Writing a baddie!

In the last couple of days, I've been thinking about and writing about the baddie in my WIP. Now this is tough for me, because I'm a sucker for sympathetic characters, even when they're sexy, somewhat domineering alpha heroes... but the dastardly Eustace Lloyd's actions have a pivotal effect on the plot of IN THE FLESH, so I don't think it'll work to have him simply referred to, rather than put in an actual appearance. In fact, come to think of it, a dirty trick that Eustace plays on my heroine, Beatrice Weatherly, initiates the entire plot of the book. Not that there's a *huge* amount of plottiness. I'd be the first to admit that my stories depend mainly on characters, erotic interplay and emotions, rather than a lot of racing around doing things.

Because I mostly like 'nice' characters, I don't write many nasty ones. I think the last proper villain I wrote ie. one without much in the way of redeeming features, was Isidora, the wicked sorceress in my GOTHIC duo, Gothic Blue and Gothic Heat. Now she was a very bad girl, and totally ruthless, and didn't care what she did to people as long as she got what she wanted. Readers seemed to like her, and I must admit, she was fun to write, so maybe I can channel some of that irredeemable mojo into Eustace... although I'm already looking for reasons for him being the way he is. Not that I'll have much time to go into his back story. I've nearly got three quarters of my wordcount done, and I'm only half way through the plot!

Looks like this book is due some stringent and carefully considered cutting and compressing in the editing... or it's going to be a helluva sight longer than the projected 95K words!

Now then... shall I do a bit more Eustaceness? Or return to Beatrice and Mr. Ritchie and their delicious bedroom games? Hee hee!


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Eating: far too much sweet stuff
Watching: The Mentalist, Numb3rs etc
Reading: Patience - Lisa Valdez/Sherlock Holmes for Dummies
Writing: IN THE FLESH aka Victorianoid
Feeling: so so

Wahey, a new sale!

Totally thrilled to announce that [subject to contract, of course] I've made a new sale to a house that's brand new to me!

FAR FROM PERFECT is a category length contemporary romance, and it's going to be published by Samhain Publishing. This is what I'd call a sensual romance, rather than erotic. It has some hot sexy love scenes, but they're not described in quite the same explicit sort of language I'd use in my erotica and erotic romance. Still pretty sizzling though, hopefully, with a delicious and rather glam Italian hero.

I don't have a publication date as yet, but I'll be posting about it here as soon as I do have one! In the meantime, here's the blurb:

FAR FROM PERFECT

Enduring passion, turbulent emotions, and an engagement of convenience…

Four years ago, Anna Felgate seduced Nick Lisitano, a family friend she'd known all her life and always had a crush on. It was only supposed to be a one night thing, and the chance to lose her virginity with an experienced older man and legendary lover… but one taste of passion with Nick branded her soul for all time.

Four years ago, Nick Lisitano had a single night of peerless lovemaking with the one beautiful young woman he'd told himself he could never, ever have. Scarred by his parents' nightmare relationship, he'd sworn off commitment forever in favour of temporary liaisons, but he knew Anna deserved deep, enduring love.

A far from perfect match, the two agree to forget their ecstatic night and manage to maintain a cordial distance for four long years. Until a family crisis brings the two of them together again and Nick makes a daring proposition… that they enter into a temporary façade of an engagement, to lift the spirits of his dangerously ill father. Against her better judgement, Anna goes along with him, even in spite of the perilous emotional turmoil that she knows being close to Nick again will bring.

But with genuine feelings for each other, and a volcanic mutual attraction that's just bursting to reignite, can Nick and Anna keep to the terms their pragmatic agreement? Or will the passion of past become a present affair… and maybe more?

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I'm thrilled to bits to be writing for Samhain, because it's a house I've admired and aspired to being an author with for ages, both for its peerless reputation and its wonderful stable of writers.

And in other news...

Don't forget that my first historical Spice Brief - A GENTLEWOMAN'S PREDICAMENT - comes out on 1st May! It's the story of a frisky and inquisitive Victorian widow, and what happens when she seeks "intimate advice to the gentlewoman"... hee hee!

Here's a naughty excerpt

A GENTLEWOMAN'S RAVISHMENT will follow in June!

Celebrate with my buddy Saskia!

Today is a red letter day! My writing buddy Saskia Walker has a wonderful new book published by Harlequin Spice, a sexy, spooky paranormal erotic novel called RAMPANT. It's a contemporary, but it also has a mysterious historical twist too.

Saskia is celebrating over at her blog today, so why not nip across, say hello, and learn more about RAMPANT?

http://saskiawalker.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-official-publication-day-for.html

Sleepy Alice in a Box

Here's my big tortie girl, ALICE, who's crammed her large furry personage into the modest sized box in which my 1889 & 1890 Punch Almanacks arrived.

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Eating: lots of biscuits
Watching: Sherlock Holmes, The Buccaneers
Reading: Beyond Seduction, Emma Holly
Writing: Victorianoid
Feeling: so so

Sorry...

Am sorry I've been a bad blogger... hope to have some interesting things to post soon. Even if it's just a progress report on my WIP.

Delightful image from Cheezburger

First sighting - A GENTLEWOMAN'S PREDICAMENT

Wahey! Here's the delicious cover for my first historical Spice Brief, a Victorian set story called A GENTLEWOMAN'S PREDICAMENT.

Isn't it smashing? Super sexy, but in a subtle and tasteful way. I love it that he's got his clothes *on*!

"Predicament" is due out on the 1st May '10, with it's linked story A GENTLEWOMAN'S RAVISHMENT to follow in June.

Here's a brief excerpt of A GENTLEWOMAN'S PREDICAMENT. Hope you like it!

Here's a stunning cover!

Isn't this fabulous? It's the stunning cover for ALISON'S WONDERLAND, a forthcoming anthology edited by the spectacular Alison Tyler. It's themed around erotic fairy tales and sexy magical happenings, and contains my offering UNVEILING HIS MUSE - the story of a love lorn artist obsessed with one of his own creations.

The anthology is out in July and here are the Amazon links:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Author copies!

Look at this beauty!

And I don't mean me looking an idiot in my dressing gown either... LOL

Little bit of publishing news...

Although at the moment, I have no novels slated for publication in 2010, I am in a couple of print anthologies this year. One is NAUGHTY BITS 2, which contains my Spice Brief story CHANCE OF A LIFETIME... and the other is this beauty, that's just appeared on Amazon.com!

Alison's Wonderland

It's a paranormal erotic/romantic anthology edited by the fabulous Alison Tyler, with a general theme of fairy tales and fairy tale like stories. Mine's called UNVEILING HIS MUSE, and it's about a graphic artist who falls in love with one of his creations... a fantasy woman who turns out to be a good deal more lifelike than he bargained for. ;)

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Eating: Cadbury's Roses
Watching: Poirot
Reading: Inventing the Victorians - Matthew Sweet
Writing: Victorianoid
Feeling: OK

Chugging along...

Despite yesterdays mini tantrums over the state of the office, I'm still managing to keep the first draft of IN THE FLESH chugging along. It's pretty rough and ready at the moment, but I plan enhance and polish and layer in both deeper emotion and more historical detail as I work on the second draft. What I'm putting in place now is really the skeleton, although I think some good little bits are already there.

This morning, I've been doing more work on a scene between Beatrice and her brother Charlie, and trying to paint their complicated but basically fond relationship. I enjoy the fact that I'm working in a slightly longer form for a different publisher now, where I can go into areas like this, instead of it constantly having to be *all* sex, sex, sex, with no room to expand on the rest of the characters' lives! Of course there will be masses of eroticism and naughtiness, because that's the centre of the story, and what drives it, but I like being able to surround that by more richness of detail and a more fully developed world for the characters to be sexy and outrageous in. :)

Ah well, must get on. I have a zillion other things to do today, as well as working on ITF... so must get to them, busy, busy, busy.

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Eating: grapes
Watching: nothing
Reading: Molesworth - screamingly funny!
Writing: In The Flesh
Feeling: not too bad

Dumpster Office of Doom

[It's far, far worse than this now!]

People who know me know that my office is an uninhabitable, unimaginable pit full of clutter, crap and the detritus of a thirty plus year career of total irrational hoarding. It's bad. And it just seems to get worse... and not always down to me. Certain home improvements have impacted unfavourably on my office and created an even greater disaster zone of books and paper and 'stuff' recently.

And today, this is getting me down more than ever, because himself is sorting *his* office out and has lots of space, can move, and can find what he wants. Which makes me very envious, even though I know my predicament is mostly [well, completely] of my own making. Sigh...

Something needs to be done, but I think I can't really tackle it until I get the first draft of IN THE FLESH done, something I intend to complete by the end of April, with luck. But when that time comes, I'm going to take action. I'm going to have to be stern with myself over things like magazines, and set a date before which everything will be thrown away, with no exceptions. I've always found it hard to let go of such things as books, magazines and VHS tapes, my thinking being that one day, I might need something I've read or watched as research or background for my books. Not being a person who's travelled much or done much in the way of exciting jobs, I depend on research materials a lot, to supplement a vivid imagination and a sort of 'empathy' for other lives and times and situations... But I started all this hoarding long before I had access to the internet, and now, my first port of call for research/background is the web, where I can usually find much, much more information, and probably better, than I might have gleaned from an old magazine article or a book I read years ago....

So, come the merry month of May, I'll be starting the long, long project to restore my office to the state of... well... and office. And that, I suppose, is my greatest, belated, New Year's Resolution. Wish me luck...

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Eating: chocolate finger biscuits
Watching: snooker
Reading: Daily Life in a Victorian House - Laura Wilson [excellent children's book]
Writing: nothing yet
Feeling: completely fed up and frustrated by Dumpster Office of Doom

Why?

Do I suddenly have to keep signing in, again and again, to Blogger? Up until not long ago, I could sign in once in a session, then edit my sidebar thingies on the fly, from the page... not so now. Very annoying.

You'll be pleased to know that I've now begun moving forward again with IN THE FLESH. I spent yesterday pootling about with the 12K I'd completed and doing little tweaks and adjustments to reflect thoughts I've had and research I've uncovered since I first worked on it, many, many months ago. I was pleased to discover that I clicked with Bea, the heroine, again immediately. She's an interesting girl, brave and feisty, who looks on the positive side. She's made silly mistakes, but she's learning from them so she doesn't slip up in quite the same way again. I'm not sure that she's a totally strictly accurate Victorian young lady in her thinking, maybe... but she has to be what she'll be, that's the way I write. And I think I can avoid any super ridiculous anachronisms... ITF will be a bit wallpapery, but not too much, I hope.

Ritchie, I'm already liking very much again too. Especially his ruthless sexiness at this stage. I hope to bring out his more tormented and angsty side later, although it won't be black, bleak, miserable angst, just a guy trying to make the best of the hand life's dealt him.

I'm also, currently, opening the door to the mind of Charlie, Bea's brother, who's an unwise character although not a villain. I hope to make him grow stronger through the book, although at the moment he's teetering on the brink of an erotic tryst in a moonlit garden with another man... Very foolhardy indeed in an age where homosexuality was against the law, and he could go to prison and serve a term of hard labour. Eek, Charlie, be careful!



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Eating: chocolate finger biscuits
Watching: nothing yet
Reading: nothing yet today
Writing: IN THE FLESH aka Victorianoid
Feeling: quite positive