance... and the damn thing is also a menage of sorts, where the heroine, Gwen, is involved with two different blokes at the same time. One of them, Nemesis, an anonymous correspondent she plays games of sexual daring with, is proving particularly tricky to get right. He's benignly wicked and writes the most outrageous things, but I need to convey him as a teasing, extremely rude but sometimes lyrical sensualist, rather than just a dirty mack pervo guy. When I started, he sounded like pervo guy, then he sounded like ridiculous lovelorn twit with a hard-on, and only now, on attempt #3, is he starting to come out right...

Eeh, it's a tough old game, this writing business...

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In view of Kuffer's recent activities...

I thought this might amuse...



Courtesy of the lovely folk at Cute Overload...

I have loads and loads to do today, including 1K of In Too Deep, and having got up late, and with me going out earlyish this evening for carvery, time is short.

However, here's an interesting article at the Dear Author blog, that caught my eye this morning via Google Reader. See what you think...

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Thought for the day...

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Wounded in Inaction...

These aren't Kuffer's claws, but they're quite like them. And the reason I post this picture is because claws like the above inflicted quite an unpleasant wound on me last night!!!

I was lying in bed, watching the telly, with Kuffer at my side, when he suddenly decided to flip into one of his 'rough play' fits and before I knew what had happened he'd split my lower lip open with his claw! Ouch!!! I was a bit frightened and had visions of stitches and scars and everything, but when I'd stopped panicking, I realised it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. It's still a little sore this morning, but it seems to be healing okay, no thanks to that furry mutthead... who is as affectionate and friendly as ever, having no idea of the damage he's inflicted.

In other news, I did manage to finally get to my writing yesterday, and managed to achieve my 1k after all. It's not the greatest of stuff, and the plot is crawling at a mindbendingly slow pace, but at least it's words, innit? Words that can be edited. This morning I've tried a trick suggested by my fellow Sweat70 sponsor, Diana Peterfreund. She describes a strategy of hers to start the day with a small 15 minute chunk of writing, so that when you go into a more serious and prolonged work session, you're not going in stone cold, because you've already laid down a couple of hundred words or so at the beginning of the day. I've tried this, and have a tidy little chunk of around 250 words to build on later. Thanks, Diana! It's a good tip!

Something lovely happened yesterday... a bit of serendipity type stuff that made me feel very happy and good about myself. I posted the name of the winner of a prize draw of mine, over at Lustbites... and I discovered that before she'd even realised she was a winner, Dakota Rebel had already written a lovely post about me, over on her blog! Seems that a MySpace bulletin I sent out was instrumental in her getting her first book accepted for publication! Now, I often feel guilty that I don't help other writers enough, but it sounds as if inadvertently I've done some good for Dakota! And she also said some lovely things about my work... :)

Read about her story here.


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Mr Blue is vexed!

It's almost two o'clock and I've not written any of my WIP yet... His Blueship is not best pleased!


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Eeeek!

Argh, it's only day three and I'm feeling a panic attack! After two days of positive attitude and achievement, I'm now beset by one of those mornings when everything in favour's against me, and I can feel the entire day slipping away into a state of getting nothing done!

I must not succumb to this though! I must stay calm, focus on my writing ideas, and get myself into the zone. I must give myself permission to write a little less, maybe? But I should maintain a general optimistic attitude and lead by example as a Sweat70 sponsor...

I shall have to shape up soon or Mr Blue will be on my *ss! [I wish... ;) ]

And speaking of hard-core Sweat70 motivators, nip over to Kim's Blog and meet The Colonel!

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Is it wrong....

to count the words of the notes I've been making this morning towards my daily Sweat70 total?



After convincing myself last night that what I've written so far on In Too Deep is a pile of camel dung of the highest pong, and that the idea itself is ludicrous, I'm feeling better disposed towards it at the moment. Thanks in part to more of my bathroom brainstorming. Had a few not too pathetic and insane ideas about it whilst hovering before the sink, starkers and soapy, and when I was all clean and dry and dressed, I rushed to the laptop to get them down in my notes file. [above piccie is supposed to represent the foam of ideas welling up... or summink like that] I think I'm starting to get a sense of the book, sort of. I've plumped for first person for the time being, but will give myself permission to change that if it doesn't work out. There's also a bit of an additional hero first person POV in the form of some notes and letters and emails, which I'm hoping will work and not seem too hokey. The story takes place in the Stoneworld universe, but I'm not sure if it'll seem contrived to try and get some of the other characters into it. Maybe they'll just be 'seen' rather than have speaking parts.

Anyway, I did a solid 1K of words yesterday on this opus, so In Too Deep is officially under way now. And that's good because it means I've overcome my fear of 'starting'... which is a pretty big hurdle for me. :)

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Yikes, it's started!

Sweat70 has started and Mr Blue is determined to get tough with me from the outset! Which he needs to, because not only am I a sponsor this time round [I must be maaaaad!!!!] I'm also in the middle of one of my 'oh no, I don't want to write... it's too hard...' things. Which is a bit inconvenient to say the least...

No, seriously, I was feeling like that, but whilst taking a walk up into little town, to the bank [and forgetting to call at the chemists, which I was supposed to call at] I did have a bit of inspiration for the start of my next WIP, which I plan to 'sweat' over, to get at least a goodish chunk done by the time the challenge ends in January. I'm still debating between first and third person, but am veering closer to first at the moment. And even if I start in first and it's a misfire, I'll still have the storyline that I can rewrite in first, won't I?


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Let's Sweat Again!

It's time to sweat for seventy days again... and so help me God, I'm one of the sponsors this time. I can't begin to imagine what possible use I'm going to be. Talk about the blind leading the blind... but here's the official call to arms... Courtesy of Sven...

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We here at Sven Says Sweat invite you participate in round two of our Seventy Days of Sweat Writing Challenge. The challenge begins on Monday, October 15 and runs through Tuesday, January 15.

Yes, that’s 93 days. We’re giving you 23 days off to use as your personal holiday and religious circumstances require

For those participating in Nano who don’t want to start before 11/1, you can use the first 15 days to plan out your story, and then have 45 days to polish once November is over.

The goal is to have a completed manuscript at the challenge’s end.

The rules are simple. You agree to write from 750 to 1500 words a day (depending on your project needs) between the dates listed above. If you need to take off a day, you make up the pages another. Remember: You only have to do the writing for 70 days.

You don’t have to have a blog to participate, but we do want you to sign up below so everyone involved can get to know one another. And if you do have a blog, you can post the information there. Going public with your commitment is about owning it.

As far as reporting your progress, you’ll come back here each Wednesday and Sunday and post your total word count. Those of us sponsoring the challenge will be dropping by your blog (if you have one) and egging you on! And this year we have several co-sponsors who will also be checking up on you! (More on that later.)

The challenge is open to anyone writing in any genre, published and aspiring authors both. On the sidebar, you’ll find our logo if you’d like to put one on your blog. For now, let’s see a show of hands.

Who’s not afraid to sweat?

GO HERE TO SIGN UP!!! THERE'S STILL TIME!!!

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Slightly curmudgeonly but also indulgent Thursday

Have been feeling pretty weird the last day or so, with a migraine that never fully 'came out' that seems to have somehow generated a general pissed-off-ness about various writing related areas. News I hear, things people say, attitudes and prejudices I encounter all seem to be getting on my nerves... it's not one or even two or three big specific things... it's more a mood, a feeling I get sometimes that all is not right in the world, that there's 'something rotten in the state of Denmark'... well, not actually in Denmark, but in the angsty ennui-loaded Hamlet sort of way... Does that make sense?

It's all very vague, and hard to pin down, but it depresses me and makes me wish, now and then, that I was in some other business. Although God knows what I'd do as I have no other particular talents and having worked for myself so long, I'm more or less unemployable in any conventional type of job.

Crikey, that all seems very grim, doesn't it? I'd probably feel a lot better if I could smash a few things and punch a few people... but realistically, that's not a solution, is it?

I should be working as therapy... but I'm finding it hard to connect to my WIP. I like it and all that, and I'm sure once I start, I'll be okay, but the start-hurdle seems toweringly high today...

All of which is not helped by a small obsession/crush thingoid that seems to be developing that means I'm spending more time than I should watching DVDs. The Divine Vincenzo is still my main man, but I'm starting to really like another guy too... maths genius Charlie Eppes in the quirky FBI show, Numb3rs... isn't he cute?

This Numb3rs thing has got slightly serious in that I really cannot wait for the shows to be on the telly [again, they're repeats actually, as I missed it first time out in the UK] and have ordered all the boxed sets I can get my hands on, even Series 3, which isn't out yet here in the UK. I just hope that it'll play on my multi region...

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Sigh.... a migraine coming on....

my head is starting to pound and I feel horrible. So for much more interesting stuff, pop across to LUSTBITES and read my post about beautiful transvestites... and to THE HOT SPOT, the new Total-E-Bound blog, where a bunch of the authors are talking about sex toys.

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

I *will* do better! Yeah, right...

With the start of a new working week, I'm determined to do better!

Basically, I'm sick to death of myself for frittering away hours and hours of valuable time, either foofing about on the internet, or just sitting like a zombie being negative. It just won't do! And I can't go on doing it, because I have a whole page full of 'to do' list and some of it's just got to be cleared or else I'll sink under the weight of it and never ever catch up. I should be getting stuff done and clearing off jobs, just in case something exciting happens... And no, there's no specific exciting thing on the horizon, but you never know... something might come up, that needs my attention, and then I'll be wishing that I'd used all my wasted time more productively.

Anyway, in spite of being very tempted by my usual foofage, I've managed to get 1K words of Chance of a Lifetime done, and it's only midday. Which means that I've done my quota nicely and can either push on and do a bit more this afternoon, or switch to other jobs that need doing! It does not mean I can go surfing around the Lolcats sites and/or Encyclopaedia Dramatica!

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

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Sunday bits and bats...

I've signed up for the next Seventy Days of Sweat! And a jolly good job too, because I've been slacking a lot in the last week or so, and have not got much writing done. I need the incentive of a group effort like Sweat70 and the scorn and abuse of Mr Blue when I don't shape up and get some words produced...

In other news, I watched Sleepy Hollow on the telly again last night, and I do think I have to have this movie on DVD. Mr Depp looks remarkably scrummy in it, and puts in a deliciously comical turn as Ichabod... Trouble is, I don't know which version of the flick to order: Widescreen or Anamorphic... any suggestions as to which is best?

I have another timewasting, writing-avoidance tool... and it's called I Can Has Cheezburger, a rich repository of LolCats... I could spend hours there [in fact I *have* spent hours there] just browsing the many many comical cat pix!

I blame Alison Kent for inadvertently alerting me to this source of procrastination!




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some good stuff, no writing...

Here's a new favourite of mine... The nifty show NUMB3RS! I caught a couple of episodes, then missed one, so I decided to treat myself to the boxed set of Season One, and have just had a mini marathon. Obviously, I love me a cop show... but I like the angle on this one. I've always had a thing for cute but extremely brainy men, Detective Goren being the prime example, but I must admit to being rather taken with genius Charlie in this show. He's not my usual type, but he's rather cute and so is his big brother too.

Have now treated myself to Season Two as well... I don't think this will replace my beloved Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and the brilliant Clever Bobby, but just because I love one it doesn't mean I can't like the other show too...

In other news, I managed to get my La Cie Porsche external hard drive to work properly and back up my Documents folder! Wonders will never cease!

It wasn't the drive itself, or the USB driver/card etc, as I'd feared... it was the poxy free backup software supplied with the drive!!! When I downloaded me a decent backup program - Genie Backup Manager - the backup set that I calculated would take around four days with the bundled software actually only took 15 minutes!!!!

So that's good news, innit?


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Better....

Well, I've managed to do about a thousand words yesterday and today on CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, my BDSM novella featuring a naughty, kinky aristocrat, who likes to play pervy spanking games in his crumbling and decrepit old stately home... It's not great literature, but it's a bit of a giggle... and the beautiful Marquis of Blaystock is as hot as he is twisted... :)

And while you're here... please, please consider voting for me every day in the Night Owl Romance Awards! I'm in the Best Ebook Contemporary Erotica category and it's a very close call. I probably won't win, but I'm not giving up without a fight, and if you're a PDC fan, and prepared to vote for me each day, I stand a better chance...

Click here to visit the voting site!

Please accept my profound gratitude and appreciation in advance! Love you all!

Rage

This was me, yesterday, raging at almost everything! [only I have better teeth] I did no writing and spent most of the day in a state of fury at 'stuff' and inanimate objects that all seemed to conspire against me to stop me achieving anything positive! My printer was playing up, telling me there were paper jams when there were nothing of the sort... Tried to do a back up to my new[ish] Porsche designed hard drive... Porsche? Don't make me ****ing well laugh! The speed this stupid thing was transferring had more in common with that trolley thing that pulls Space Shuttles out of the Vertical Assembly Building, only in this case, towed by geriatric snails! Had to abandon the back up as my calculations predicted it would take around seven years... grr... Obviously something is wrong there, and I suspect it might be my USB driver or summink like that... Only trouble is if I start getting into diagnostics that's just another thing to stop me writing!

On a plus note, I did manage to free up a bit of space at the side of the bed by moving some books and throwing out some papers, but it's just marginal really. I can move there now, though, so that's a plus...

Today, I am going to write something! I'm not going to get distracted by 'stuff' and I'm going to resist the urge to hang out too long at my favourite blogs and boards. And I'm not going to get sidetracked into promo stuff again today either... either written, or graphicky... Like I said, if I don't actually write anything, what the bleeding hell is there going to be to promote????


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Agh!

... I just can't seem to get any writing done! I'm drowning in sort of writing related/promo related jobs and I'm just not getting to the actual fiction... which is frustrating and worrying because if I don't do any, what the **** will I have to promo in the future? I'm just going to have to cut back and not get as involved with stuff. Discipline myself to just a visit or two per day to my fave sites, and no more. And not take on anything else that I just don't have time for!

But on the plus side of things, here are two new reviews of Hotbed! First one is by Ashley Lister, a connoisseur of fine literature if there ever was one!

Review of Hotbed at ERWA by Ashley Lister

The second is by the legendary Harriet Klausner. It's a little odd, but she seems to like it, so thanks, Harriet! :)

Review of Hotbed by Harriet Klausner


And here's a nice review of Eyes of Desire by Deb at SensualReads.net

Review of Eyes of Desire by Deb at Sensual Reads.

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!

Bits and bats...

Well, it's the first of October and the fabulous Raven Halloween Hunt is on! I hope you'll click the graphic above and take part in this fun game of hide and seek... There are lots of authors taking part and offering many, many fabulous prizes, including books from little old moi!



On the subject of games of Hide and Seek the above anthology, edited by the fabulous Alison Tyler and Rachel Kramer Bussel has just been published, and it contains an offering from Portia Da Costa! GLINT is a naughty short about a frisky couple on holiday and their sexy high jinks on a beach. There are stories in the collection from lots of top authors, including my fabulous writing buddy, Saskia Walker.

It's available from both the Amazons now: Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com



HOTBED is out too, in the UK, and imminently in the US... It says on the front it's 'an erotic romance', but to be honest, that's stretching a point. It's more like a woman's voyage of sexual discovery type story... and it's very, very rude! But... the heroine does get her man in the end, and something he says and does shows her that she's the one for him even if there's not a lot of hearts and flowers and stuff.

Check it out at the Amazons: Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

STOP PRESS... there's a spiffy new interview with me in The Sandbox at The Writing Playground

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While you're here, please, please, please pop over the the Night Owl Romance Awards and vote for me in the Best Erotic Contemporary Ebook!

If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!