Out, Damned Story!

One open letter calling for a central place to report copyright infringement

2010-06-27T10:06:00.000-04:00

Open letter to the Presidents of RWA, SFWA, and Authors' Guild concerning copyright infringement and individual authors' needs

Dear Scott Turow, Allison Kelley, John Scalzi,

Thank you very much for everything you all do through Authors' Guild, RWA, and SFWA respectively to defend authors' copyrights against copyright infringement. We very much appreciate having an address to which to send our complaints, and the comfort of knowing that you compile a database of the most egregious "pirates" and pirate sites.

Despite small triumphs, ignorance persists among honest readers; lies about the legality of "sharing" go unchallenged, and the problem is getting much worse.

Please Scott Turow, Allison Kelley, John Scalzi will you talk to one another, set up one powerhouse task force, meet regularly, share resources, engage your members, give authors one central "Go To" address where we can submit complaints, report piracy sites, blogs and yahoogroups, cc our individual take-down notices.

One forceful industry voice could shut down an entire account and insist on a hosting site complying with their own TOS where their TOS has been repeatedly violated, instead of individual authors taking down one file at a time.

Thank you.

Rowena Cherry (IWOFA, EPIC Award "Friend of ePublishing" 2010)

Permission granted to forward, share, repost.

It's ME

2010-02-15T01:24:00.001-05:00

Hey, i'm back! I found my blogspot blog! W00t!!!!

Sample chapters from more than a dozen Romance authors

2009-12-03T14:06:00.000-05:00

For readers who do not enjoy visiting website after website to read sample chapters, here are over a dozen of the best sfr, futuristic and fantasy romance authors' first chapters all in one e-book like product, free!

Authors in this sampler include:

Joy Nash, Jade Lee, Deborah Macgillivray, Beth Caudill, Rowena Cherry, Susan Grant, Linnea Sinclair, Dawn Thompson, Cindy Spencer Pape, Charlotte Boyett Compo, Robin T Popp, C L Wilson, Nina Bangs ... and more.

Friday Night Reflections: Great summer read - Insufficient Mating Material by Rowena Cherry

2009-06-10T22:53:00.000-04:00

Friday Night Reflections: Great summer read - Insufficient Mating Material by Rowena Cherry

Joy Nash's Countdown to Summer

2009-04-29T07:25:00.002-04:00

Hi All!

To celebrate the May 26 release of my Jersey Shore romance A Little Light Magic, I'm hosting a Countdown to Summer Shout Out!

Check out my Blog and Facebook starting Friday MAY 1 for everything great about the year's hottest season....summer fun, summer memories, summer vacation, summer food and entertainment. And most importantly, the boys (and men!) of summer!

I'll be giving away books and other prizes all month. Hope you'll stop by and join the fun!

Joy Nash
www.joynash.com

Guest Blog: The Sinister Minister

2009-04-15T14:20:00.000-04:00

Bio blurb: Rev. Dr. Steve Burt, a.k.a. The Sinister Minister, has won the Bram Stoker, Ray Bradbury, and Benjamin Franklin Awards. In addition to horror and mystery/suspense, he writes church leadership books, inspirational books, devotional material, and has published hundreds of pieces in such venues as Reader’s Digest, Writer’s Digest, Yankee, Family Circle, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He’s the father of writing authority Wendy Burt-Thomas (Writer’s Digest Guide to Writing Query Letters) and grandfather to Ben and Gracie. In February 2009 he was profiled in Connecticut Magazine (“The Sinister Minister”). His book Even Odder was a runner-up to Harry Potter for the 2003 Bram Stoker Award, and his Oddest Yet won it in 2004 (Young Reader category), and is the first self-published book to do so.

1. The major TV stations and Connecticut Magazine recently profiled you as “The Sinister Minister” for being the clergyman who won the world’s top horror award, the Bram Stoker. That’s a joke, isn’t it?

No, it’s the ironic truth. After 30 high-profile years in my primary vocation as a pastor, national lecturer, and writer of church leadership books, articles, and inspirational pieces (like for Chicken Soup for the Soul), the spotlight was suddenly shined on my low-profile avocation as a closet writer of horror and dark fiction when Oddest Yet won the Bram Stoker Award. Funny thing is I was nearly outed the year before when Even Odder was runner-up to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter in the young readers category. So now people come up to me when I’m autographing books at arts & crafts shows and exclaim, “I know you. You’re The Sinister Minister.” The accidental branding was serendipitous for me.

2. Your output is impressive--a thousand shorter pieces in print, over a dozen books, not to mention cranking out a sermon the length of a mid-length short story or article each week—all while working as a pastor and national lecturer on small church issues. And you say you manage to read a book or two a week. When do you ever find time to write?

When do doctors and lawyers find time to play golf? How do other people carve out time for bowling leagues? We find time for what we’re passionate about. I’m passionate about writing. I only watch three TV shows a week—LOST, Desperate Housewives, and Two and a Half Men (oh, and the UConn women’s basketball team), while most people spend hours either watching TV or simply channel checking. I don’t channel check, and that alone must save me twenty hours a week. If I can get three hours a day in for five or six days or nights a week--at only 3-6 manuscript pages per sitting—that’s a minimum of 15 pages a week, and a maximum of 36. Do the math. Pages pile up.

3. How did you get started as a writer? What were your influences?

My fifth-grade teacher Mrs. Youngs kept me after school for being a chatterbox; and instead of making me clean the erasers or write “I will not talk in class” until my hand fell off, she had me write stories, and then she’d critique them. I also read voraciously—comics, weird magazines, mysteries, whatever I could get my hands on from the school and public libraries: The Mushroom Planet, William O. Steele’s frontier adventures like Buffalo Knife with their young protagonists, stories of the Norse, Roman, and Greek gods, Sir Walter Scott Ivanhoe, Daniel DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Stephen Crane, everything in the Weekly Reader and Scholastic books-to-buy programs (my classmates and I traded). Before I hit my teens I had read The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Aeneid, Poe, O Henry, Twain, DeMaupassant, Saki, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley. The last thirty years I’ve really enjoyed work by old seminary neighbor Stephen King, Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas series, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books, Tony Hillerman, John Sandford, Sue Grafton, and Thomas Perry. That’s the tip of my reading iceberg. And I read a lot of theology, too.

4. Your stories sometimes fall under horror, but they're not gory. How would you describe them?

Horror Lite, some supernatural adventure, a few paranormal mysteries like my Devaney and Hoag stories. Right now I’m writing a young adult novel that falls under “realistic fantasy.” While my work appeals to young readers and adults alike, just as Harry Potter does, I lay off the gore, preferring Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock off-camera approaches. And I like character-driven stories rather than plot-driven ones, so mine have far less dependence on shock or special effects. Myself, I’m sorry horror literature took the turn toward splatterpunk and gore in the early seventies with movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street, because they de-emphasized good writing. That may be why I read a lot of what my Brit colleagues call “weird fiction,” the high quality stuff you get from Ash Tree Press and The Ghost Story Society.

5. Have you always self-published? If not, what made you decide to do it?

No, I wrote church leadership books for traditional publishers like Judson Press and Alban Institute. But making 3% to 6% on a $10-$13 book that has a first run of 2,000-3,000 books isn’t very rewarding monetarily. They changed my titles, insisted on covers I didn’t like, and—in one case—had a 3 year delay before the book came out. And I had to do all the p.r. myself anyway. I’d rather run 2000 of my own books (from final manuscript to published product in 3 months) for $2-$5 cost apiece, and sell them at fairs and public readings for $15 a book. Other than Amazon.com I don’t even bother with bookstores or distributors. When I did have a distributor, I sold fewer than 1% of my books through bookstores, and the store and distributor made all the money. I mean, by producing books myself, meeting my audience face-to-face (young readers), and selling direct to my market (teens, parents, grandparents, teachers and librarians), how many copies do I have to sell per year to beat the money offered by those “real” publishers? I owe this realistic approach to self-publishing guru Dan Poynter, author of The Self Publishing Manual, whose weekend course I took.

6. Have you any advice for those considering the self-publishing route?

Yes. If you can’t devise a concrete, workable, realistic plan for getting your book in front of (#1) your audience, which in my case is mostly teens, and (#2) your market/buyers, which in my case is parents, grandparents, and teachers--don’t write it. Or at least, don’t pay the money to self-publish it. Once you’ve given the first 10-50 copies of your press run to family and friends, who will purchase those books (cases of them!) stored in the attic? And don’t think you’ll get them sold through bookstores or online, because you still have to do the PR and marketing to drive customers there to ask for them (if you can even get those bookstores to stock them).

7. Do you have to deal with writer’s block?

Hah! Every week I first have to deal with sermon-writer’s block. So I just sit down and start. My congregation wouldn’t like it if I stood up on Sunday morning and said, “Sorry, no word from God this week.” That pressure, and the discipline I’ve developed by producing an 8-10 page, double-spaced manuscript each week, has helped me write fiction. I usually just sit down and apply myself. (And I have a large sign above my monitor that says “Writers write. I am a writer.”

A side story about writing process. After Odd Lot won a Ben Franklin silver medal for Best Mystery/Suspense Book in 2001, I felt the pressure to beat that with my next collection. So I wrote and rewrote the first lines, first paragraphs, and first pages of the opening story for Even Odder. Damn! Writer’s block! Dead end! A month of it! Finally my writing-authority/editor/daughter Wendy Burt-Thomas (Writer’s Digest Guide to Writing Query Letters) advised me to free myself up by shifting from the write/edit side of the brain to the storytelling side. I got a mini-cassette tape recorder with headset mouthpiece and from scratch orally created a story every day while on an hour’s walk with my dog. At the end of 43 days I had 43 stories, some very bad. But I transcribed the best 15 to MS Word, edited on-screen, and published Even Odder (not a great book, but runner-up to J.K. Rowling for the Stoker). I didn’t write the book, I told it. We may not all be good at writing stories, but everyone tells them.

8. Do you have any funny stories?

Yes. Oddest Yet, won the 2004 Bram Stoker by outpolling Dean Koontz and Jeff Marriotte, and tying Clive Barker’s Abarat (a terrific book). After getting drubbed in New York by Rowling the year before, I figured an unknown minister with an unknown self-published story collection had no chance against the biggies, so I opted to skip the black-tie ceremony in Burbank, California. But my L.A. agent, always looking for photo ops with the biggies, attended, and at 2 a.m. my time phoned. “Guess what?” she teased. “You won the Stoker.” I was still pretty much asleep and had to preach the next morning, so I muttered “Shit” and went back to bed. The Stoker arrived via UPS that week (a haunted mansion modeled after Poe’s House of Usher), and I placed on the altar above my fireplace. After two weeks of kissing it goodnight at bedtime, I eventually noticed the little door in its front and opened it. It had Clive Barker’s name inscribed there for Abarat! He’d walked off the Burbank Hilton stage with my Stoker! After a mediated hostage exchange, Clive graciously and apologetically surrendered my trophy and I returned his. (Apparently he hadn’t thought to open his little door, either). Afterwards, when I told my author/daughter/capitalist Wendy, she emailed, “Are you nuts, Dad? Clive’s is worth a lot more than yours on eBay.” Kids are here to keep us humble, right?

9. What advice do you have for new writers?

Read, read, read—for enjoyment and to learn. Write, write, write anything you can--sermons, newsletter articles, jokes, anecdotes, devotional material, poems, cartoon captions, recipes, anything—but especially stories short and long. Write what you like. Submit stuff. Publish even if sometimes there’s no money but only a contributor’s copy. My first horror stories went for no-pay and low-pay, but I gave away only one-time rights, then later collected them into Odd Lot (almost all reprints from those low-pay and no-pay small magazines and zines); it then went on to win awards and made me some money. That’s contrary to what you hear from most writing-advice columnists who are selling nonfiction and advise you not to ever let it go unless you get paid for it. Learn from writing-related magazines and books. Learn from rejections (I had a thousand before an acceptance), then submit again and again. Publish your own stuff if you have to, but make sure you know your audience (for me it’s teens), your market (for me it’s their parents and grandparents and teachers), and how you can get it to the buyers. As my old neighbor Stephen King said: writers write, wannabes wannabe.

10. What books do you recommend fiction writers read?

Everything in their favorite fields or genres, then beyond that. I gobbled up hundreds of romances for awhile to see if I wanted to write them (which I didn’t). But even though I chose not to write them, I learned a lot about character development, plotting, and how to begin and end a chapter. Oh, and there are two absolutely essential primers every fiction writer should read: Gary Provost’s Make Your Words Work and Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer. Most of us try to write instinctively, but Swain shows us things like Motivation/Reaction Units, so we see how and why our best writing works, so we can learn to do it again and again.

15. Where can people buy your books?

At public readings, school visits, writers’ conferences, arts & crafts shows around New England. Use your Visa or Mastercard on my in-home answering machine (860 885-1865) or hit the website www.burtcreations.com. I only sell autographed copies, and it’s only through me that you can get the 4-pack special deal of $10 off for the series. Request a brochure (29 Arnold Place, Norwich, CT 06360. As a last resort, get an autographed copy from www.amazon.com.

Silence is Silver

2009-04-08T08:05:00.001-04:00

There's nothing like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and knowing that you're almost there. Well, except maybe actually emerging into the real world.

Most writers I know get pretty intense as deadline time draws near. We hole up in our writing spaces, lost in their fictional worlds. Our eyes glaze over as we work that last tricky plot point or logical inconsistency. We attack our manuscripts, pen in hand, and skewer every typo. Or at least most of them. Have to leave the copy editors something to do, lol.

Right now I'm finishing up the manuscript for my November 09 release, Silver Silence. So how does this dash-to-the-finish work? I write my first drafts on the computer, but when I've got something that I hope is close to finish, I'll print a rough draft. I prefer to do final edits on hard copy, in pen. It's more like reading a print book, and I tend to catch a lot more mistakes than when I read on the computer. After I get through this step, this is what the book looks like:

Silver Silence is the third book in my historical fantasy Druids of Avalon series, after The Grail King and Deep Magic. Counting the prologue book to the series, Celtic Fire, Silver Silence is the fourth story set in the pre-Arthurian world of the Druids of Avalon.

The hero and heroine of the tale are Rhys and Breena, characters who first appeared in The Grail King. Rhys, a Druid,was condemned at a young age to a hard life. By his grandfather's order, he roams the Celtic isles, seeking Druid initiates for Avalon. Breena, the half-Celtic, half-Roman daughter of Rhiannon and Lucius from Celtic Fire, is one of those initiates. She is quite a bit younger than Rhys, and he's known her since he was fourteen, and she was three. She's been in love with him forever; he treats her like a child, even though she's now a woman.

Breena has rare and powerful Druid magic. She's a Seer, and her visions of the future are terrifying. A woman is murdered, again and again, in her dreams. She knows she needs to prevent the death, but has no idea how she is to accomplish that task. When a mysterious old Druid appears near Avalon, offering to take Breena to the woman in her vision, she accepts the challenge. She never imagines that the Druid, Myrddin, will take her through the Lost Lands and into a war-torn future Britain, where dark forces conspire to prevent the birth of the powerful Celtic king destined to unite Britain under one throne. Readers know this future king, of course, as Arthur.

I put all those edits into the computer, changing a bit as I go. Now I have (I hope) a very close to finished draft. I print it all out again. This is what it looks like now:

Then it's time for one last read through, catching those nasty typos and strengthening the language here and there. And off to my editor.

Whew. Now it's time to act like a normal person (rather than an obsessed writer). For a few days, at least. Until I start obsessing about my next project...

Joy
www.joynash.com

Coming May 26!

A Little Light Magic

Summer at the Jersey Shore has never been so hot!

In Bookstores NOW:

Immortals: The Reckoning

2009-04-05T10:07:00.001-04:00

It's been an interesting week.

J K Rowling and other bestselling authors took on SCRIBD, and the Times of London reported sympathetically.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article5998918.ece?Submitted=true

On a Copyright Alliance blog, a commentator suggested that President Obama's gift to The Queen of England may have set an unfortunate example of piratical behaviour
How about the Queen? Should she have to give her Ipod back? Technically what she did is infringement!

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/first-sale-president-obama-and-queen-england

Another interesting discussion of infringement
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2009/04/whacking-infringement/

Apparently, there is a report that someone at the prestigious TED conference has analyzed morality and petty theft, and the conclusions may tend to be rather depressing.
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2009/04/a-file-sharing-honor-code/

If I read the argument correctly, humans are hardwired cheat and steal if they think they can get away with it, and if they know someone else who does so.

For those artists and writers and musicians who want their copyrighted work taken down from "file-sharing" sites, look at the Footer of the site in question for words such as "Copyright". That's the place to find out what their requirements are for a "Take Down Notice". Usually, you will need a screen capture, and dual processor so you can have two windows open at the same time. You also need an email account that suggests that you are the copyright holder. You also need an ISBN. Not all works have ISBNs.

This, too, is a problem these days.

Here's the form of words that one site requires:

Pursuant to 17 USC 512(c)(3)(A), this communication serves as a statement that:

1. I am the exclusive rights holder for [TITLE OF WORK] ISBN [OF WORK], the titles of copyrighted material being infringed upon, which were published [DATE OF COPYRIGHT/DATE OF PUBLISHING];

2. These exclusive rights are being violated by material available upon your site at the following URL(s): [GIVE THE URLS TO THE DOWNLOADS AND TO THE PAGES OFFERING YOUR WORKS]

3. I have a good faith belief that the use of this material in such a fashion is not authorized by [YOUR NAME] the copyright holder, the copyright holder's agent, or the law;

4. Under penalty of perjury in a United States court of law, I state that the information contained in this notification is accurate, and that I am authorized to act on the behalf of the exclusive rights holder for the material in question;

5. I may be contacted by the following methods
[GIVE YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, EMAIL ADDRESS]

I hereby request that you remove or disable access to this material as it appears on your service in as expedient a fashion as possible. Thank you.

Please be aware that if you send a take down notice, the site is likely to post a note telling the world that you were the person who requested that the download be removed.

2009-04-05T10:07:00.000-04:00

Review of a horrible book

2009-03-23T11:37:00.000-04:00

Afraid by Jack Kilborn is a horrifying book with a particularly satisfying ending.

I like cozies. I might as well be honest about that. Also happy ever afters. Further, in the interests of full disclosure, you should know that I read AFRAID by Jack Kilborn (with a view to a review) because Joe Konrath dared me to do so. He has a thick skin, and a strong stomach... and anyone who reads AFRAID needs both.

This is not a book to take on a fishing trip, especially if you've left your loved ones at home, alone. In fact, this book ought to come with a free membership of the NRA. You'll want your Brinks alarm turned on, and a loaded shotgun under your mattress if you read AFRAID in bed at night. You might want one of those panic button pendants, too.

Be warned. It is gruesome. AFRAID is the sort of book to be read aloud, in a large group. Maybe journalists who need to be kept up all night --for a slow-to-break story on Airforce One, for instance-- or secret types on a stakeout, would get a bang out of AFRAID.

The villains are seriously, SERIOUSLY, nasty. My own most horrible villain (Insufficient Mating Material) rendered his victims insensible, had his wicked way, then took a small plug of pubic hair for a souvenir. Jack Kilborn's baddies do a great deal more than that. You get a sense of the horrors to come when a faceless bad guy sits on his first victim's bed, and when she asks what he's going to do to her, he says "Everything."

And that's just page 7.

This book contains some sick stuff. Nothing is off limits. Think Hannibal Lecter times five --or six by my count-- with the absolute might and force of the US government backing them up...or at least covering them up.

The pace is relentless, the characterization --unfortunately-- is excellent. You will care about these people. No one deserves to die the way so many do. The writing is crystal clear, like carved coal, dark, sparkling, with more than an evil glint. There's no silliness, no messing about, and nothing strikes you as implausible at the time, even if some of the violence is over the top.

You won't want to put down this book until you reach the last line. It's a good last line. Really good.

Afraid is a horrifying book with a particularly satisfying ending. I thoroughly recommend it.

best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™

Scroll down the playlist for Knight's Fork related interview
http://www.theauthorsshow.com/

Then sign up to apply for your own interview!

Wendy Burt-Thomas and Why Query Letters are so vital

2009-03-01T14:00:00.001-05:00

Today we have a Q & A with Wendy Burt-Thomas. She is a full-time freelance writer, editor and copywriter with more than 1,000 published pieces. Her third book, "The Writer's Digest Guide to Query Letters" hit stores in January 2009. To learn more about Wendy or her three books, visit www.GuideToQueryLetters.com. If you have a writing-related question, you can also post it on http://AskWendy.wordpress.com.

1. Q: Can you tell us about your book?

The book was a great fit for me because I'd been teaching "Breaking Into Freelance Writing" for about eight years. In the workshop, I covered a lot of what is in this book: writing query letters to get articles in magazines, to land an agent, or to get a book deal with a publisher. Since I'm a full-time freelance magazine writer and editor with two previous books, this was incredibly fun to write because it didn't require tons of research. I was lucky enough to receive lots of great sample query letters from writers and authors that I use as "good" examples in the book. I wrote all the "bad" examples myself because I didn't dare ask for contributions that I knew I'd be ripping apart!

In addition to the ins and outs of what makes a good query, the book covers things like why (or why not) to get an agent, where to find one and how to choose one; writing a synopsis or proposal; selling different rights to your work; other forms of correspondence; and what editors and agents look for in new writers.
It was really important to me that the book not be a dry, boring reference book, but rather an entertaining read (while still being chock full of information). I was thrilled that Writer's Digest let me keep all the humor.

2. Q: Why are query letters so important?

Breaking into the publishing world is hard enough right now. Unless you have a serious "in" of some kind, you really need a great query letter to impress an agent or acquisitions editor. Essentially, your query letter is your first impression. If they like your idea (and voice and writing style and background), they'll either request a proposal, sample chapters, or the entire manuscript. If they don't like your query letter, you've got to pitch it to another agency/publisher. Unlike a manuscript, which can be edited or reworked if an editor thinks it has promise, you only get one shot with your query. Make it count!

I see a lot of authors who spend months (or years) finishing their book, only to rush through the process of crafting a good, solid query letter. What a waste! If agents/editors turn you down based on a bad query letter, you've blown your chance of getting them to read your manuscript. It could be the next bestseller, but they'll never see it. My advice is to put as much effort into your query as you did your book. If it's not fabulous, don't send it until it is.

3. Q: You're also a magazine editor. What is your biggest gripe regarding queries?

Queries that show that the writer obviously hasn't read our publication. I'll admit that I did this when I was a new writer too – submitted blindly to any publication whose name sounded even remotely related to my topic. One of the examples I use was when I submitted a parenting article to a magazine for senior citizens. Oops! A well-written query pitching an article that's not a match for the magazine isn't going to get you any further than a poorly written query.

4. Q: There's an entire chapter in the book about agents. Do you think all new writers should get agents?

Probably 99% of new writers should get an agent. There are lots of reasons, but my top three are:
1) Many of the larger publishing houses won't even look at unagented submissions now; 2) Agents can negotiate better rights and more money on your behalf;
3) Agents know the industry trends, changes and staff better than you ever could.

5. Q: You've been a mentor, coach or editor for many writers. What do you think is the most common reason that good writers don't get published?

Poor marketing skills. I see so many writers that are either too afraid, too uniformed, or frankly, too lazy, to market their work. They think their job is done when the write "the end" but writing is only half of the process. I've always told people who took my class that there are tons of great writers in the world who will never get published. I'd rather be a good writer who eats lobster than a great writer who eats hot dogs. I make a living as a writer because I spend as much time marketing as I do writing.

6. Q: What are some of the biggest misconceptions that writers have about getting a book deal?

That they'll be rich overnight, that they don't need to promote their book once it's published, that publishing houses will send them on world book tours, that people will recognize them at the airport. Still, you can make great money as an author if you're prepared to put in the effort. If it wasn't possible, there wouldn't be so many full-time writers.

7. Q: What must-read books do you recommend to new writers?

Christina Katz (author of "Writer Mama") has a new book out called "Get Known Before the Book Deal" - which is fabulous. Also, Stephen King's "On Writing" and David Morrell's "Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing." Anything by Anne Lamott or my Dad, Steve Burt.

8. Q: What's the biggest lesson you've learned as a full-time writer?

Seize every opportunity - especially when you first start writing. I remember telling someone about a really high-paying writing gig I got and he said, "Wow. You have the best luck!" I thought, "Luck has nothing to do with it! I've worked hard to get where I am." Later that week I read this great quote: "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity." It's absolutely true. And writing queries is only about luck in this sense. If you're prepared with a good query and/or manuscript, when the opportunity comes along you'll be successful.

9. What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
Writing the "bad" query letters. I've read – and written! – so many horrible ones over the years that it was a little too easy to craft them. But misery loves company and we ALL love to read really bad query letters, right?

10. Q: What do you want readers to learn from your book?
I want them to understand that while writing a good query letter is important, it doesn't have to be overwhelming. You can break it down into parts, learn from any first-round rejections, and read other good queries to help understand what works. I also want them to remember that writing is fun. Sometimes new writers get so caught up in the procedures that they lose their original voice in a query. Don't bury your style under formalities and to-the-letter formatting.

Thank you, Wendy!

Rowena Cherry

2009-02-10T05:43:00.000-05:00

Knight's Fork wins AmazonClicks.com Award

2009-01-11T09:55:00.001-05:00

http://www.amazonclicks.com/Allwinners.html

I am absolutely thrilled that Knight's Fork received enough votes to win the award, and I'd like to thank all the authors who voted.

Thank you!

Rowena Cherry

Magic will cost you

2008-11-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

Magic costs the user. Every writer of speculative fiction or fantasy knows that.

Don't they?

Industrial Light and Magic (TM) has its cost. So does technology. I wonder what the long term cost of being "beamed up" was? I know that NASA astronauts suffer for their science. They may not be beamed up, but weightlessness causes their bones to lose calcium, and guess where the calcium goes?

Kidney stones! There are some doozies of kidney stones on display at the Johnson Space Center.

Which brings me to another cost of modern magical conveniences. Privacy.

George Orwell was right about Big Brother!

You can hardly make a Medicare election, reserve a plane ticket, collect your Office Max reward for recycling HP toner cartridges without having to supply your phone number, complete home address, name, date of birth and so much more! Moreover, banks, utilities, my child's school, and everyone else attempts to force me to use the internet for all my business and pleasure. I've even received reproachful letters informing me that (Fidelity "Private" Group) unsuccessfully tried to email (whatever private info I didn't want emailed to me). Instead of wasting valuable ink on the info they weren't able to email me, they direct me to go on the internet to find it and print it myself!

Yes, I may save a copse of trees, and I want to do that. But I know that spammers and hackers are reading my email and tracking my treks around the internet. I can tell (not always) by the sudden deluge of emails from names very similar to those of my friends, offering me cleverly disguised products to enlarge private parts I do not possess.

A few years ago, we were all outraged by Zabasearch, and wanted our names removed from their system. Now, dozens of pop up Big Brothers make names, addresses, phone numbers, maps to guide perverts to your basement window, and even credit reports available to every potential terrorist who wants to know.

Personally, I don't think the credit reports are accurate. I've been getting a lot of threatening telephone calls from the implausibly named "Credit Services" telling me that this is positively my final notice that I may borrow money from them. I've started to press button One, because pressing button Two to be removed from their calling list (I thought it was my final notice???) only encourages them. So, I am very nice to the telemarkers, until I get their names, phone numbers and so forth.

Then I go to the National Do Not Call Registry (now bookmarked on my toolbar) and report them.

I wonder whether the National Do Not Call Registry is as much of a misnomer and George Orwell's Ministry of Truth!

How do I relate all the above (kidney stones, telephone directory searches, phone spam etc) to futuristic, alien romance fiction?

Well, almost anyone can be virtually omniscient these days, if they know where to look. A self-styled "god" could be a high level hacker and an eavesdropper. The difficulty and the challenge (and therefore the fun) would be making him romantic and heroic, wouldn't it?

That's what I'm working on with the god-Emperor Djohn-Kronos.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Editorial Ass: C[r]ash Flow (Or What Went Wrong in October in Book Publishing)

2008-11-23T18:43:00.000-05:00

Editorial Ass: C[r]ash Flow (Or What Went Wrong in October in Book Publishing)

Bookstores as internet cafes

2008-11-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

Who better than speculative fiction authors and a few romantics with their heads in the stars (and the warp drive) to set the world to rights?

Have you ever seen a problem, and had an idea for a fix, but no one to tell? Moreover, your idea wouldn't fit into any science fiction or fantasy work you have in progress? If so, please comment. I'm looking for some guest blogs to put up over December/January.

Bricks and Mortar Chain Bookstores

I'd like to sort out the bricks and mortar book chain stores, such as Barnes and Noble, Borders. They've become glorified warehouses with a few comfy chairs, a coffeeshop, and soft toys and confectionery. While it isn't impossible to find any book that ought to be in stock, many books might as well not be there. They're at ankle level, or you get a crick in your neck looking up; they're spine out and jammed together. If they're autographed, no one can tell.

Honestly, my local Borders Books is like a really bad website. A booklover has to know what he or she wants before he or she goes there, and the chances of being distracted or frustrated and leaving without buying are quite high.

My local library is much more welcoming. At least, I'm allowed to use the computers to help me find what I'm looking for.

Computers!

Barnes and Noble, Chapters.Indigo.ca, Amazon (not that Amazon counts), Borders. Books-A-Million all have websites and online stores. Some offer book clubs. Some offer discussions and forums and book-related social networking. Some are well done, and some are not very easy to navigate.

The only problem with buying a book on the internet is that you have to wait until and while it ships, and you may have to pay postage (and even tax). The advantage of your local chain bookstore is that you don't pay postage, you get your book immediately as long as it is in stock, and you can read as much of it as you wish to make sure you've a good chance of enjoying it.

So here is what I envisage as the future of chain bookstores:

Barnes and Noble (et alia) as a book-related internet cafe! (Warehouse attached).

I foresee lots of chained-down, but free-to-use computers all around the perimeter, and in a central reservation, too. I mean LOTS!

Booklovers would go to a comfy captain's chair, log in with their Barnes and Noble card number (or not), check their own emails (because we all do, don't we?), then migrate to the B&N bookclub and bookstore online...

Or, they'd simply type in the name of their favorite author, or the title of the book they want, and call up covers, back cover blurb, first chapter, last page, author's blog, author's website, author's booklist, book-trailers, reviews... all that useful stuff.

Of course, this could be done from home, too, in the same way that we can buy a flash drive at a compelling price online from Circuit City, then drive fifteen miles to the nearest participating store to pick it up.

Books could be sorted by subgenre. Award-winning, humorous futuristic Romances with plus-size psychic heroines (such as Insufficient Mating Material) could be virtually "shelved" in all six categories.

Book store patrons would choose, click, discover where the book was shelved (or else, they'd order it from the comfort of where they were sitting and a bookseller would fetch it from the stacks and have it waiting at checkout), pay online, then maybe finish their beverage, check their email again; pick up their purchase, and leave.

Local authors might take advantage of the facilities and actually write in the bookstores. (And be available to autograph books on site). Virtual signings could be a snap.

Anyone with a power outage or ISP downtime (or unpaid cable bill) could use the bookstore computers. What a service!

It could take book related social networking to a new level. Hey, the bookstore might replace the bar, though nothing could ever replace Linnea Sinclair's Intergalactic Bar and Grille.

What do you think?
What's your beef? And what's your solution?

Rowena Cherry

As Detroit goes, so goes America

2008-11-16T15:46:00.001-05:00

I'm a Science-fiction Romance writer. I look at History (which repeats itself) also current events, and I wonder What If...?

Not that I write it, yet, but Steampunk is where the writer changes one invention from the time of the industrial revolution, such as H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine". That was the "age of steam", hence steam punk.

More recently, there is "cyber punk" which I suppose relates to choices made in Silicon Valley in the 1980s. One of the hallmarks of punk writing is that it explores the road not traveled and the consequences of a different decision whether made by a scientist, a businessman, or a politician (I assume).

I'm using "gunk" punk because if steam is what the Nineteenth Century machines are remembered for, then gunk might be what petroleum-driven cars leave behind. Or maybe I've been watching too many STP commercials.

Gratuitous decoration

This is a car made by my husband, with his own hands and the help of a few people he contracted with privately. He burned his hands on hot clay, he came home with his eyebrows covered in dust from sanding... he lost 10lbs from all the exercise. This photo was taken at SEMA by Jonathon Ramsey for Autoblog.com http://tinyurl.com/5kv9jf

So, what if... in the 1940s American didn't have a manufacturing industry and depended on Germany and Japan? I'd probably be blogging in German, right?

History is being made right now, that's why I'm laying claim to "gunk punk" (unless someone has already thought of it, or someone has a better name). Peter M DeLorenzo of autoextremist.com
http://www.autoextremist.com/current/ may have done so, but he doesn't write fiction as far as I know. He has a jaw dropping rant going on.

Peter is also selling an alarming book (non-fiction) titled "The United States of Toyota."

Alarming cover art.

I am now imagining myself as a writer in, say 2020 (hindsight pun!) looking back on the third week of November 2008 when Congress made a catastrophic vote NOT to make a loan to the last American car companies.

It's a "Mad Max" world now. Or perhaps it's Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow" world with a touch of "1984". The Jesuits and the Japanese rule. We have an Emperor. And a Pope. And a third Minister of some sort, because good things come in threes.

Onstar speaks to us in Japanese in our cars. We cannot turn it off. They got Murdoch, too. And Comcast. All our Direct TV has Japanese subtitles. We cannot turn it off. Big Brother looks a lot like Vladimir Putin with Botox to get rid of the ugly Western crease in his eyelids. He tells us what to think.

America is bankrupt. When the world bank foreclosed, one of the creditors took Hawaii, another took the island of Manhattan, another took the Great Lakes for the water. No one wanted Detroit... I could go on. In a grim way, this is rather fun.

Maybe my imagination is overactive. I hope so! I was having trouble fitting any kind of Romance into my budding novel of milieu.

My point is, pay attention to the information that is available, and store it up for future reference. (Thank goodness for flashdrive!). There's a massive dissonance right now between the truth and what people are saying in the media.

If interested in GM's version of car myth vs fact visit http://gmfactsandfiction.com/

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

10 Reasons Not to Read My Book

2008-10-18T13:52:00.001-04:00

Great post, Rowena! It definitely inspired me. So here goes:

Ten Reasons Not to Read My Vampire Novel DARK CHANGELING:

1. If you don't approve of "good" vampires, you won't like the hero, psychiatrist Roger Darvell.

2. The vampires don't conform to the traditional undead template, because they're products of natural evolution.

3. Not only is Roger unafraid of crosses, he's a Catholic who attends church, er, religiously.

4. He can't turn into a bat or a wolf.

5. He moves around freely during the day (just like Carmilla and Dracula in the classic nineteenth-century stories).

6. The book contains some steamy love scenes.

7. But there's very little conventional sex, because male vampires have certain limitations in that area.

8. There's a brief passage making erotic use of menstrual blood.

9. A sympathetic character succumbs to a gory death.

10. Roger's partner and lover, Dr. Britt Loren, has bumper stickers on her car that read "Blood Donors Make Better Lovers" and "Don't Blame Me, I Voted Democratic."

Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)

PRISM Award winners

2008-10-10T11:19:00.001-04:00

Visit our Cafepress Store and buy cool FF&P stuff!

Futuristic, Fantasy and Paranormal Chapter of Romance Writers of America
HomeOur AuthorsNewsMembers OnlyContestsJoinLinks Contact UsRWA National

Congratulations to the 2008 PRISM Winners.

Light Paranormal
1. Dead Girls are Easy by Terri Garey
2. More Than Fiends by Maureen Child
3. Highland Guardian by Melissa Mayhue

Time Travel
1. Wired by Liz Maverick
2. Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband by Melissa Mayhue
3. Forgiveness by JL Wilson.

Erotica
1. Mona Lisa Blossoming by Sunny
2. Pleasures of the Night by Sylvia Day
3. Double Dating with the Dead by Karen Kelly

Futuristic
1. My Favorite Earthling by Susan Grant
2. How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 days by Susan Grant
3. Insufficient Mating Material by Rowena Cherry

Novella
1. Over the Moon by Sunny
2. Street Corners and Halos by Catherine Spangler
3. Wild Hearts in Atlantis by Alyssa Day

Dark Paranormal
1. Immortals: The Awakening by Joy Nash
2. Betrayed: A House of Night Novel by PC Cast
3. Touched by Darkness by catherine Spangler

Fantasy
1. The Eternal Rose by Gail Dayton
2. Lucinda, Darkly by Sunny
3. Voice of Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready

Best of the Best
Wired by Liz Maverick

Best First Book
1. Grave Illusions by Lina Gardiner
2. She Wolf by Teresa D'Amario
3. Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband by Melissa Mayhue

Challenge... ten reasons not to buy your book

2008-10-03T11:33:00.000-04:00

Ten reasons NOT to read Knight's Fork

(Ten reasons not to—may be a new, contrarian trend among authors who blog.)

10. It's long. It has 340 pages, and most new Chapters do not begin on a fresh page.

9. It has a Prologue and an Epilogue. That's two beginnings, and two endings!

8. It's going to take about eight hours to read

7b. Disrespectful words such as tallywacker and joystick are used with reference to male body parts
7. The hero is a virgin and proud of it

6. The heroine is locked in a chastity belt, and she doesn't have a key

5. The family tree is so complicated they needed to spread it over two pages.

4. If you read in bed, your significant other might be disturbed by your giggles

3. The F- word is used, but only by villains, and only in conversation

2. If you read it in public, someone may ask why the naked man on the cover is lying in a puddle

1. If you don't read every paragraph, you may ask yourself why the naked man is lying in a puddle

What are your ten reasons for your book?

Star-Crossed Romance: Guest - Rowena Cherry

2008-09-29T17:08:00.000-04:00

Star-Crossed Romance: Guest - Rowena Cherry

The "damned" story is out... early

2008-09-21T15:31:00.001-04:00

KNIGHT'S FORK is a page-turner from the very first one to the very last. I enjoyed it so much, after I reached the last page I started right from the beginning again. KNIGHT’S FORK has it all! If you only have time to read one book this season, I highly recommend you run out and grab a copy today.

~Kimberly Leslie

http://romancejunkiesreviews.com/artman/publish/paranormal/Knight_s_Fork.shtml

Three other reviews have been posted on Amazon, and the book is in stock, as are Forced Mate and Insufficient Mating Material

Blurb:
What is a queen to do when the sperm donor of her dreams says no?

Carpe Scrotum. Seize Life by the Testicles! The Queen Consort of the Volnoth needs a sperm donor and only one green-eyed god has the right stuff. Little does she know that she has pinned all her hopes on the crown jewels of the fabled Royal Saurian Djinn. Not only is he the son of her greatest enemy, but he has taken a vow of chastity.

Knight's Fork continues the alien romance series of the god-Princes of Tigron, begun with Forced Mate. It takes up right after the grand downfall of my most heinous villain in Insufficient Mating Material, and this time the hero is 'Rhett.

'Rhett has incurred the resentment of his elder brothers/cousins for his more-virtuous-than-thou attitude, his spoilsport interference when they want irresponsible sex with unsuitable partners, and simply because he is his father's only son. They decide that he must be hiding a sordid secret, and they set out to find out who she is.

Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
http://tinyurl.com/Buy-KnightsFork

MIDNIGHT TREAT Release

2008-06-05T11:54:00.000-04:00

I’m thrilled to announce the publication of MIDNIGHT TREAT, an anthology from Pocket Books reprinting three erotic paranormal romance novellas from Ellora’s Cave by Shelley Munro, Sally Painter, and me. Meet three ravishing, not quite human heroes—a gargoyle, a ghostly werewolf, and my vampire, Claude, from “Tall, Dark, and Deadly.” Here’s the Amazon.com link:

http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Treat-Elloras-Sally-Painter/dp/1416577238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212680126&sr=1-1

Here’s a teaser from my story, in which Eloise, a writer of fantasy, horror, and paranormal romance, tries to persuade actor Claude Darvell to produce and star in her screenplay adaptation of VARNEY THE VAMPYRE (a well-known Victorian “penny dreadful”). Little does she suspect that he’s actually a vampire himself, hiding in plain sight by performing in horror roles. They first meet at an SF convention awards banquet, after which they go to her hotel room to discuss the potential film.

Excerpt from “Tall, Dark, and Deadly,” by Margaret L. Carter:

When Eloise opened her eyes, a rosy mist clouded her vision, and her throat felt dry. After dragging herself to a sitting position, she rubbed her face and looked around. *Oh, Lord, I can't believe I acted that way! How can I ever face Claude again?*

Come to think of it, where was he? His cape still hung over the chair, but he was nowhere to be seen, and she didn't hear any sounds from the bathroom. No way could she look him in the eye, at least not until she'd put some distance between herself and her humiliating cat-in-heat behavior. Maybe he'd be gentleman enough, next time they met, to pretend the encounter had never happened. Meanwhile, she had to get out before he reappeared. When he saw her gone, with luck he would return to his own room and leave her alone.

Standing up, she had to grab the bedpost until a surge of dizziness faded. Noticing how loosely the bodice of her dress hung, she reached behind and pulled up the zipper. Muzzy-headed, she staggered out the door and along the hall to the elevator, one hand on the wall for balance. By the time she'd ridden to the ground floor, the danger of toppling over at every step had passed. Her brain still felt like oatmeal, though. She drifted through the lobby to the main doors, with a vague idea of letting the night air clear her head.

She shoved through the double glass doors and meandered to the corner of Wilshire Boulevard.

* * * * *

Claude came back from his foray to the vending machines with a full ice bucket and a can of Coke. After her involuntary donation, Eloise would feel dehydrated. Even before unlocking the room door, he sensed her absence. What the devil had got into the woman? He hadn't expected her to wake so quickly, but what had possessed her to run off the moment she did?

And without her shoes, he noticed. Or her key, which he'd taken with him. While these thoughts ran through his mind, he was already heading for the stairs. He could dash to street level on his own power faster than the elevator could arrive and carry him down. If Eloise hadn't gone all the way to the first floor, he could search the hotel at leisure. The first priority was intercepting her if she was indeed wandering around the lobby barefoot and half-conscious. Damn, this was the last thing he wanted to be doing after the mutually satisfying "dessert" they'd sampled.

Hurrying from the stairwell into the lobby, he scanned the area. Just in time, he caught a glimpse of Eloise disappearing out the main entrance. He strode after her as fast as possible without breaking into a trot. She paused at the corner. As he walked toward her, he noticed the dreamy vagueness of her gaze. She stepped off the curb with no sign of noticing the red stoplight. Claude darted into the stream of traffic, wrapped his arms around her, and flashed back to the sidewalk too fast for human eyes to follow.

Clinging to him, she shook her head in obvious bewilderment. "Claude—?"

He sensed the fog lifting from her brain. In a second she would start complaining about the way he'd chased and grabbed her. He also sensed eyes boring into him. Not just the curious glances of people who wondered how a man in a tuxedo and a barefoot woman in a formal gown had suddenly appeared on the sidewalk. Hostile eyes that felt not quite human.

He wasted no time processing this impression. Choosing action over analysis, he draped himself in a psychic veil that repelled vision. He projected a "you don't see me" aura that amounted to invisibility. With Eloise held close to him, she fell under the same curtain. Casual passers-by would blink at their "disappearance," then instantly forget about them. As for the watcher who troubled Claude the most, if he, she, or it existed at all, the illusion might provide enough time for an unseen retreat to the shelter of Eloise's room.

Claude carried her, murmuring confused protests, up the stairs to that refuge. "What the blazes is wrong with you?" he said as he plopped her on the bed. "Where did you think you were going?" And why did his own heart hammer with alarm at her narrow escape? He tabled that question for the moment.

"Out, if it's any of your business." Her flushed cheeks stirred his appetite, even though he'd just feasted on her.

"It's my business when you nearly get yourself killed. What the devil did you want to run away for? Surely I didn't do anything to frighten you, did I?" He smoothed the hair straggling out of her braid.

She jerked her head away from his hand. "Of course not. I just wanted to be alone."

"Really?" He captured her eyes with his.

"If you must know, I was embarrassed." She gasped at her own frankness. He knew she must feel baffled by the way the truth had popped out.

Maintaining the gentle pressure of his mind on hers, he prompted, "Why in the world would you be embarrassed?"

"Humiliated. The way I acted when you, you know, touched me." The heat radiating from her skin made him want to absorb every drop of her essence.

"I enjoyed every minute of it. And so did you, didn't you?" He stroked her head, and this time she didn't resist. His hypnotic gaze and touch already had her partly tamed. "Here, you're thirsty," he said. He held the cold soda can to her mouth. She drank half of it and licked her lips in a maddeningly sensual way. He held her close and crooned a wordless song of languid pleasure until she went limp in his arms. "Don't worry about it. Lie down and rest. Everything is all right now."

He lowered her head onto the pillow and turned her on her side to unzip her dress. After peeling it off, he folded back the covers and tucked her in with the sheet up to her waist. He knew he ought to leave now, but her half-closed eyes watched him with drowsy lust that sparked a burning in the pit of his stomach.

*Damn, I want her again! I can't remember the last time I was this hungry for a donor!* If he couldn't remember, he told himself with an ironic smile, maybe the answer was "never". In any case, resisting temptation had never been his forte. Earlier, he could have satisfied his thirst without bringing her to climax. Her arousal alone would have spiced her blood. Her eagerness, though, had inflamed him past caution. Now the sight of her bare breasts, flushed with passion, and the aroma of her female musk, tinged with traces of soap and bath powder, overcame the remnants of his scruples. After all, what harm would another sip do?

-end of excerpt-

Margaret L. Carter

www.margaretlcarter.com

My monthly newsletter includes excerpts, book reviews, and guest author interviews:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/margaretlcartersnewsfromthecrypt

Are you Bear Aware?

2008-05-11T14:03:00.002-04:00

I can't resist a totally --well, not totally-- gratuitous hunk to start the day. Look out for further news from me about how this manly pose was transformed into a poster representing 'Rhett (Prince Djarrhett) the hero of the sequel to Forced Mate and Insufficient Mating Material. Or maybe you've seen the ad with the temporary cover?

Mitchel Gray, my photographer friend with the unerring eye for a great pose helped me out with this inspiring view.

Anyway... Not only is today (Sunday) Mother's Day, but it is also the start of
Bear Awareness Week.

Angie Fox, Carrie Masek, Sandy Lender, Cynthia Eden and Charlee Boyett-
Compo are joining me on internet voices radio tonight between 9pm
Eastern and eleven pm to give a whole new depth of meaning to Bear men and Romance.

We'd love some listeners, even for a little while.

FOR CRAZY TUESDAY: In the last program, Jade Lee and Emily Bryan (aka
Diana Groe) talked about everything below the belt in honor of Earth
Day... from Brazilian waxes for courtesans, to castration, to foot
binding.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday.htm

FOR CHERRY PICKING SPECIALS, which is the irreverent and irregular
Sunday night-time show about Romance heroes and the animals they shift
into being when the right female comes along.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/rowena.htm

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
http://www.internetvoicesradio.com

How to Make a Romance Novel Cover

2008-05-01T21:49:00.003-04:00

Okay, enough of Fabio - but ever wonder how they make a romance novel cover?

Check out this way cool Better TV video on how to make a romance novel cover, featuring my very own editor at Dorchester, Alicia Condon!! Looks like things can get steamy on the photo shoot...

All the best!

Joy

www.joynash.com

Joy and....FABIO!!

2008-04-24T12:46:00.001-04:00

Just got back from Romantic Times Magazine's Booklover Convention in Pittsburgh. It was a crazy week, but the highlight for me was definitely meeting the romance cover model icon...

FABIO!

Fabio might be pushing fifty (truth be told, I'm not so far off myself) but he is still hot, hot, hot! His Italian accent is to die for! And he's very gracious, too.

All the best!

Joy
www.joynash.com

DEEP MAGIC: Druids of Avalon #2
Jan 08
Gwendolyn risks forbidden magic and forbidden love in her quest to forge a magical sword in Avalon's defense.

Coming Oct 2008!
IMMORTALS: THE CROSSING
When Mac sets out on the trail of a dangerous death witch, he never dreams the chase will lead him straight to Hell.

If you love books, sign this petition

2008-04-14T13:48:00.001-04:00

Copyright is being infringed every day, and there is not a lot we (midlist and lower) authors can do about it.

As fast as we discover another site where our books have been illegally scanned, turned into e-books, and are being "shared", then spent half a day writing to the site's moderators, and perhaps getting the links removed... the thieves go elsewhere.

I saw a journalist blog the other day that because J K Rowling won't miss the royalties, it is acceptable for readers to steal from every other author, too.

It's not OK. Not all copies that are read illegally would have been paperbacks sold, but some will, and for some authors, those lost sales will make the difference between whether or not they are ever offered another contract.

When I see that JK Rowling's books are also on the pirate site, I'm glad, because I know that eventually, that site will be shut down, because she is good at defending herself, and the big guns sink pirates faster than lots of little pop guns can.

Today I'm cheering, because I keep the rights to my characters. Don't you? I don't know how someone can publish an Encyclopaedia of Harry Potter without mentioning any of the characters!

I hope the New York judge sides with Ms Rowling!

Anyway....If you think it is only fair that the government defends the book industry's copyrights with the same vigor that they protect the music and movie industries, please consider signing this petition.

Or, pass on the url. Let's make a stir!

_________________
Rowena Cherry

Vote for Mr. Romance 2008!!!

2008-04-12T12:03:00.001-04:00

Let your vote be heard! No, not for John, Hillary or Barack - I'm talking about a hot race that has nothing to do with economics or foreign policy - Mr. Romance 2008!

The cover model competition will be sponsored by Dorchester Publishing at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention on Saturday April 19 in Pittsburgh, PA. The Dorchester judges are looking for your votes - even if you're not going to be anywhere near the convention.

Check out the eight Mr. Romance 2008 competitors and cast your vote NOW!

All the best!

Joy

http://www.joynash.com/

Which Immortal is Your Soul Mate? - Take the Quiz!

2008-03-31T10:27:00.002-04:00

Who's your perfect hero - Adrian? Mac? Kalen? Darius? Tain? Hunter? Nick?

Find out which Immortal Warrior is your soul mate :-)

Take the Immortals Quiz now!

All the best!

Joy
www.joynash.com

Author's Site of Excellence Award

2008-03-28T07:48:00.002-04:00

What a thrill! Last night, Thursday, I received a notification that Preditors and Editors had awarded my site the Author's Site Of Excellence Award.

Needless to say, I am thrilled, and would like to thank anyone who had anything to do with it!

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

April Fools Day... talking about boots

2008-03-25T17:25:00.001-04:00

[link=http://internetvoicesradio.com] internetvoicesradio.com[/link]

April Fools Day... talking about boots

2008-03-25T17:25:00.000-04:00

[link=http://internetvoicesradio.com] internetvoicesradio.com[/link]

Every good story starts with a good backstory...

2008-03-17T13:12:00.000-04:00

It's true - there's so much of every book that never makes it onto the final page. A lot of this is character history and background - everything that makes a character who he or she is. Authors have to know their characters intimately before they can introduce them to anyone else.

And when you're writing a paranormal or fantasy book - there's what sci-fi and fantasy authors call worldbuilding. A story's unique mythology. Sometimes this intersects with real history, and mythology from the real world.

This is what's happened with my Druids of Avalon series, including DEEP MAGIC, which won The Romance Studio's Psyche Award last month. Preceding Deep Magic in the series is THE GRAIL KING, which won a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice award for Best Historical Fantasy.

These books sprang out of my own musings about the history and mythology surrounding the Holy Grail and Excalibur. But I wasn't entirely satisfied with existing stories and legends. So I had to create my own...

Who are the Druids of Avalon?

In my story world, they're a clan of Celtic shamans who were forced to abandon their sacred isle when the Roman conquerors outlawed the practice of Druidry in Britain. Two generations later, a handful of those who survived the purge, along with their children and grandchildren, secretly return to Avalon and begin the painstaking task of reclaiming their lost power. During the years of exile, the identity of the Celts have become inextricably entwined with those of the Romans living in Britain, and the union of these two fascinating and diverse cultures has given rise to a new people. They call themselves not "Celt" or "Roman," but British.

It is no longer so easy to determine friend or enemy simply by knowing his heritage. And in centuries to come, it's the best of each culture that will unite to create a Future King.

And so the story begins...

I. Druids of Avalon: The Lady

On a storm-swept night, in the year counted later as AD 33, a tiny boat navigates the treacherous coast of southwestern Britain. The craft is owned by Joseph, a merchant from the town of Arimathea in Judea, a man with trading contacts in the tin-rich British countryside. But the boat is not journeying for trade; its cargo is something much more precious. The lone passenger, a young woman, is fleeing turmoil in Judea following reports that a great prophet, an executed criminal who had once been a simple carpenter, has risen from the dead.

As the boat rounds the southwestern tip of Britain, the storm intensifies. The captain orders his crew to sail up the Sabrina Channel, hoping to find a safe haven in which to put ashore. As the channel narrows, the craft navigates the treacherous shore bordering the Mendip Hills. The woman rests her hand on her belly and prays the vessel will land safely.

It is not to be. Winds drive the boat onto the rocks; the craft splits apart. As the water rises, the woman grasps a piece of the ship's bow. Miraculously, she's swept past the rocky coast and into the inland tidal swamps.

The next morning, as the winds calm, a Celtic holy man, troubled by his dreams during the stormy night, poles his raft along the edges of the swamp. He discovers the young woman, lying cold and all but dead. Gathering her onto his raft, he brings her to his village on the Druid isle of Avalon.

The woman survives. She does not offer her name, saying only that she's traveled from Judea. Her message to the people of Britain is that of the Carpenter Prophet: Walk in Light. She carries a token from the prophet, tied in a sack about her neck. It's a simple wooden cup the holy man used during his last meal.

It's clear to the Druids that the woman is touched by the Light; it's equally clear that she's heavy with child. Calling her simply "The Lady," they care for her. The Druids recognize her cup - the cup of the Carpenter Prophet - as a powerful relic. The vessel is imbued not only with the magic of the Light, but also more powerful, more dangerous magic. It is not the power of Light, nor of Dark, but something older and greater than either. The Druids call this power Deep Magic: the power of the gods.

The Lady's time soon comes, and she is delivered of twin daughters. The next dawn, she disappears, leaving the infants behind. One Druid initiate reports seeing The Lady walking upon the swamp before the rising sun. But though the Druids search and search, no body is ever found.

But the story doesn't end there...visit my website - www.joynash.com for parts 2 & 3 of Druids of Avalon: The Legend!

All the best,

Joy Nash

www.joynash.com
DEEP MAGIC: Druids of Avalon #2 Jan 08 Gwendolyn risks forbidden magic and forbidden love in her quest to forge a magical sword in Avalon's defense.

Publisher's Weekly Blog Party – Friday March 14th!

2008-03-13T15:47:00.000-04:00

Big event on Friday, March 14th!
Stop by Barbara Vey's Publisher's Weekly Beyond Her Book Blog to celebrate one year of Barbara's blogging for romance fiction.

A bajillion or so of your favorite authors will be there, too. And you may even win a prize. 

Joy Nash
www.joynash.com
DEEP MAGIC: Druids of Avalon #2 Jan 08 Gwendolyn risks forbidden magic and forbidden love in her quest to forge a magical sword in Avalon's defense.

LOVE UNLEASHED Excerpt

2008-03-06T19:39:00.002-05:00

In February, Ellora's Cave (www.ellorascave.com) published my erotic paranormal romance LOVE UNLEASHED, in which a modern wizard gets changed into a St. Bernard by a vengeful witch. He finds his way to the heroine, a veterinarian's assistant he'd known slightly in his human life. She takes in the "stray dog," and the fun begins. Here's the opening scene of the novel:

A chill slithered down Stefan’s spine in spite of the sun that shone through the high, narrow windows. The minute Diana invited me here in the middle of the week, I should have run the other way. Candles in sconces on the walls shed their glow over the labyrinth painted onto the polished floor of the below-ground chamber. Noticing the rope of twisted crimson cords she held, he had a feeling he also should have insisted on finishing the conversation upstairs in the living room. Although dressed in cargo shorts and a casual blouse instead of her ceremonial robes, the tall blonde looked imposing enough to intimidate a novice. Which he wasn’t, of course.

Still, he knew he’d been wise to keep Diana at a coolly friendly distance, treating her as a colleague, not a potential lover. And not because she had a few years on him. With her firm, high breasts and ice-queen beauty, she looked so youthful for her mid-forties that he suspected her of enhancing her charms with magic.

He faced her with his arms folded, striking a deliberately arrogant posture. “What happened to ‘Do what thou wilt’?”

“What happened to the ethics of not violating the will of another? I trusted you, Stefan.” She untied one of the nine knots in the rope. A whisper of power ghosted across the bare skin of his forearms.

So that’s what this is all about. He stifled a sigh. “I didn’t do anything against Tanith’s true will.”

“My daughter is too young to know her true will, especially when she’s dealing with an adept like you.”

“Thanks for the compliment. She isn’t a kid, though. She’s over twenty-one. I think she can make her own choices.” He mentally kicked himself for getting involved with the daughter of his coven’s priestess, even briefly. Not that he made a habit of more than brief relationships with any woman. He hadn’t kept his past liaisons a secret from Tanith, so what did either she or her mother have to complain about?

“What you did to her—how do I know choice had anything to do with it?” Diana’s hands shook as she untied the second knot. The late afternoon sunlight momentarily dimmed as if obscured by a thundercloud.

Stefan brushed aside the uneasiness that stirred in him. Indignation replaced his mild annoyance. “I have never used magic to lure a woman into bed. Never.” He tamped down the anger and shrugged. “A little aura of attractiveness to get things going, at most. I didn’t need that with Tanith.”

If human eyes could flash, Diana’s would be shooting sparks. “You’re the priest of her coven. She looked up to you. Of course you had no trouble seducing her.” She moved on to the third knot. Shadows deepened in the corners of the room.

Illusion. She’s trying to spook me. “Seducing? You sound like a Victorian novel. She needed comfort and I happened to be around. It was mutual.” He sighed aloud this time, spreading his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “What are you so worked up about anyway? It’s not like she was a virgin.”

The girl had at least one prior relationship that Stefan knew of. In fact, she’d been going with another man in their circle, one closer to her own age. After she’d had a fight with him, she had accepted Stefan’s shoulder to cry on. When comfort had heated to passion, he hadn’t hesitated. He and Tanith had enjoyed two months together. At least, he’d enjoyed it, he reflected with a reminiscent smile. He hadn’t noticed any indication that she’d felt otherwise.

Diana’s face momentarily contorted with rage. Unclenching her teeth, she smoothed over her expression, though her fingers kept untwisting the cords. “Yes, and thanks to you, Rob won’t have anything to do with her. He was good for her and they would have gotten back together if you hadn’t interfered.”

“Damn it, I’m not responsible for Tanith’s love life. We had a casual thing. That’s perfectly legitimate in the philosophy this coven follows or have you switched the rules and I missed the memo?”

“It’s legitimate between equals. Tanith is twenty-four. You’re thirty-five and far more experienced. She thought you meant something by it. I could have told her different but of course she wouldn’t listen to her mother. Even when her mother is also her priestess.” By now Diana had worked her way up to the sixth knot.

“I never made any kind of commitment. I didn’t lead her astray with false vows like a helpless maiden in a melodrama. Crawling Chaos, next you’ll try to force me to marry her.” He glanced up at the patch of daylight visible through the nearest window. The longer this conversation went on, the more trapped he felt. He hoped Diana would finish her tirade soon so he could escape.

“That’s the last thing I’d want to foist on her. But I’m not about to let you get away with this.” She finished unbinding the seventh knot. Her magic blew past him like a gust of wind.

He ignored it and smirked at her. “Breach of promise lawsuits are out of style too.”

The darkening of Diana’s aura warned him that mocking her was a mistake. “My daughter’s been crying her eyes out over you for the past week. Granted, I think she’s acting like an idiot. You aren’t worth it. You don’t know how to care about anybody. I believe the only creature you’ve loved in the past twenty years was that scruffy cat of yours that died a few months ago.”

He winced inwardly but kept his face carefully neutral. Damned if he’d let Diana guess she’d succeeded in wounding him. One reason he’d stopped hanging out with Tanith was the well-meaning way she kept nagging him to find another cat. She insisted he needed a new pet in order to “get over” Caesar’s death. “Animals don’t lie to you. They don’t make unreasonable demands. They seldom let you down and they’re much more relaxing company than people.”

“Just the kind of thing I’d expect you to say.” The chill in her voice seared him like dry ice. “I’ve watched you jump from one woman to the next like a dog chasing bitches in heat. For a powerful magus, you have a worse case of arrested development than any other man I’ve ever met. But it wasn’t any of my business until now.” The eighth knot came loose.

“I don’t see how it’s your business now, either. It’s between me and your daughter. Why don’t you bring her down here and let her speak for herself?”

“I wouldn’t force her to set foot in the same room with you. You’ve done enough to her already.” Power shimmered around her and an aroma like wood smoke scorched the air. “Did you know she’s pregnant?”

“What? Wait a minute! Surely you don’t think it’s mine?” Impossible, he’d been much too careful.

Diana snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. I know it’s Rob’s. But it’s his belief that matters. His doubts make things that much worse between him and Tanith.”

Stefan fingered the silver amulet, engraved with a pentacle, that he’d worn since his old mentor had presented it to him upon his initiation. It served as a reservoir for his magic and he felt the need for its occult energy now. “Look, Diana, I’m sorry she misunderstood my intentions. She’ll get over it. Just one of those things everybody goes through sooner or later.” He meant that statement sincerely enough. He’d never wanted to make Tanith miserable. He liked her. He just couldn’t fathom why Diana had to turn the situation into such a big deal. Women!

“So you don’t intend to apologize?”

“For what? Like I said—she’s a big girl. What are you planning to do about it? Put a curse on me?” His smile faded as the mist of power around her coalesced into a thundercloud. Loki and Hermes help me! That’s exactly what she’s going to do!

“You’re going to pay. You will become what you are. You will stay in that form until you learn to care, until you become truly human. So mote it be.” She released the ninth knot then tied the ends of the rope together into a circle. Arcane syllables poured from her mouth.

Powers of Chaos, she had a spell stored in it! Cramps seized his arms and legs. His stomach clenched in agony. His whole body doubled over in painful contortions, while an itch like a thousand fire ants swarmed over his skin. He collapsed onto hands and knees in the middle of the circle. Blinded by a dark cloud that churned before his eyes, he struggled for breath against a weight that crushed his chest. In the midst of the torment, he was dimly aware of his clothes ripping and falling off. Gods, I had no idea she was this powerful! Naked, he clutched the silver disk hanging around his neck. Focusing on it, he groped for the dissipating threads of his own power. Through the confusion howling inside his skull, he realized his only hope was to shape the spell Diana was casting on him.

As the magic ensnared him, he grasped and twisted it. He sensed he had little time left before she completed the curse. What is she trying to do? The next moment, he knew. He felt his nails turn to claws, his teeth and ears lengthen, fur sprout on his skin and something rip from the base of his spine in a final burst of pain. He was becoming a beast, a literal one. Become what you are, she’d commanded. He diverted as much of her power as he could through the channels of his own will. Let me keep my humanity—some of it at least. Don’t let me lose myself. And don’t let her hold me captive. Shield me from her magic. Guide me to a place of refuge. Darkness thickened around him.

When his vision cleared a second later, colors had faded to grays and pastels. Odors, on the other hand, had sharpened to stinging intensity. With no effort he recognized the bayberry fragrance of the candles, the dust under the altar, Diana’s Chanel perfume, the musky aroma of her flesh and the charred scent of her anger. He glanced down and saw his arms transmuted to legs covered with white hair. He opened his jaws to scream and the sound came out as a howl.

Panic flooded him. Diana’s invisible web entangled his limbs. With a surge of terror, he shredded the strands of power and dashed out through the adjoining room to the stairs. Her shriek of rage pursued him. He felt a bolt of magic strike him and dissolve on contact. Good, the shielding worked, he thought in the small corner of his brain that remained rational.

Mindlessly barking, he charged up the steps to the kitchen, redolent of a spicy bean soup simmering on the stove. The tiny human compartment of his mind noted an open window with an exposed screen. Diana’s footsteps clattered up the basement stairs after him, while Tanith’s scurried down from the second floor. As she ran into the kitchen, Stefan heard her yell, “Mother, what have you done now?” He ignored her, pouring all his strength into a leap onto the edge of the sink. His momentum propelled him into the window and knocked the screen out.

He hit the ground with his front legs, rolled onto his side and sprang to his feet. The noise of his own barking made his ears hurt but he couldn’t stop. Fear and the urgency of escape consumed him. Although no longer able to form coherent thoughts, he sensed how important it was to evade the woman who chased him, bristling with magic. He rushed toward the back fence—solid redwood, four feet high. He jumped, snagged his front paws on the top and braced his rear paws on the crossbar halfway up. He scrambled over, dropped onto the ground on the other side and stretched his legs to their top speed.

The shore cut off his escape behind the fence. He circled around the side yard of Diana’s waterfront lot and ran parallel to the street. He needed a refuge, somewhere to hide or someone to shelter him. That place or person called to him, though he had no idea what or who it might be. It drew him like an irresistible scent. The afternoon heat smothered him like the inside of an oven but he didn’t dare slow down. Panting, his lungs aching and his heart pounding, he raced toward that call.

Insufficient Mating Material is CAPA winner for Fantasy

2008-02-15T17:34:00.001-05:00

Immortal Valentine

2008-02-14T14:29:00.002-05:00

My husband gave me a fantastic holographic Captain Jack Sparrow Valentine's card this morning. So cool! Now I love my husband, and I love Johnny Depp (in different ways, obviously), but I couldn't help but notice the price of the card (wives are like that). $4.99 - the same price as my first Druids of Avalon book, The Grail King! For a card! With only two pages! TGK had 324 pages. Anyone want to do the math???

My other books, and most other romance novels, are just one or two dollars more than that Valentine's card. Most mass market paperbacks don't even cost as much as two greeting cards.

Which only goes to show what a great deal paperbacks are! Everyone, rush out and buy a great book at a great price today! You'll get hours of entertainment, and make some author somewhere very, very happy.

And now my Immortal Valentine to you - the initial mockup of the cover art for the next round of Immortals books, pre-lettering. Four connected covers similar to last year's books, but in a new color scheme. (And I'm offering an exclusive sneak peak excerpt, keep reading for details).

My October 08 book, Immortals: The Crossing, is in the upper right, with the Immortal Sidhe demigod Mac on the cover. Mac is so hot! The artist got him just right.

Jennifer Ashley's September 08 lead off book, Immortals: The Redeeming, is in the upper left. Jennifer's hero is Tain, the fallen Immortal brother who caused such trouble in the first round of Immortals books. He's a good guy now :-)

Robin T. Popp's November 08 book, Immortals: The Haunting, is in the lower left, and the February 09 Anthology, Immortals: The Reckoning, featuring novellas from all three of us, is in the lower right.

Can't wait for more Immortals adventure? Email me at joy@joynash.com and I'll send you a free sneak peek excerpt of Mac's book!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Joy
www.joynash.com

DEEP MAGIC: Druids of Avalon #2 Jan 08
Gwendolyn risks forbidden magic and forbidden love in her quest to forge a magical sword in Avalon's defense.

Excerpt - Deep Magic by Joy Nash

2008-01-21T09:24:00.001-05:00

A belated Happy New Year to all!

Joy :-)

"...a beautifully depicted love story...5 Hearts." ~Laurel Letherby, TheMysticCastle.com

From Chapter Eight

The smithy door was open. Intent on his drawing, Marcus was not aware of Gwen's presence until she stood almost at his elbow. He jerked, his head whipping around. The back of his hand smacked the ink jar, knocking it over.

"Hades!" He righted the jar, but not before the ink spattered across the table.

"Oh! I'm sorry."

"No matter," Marcus mumbled, grabbing a rag he kept nearby just for this purpose. He sopped up the mess, scrubbing across his work table as Gwen snatched several drawings out of the spreading path of ink. "You can tell from the stains on the table I've spilled ink before."

He was a bumbling fool. And he'd proven it by nearly assaulting Gwen in the forest the day before, insulting her with the insinuation that she was needy enough to fall into his bed. Even if she were inclined to take a lover before sacrificing her life to her grandfather's choice of mate, what possessed him to think she would choose him? She hadn't even appeared at dinner afterward, pleading a headache. It had been plain enough to discern what that meant. He'd disgusted her with his crudity. He'd retreated to his smithy and spent half the night trying not to think about it.

But he'd known sooner or later he would have to face her. She needed him to forge her sword.

"Did ye not hear me enter?" she asked, laying his drawings on a clean spot on the table.

He straightened and looked at her. Her front teeth worried her lower lip, and her eyes avoided his gaze. Her cheeks were pink. She was nervous, he realized. Perhaps even as nervous as he.

His mood abruptly improved. "I get very absorbed in my work. Breena knows to bang loudly on the door."

"I'll remember that trick in the future."

Marcus felt her eyes on him as he crossed the room to dispose of the soiled rag in the barrel by the door. He was a disheveled mess, he knew. He'd slept in his clothes, and he had ink stains on his sleeves. He'd meant to bathe at dawn...

He glanced out the door. "Why it must be near noon," he said with some surprise.

"Past midday." Reluctant amusement threaded her voice. "Do not tell me ye were up all night again."

"No, I dropped like a stone right after dinner. I woke just after midnight, with a dream of a sword vivid in my mind. I started drawing..." he spread his hands. "It's often like this for me. I don't keep regular hours. Sometimes I get days and night completely switched around, arriving at dinner as if it were the morning meal. Other times I forget to eat at all." For the first time, he noticed the basket on her arm. His stomach rumbled in sudden hope. "Is that food?"

She laughed. The sound went right to his groin. He took the basket and half-turned to the table, not wanting her to notice.

"When ye did not appear to break your fast, nor to eat the midday meal, Rhiannon asked me to bring ye a bite," she said. "Meat and bread, and some cheese and apples."

Marcus had already uncovered the food and downed his first mouthful. "Thank you. I'm half-starved." He finished off a hunk of cheese and rooted around for an apple. He eyed her. "You look a little tired. Did you spend the night with Breena? Did she have another one of her dreams?"

"I stayed with Breena, but she had no dreams."

"Because of a spell you taught her?"

"Nay. She had no cause to try it. No vision came. She slept peacefully 'till morn."

"But you didn't?"

She blushed and looked away. "'Tis nothing new. I told ye, I often have difficulty sleeping."

He set his half-eaten apple aside.

"I could help with that," he said softly.

"Tall, Dark, and Deadly" Excerpt

2007-12-13T14:53:00.000-05:00

My novella "Tall, Dark, and Deadly," an erotic vampire romance from Ellora's Cave, is scheduled to be reprinted in one of that publisher's anthologies in partnership with Pocket Books (release date June 2008). So I'm posting an excerpt from the scene where Claude, an actor who plays vampire and other horror roles, explains the truth about vampirism to the heroine, Eloise, a novelist and script writer. She has just tried to attack him with a cross in his sleep to test whether he's really a vampire.

Excerpt from "Tall, Dark, and Deadly":

Eloise retreated into the adjacent sitting room. After opening the curtains halfway to let in some light, she saw a matching couch and chair, a bookcase, a miniature refrigerator and a wet bar with a compact-model microwave oven on its counter. She sat on the couch and waited, glad for the few minutes of solitude to tame the hive of bees in her skull and the spiders skittering in her stomach.

Soon Claude emerged from the bedroom, barefoot, in a pair of blue satin jogging shorts and a T-shirt. He went to the bar, filled a glass with ice and got out bottles of gin and tonic. “Care for a drink?”

“No, thanks, I want my head clear. If that’s possible around you.” She glared at him.

“Well, I need one.” When she flinched, he added with a wry smile, “Not that kind. Not right this minute anyway.” After he’d mixed his gin and tonic, he took a seat at the other end of the couch from her, out of the direct sunlight from the window. “Tell me exactly what happened when you met Philip.”

She summarized the encounter. “He said you’re a vampire, a demon in human shape, as he put it. I’m not sure how it happened, but the next thing I knew, I was in here testing the theory.”

“Of course,” Claude sighed. “I should have known. He caught you off guard, so he hypnotized you. I should have known you wouldn’t do anything like that on a mere suggestion. Regardless of what you saw just now, I’m not a demon.”

“You changed—” Her breath caught in her throat, cutting off the words.

“I apologize for that. A defense mechanism. You startled me out of a sound sleep, after all.”

“What about the cross?”

“A psychosomatic reaction. I’m not a creature of the devil, and I’m not undead either. Though if you’d looked for a pulse a few minutes ago, you’d have had trouble finding one. Suspended animation looks a lot like death.”

She folded her arms in resistance to his reasonable tone. “I don’t hear you denying you’re a vampire.”

“I don’t deny it.” He took a swallow of his drink. “But I’m not supernatural. We’re another species, long-lived, with a specialized diet.”

“Liquid protein.”

He nodded.

Her numbed brain woke up and processed clues from the past few days. “Oh, God, you drank my blood! How many times?”

He gazed into his glass as if embarrassed.

“Come on, level with me. At the con?”

“Yes, and the night before last, after we arrived here.”

A flush spread over her body. “Then all those feelings I thought were dreams came from you? And that’s why I can’t remember much about Saturday night?”

“Granted.” He drained his glass and got up to mix another drink, heavy on the gin.

Her throat tightened with indignation. “You—I don’t believe this! You made up all that rigmarole about producing my script just to feed on me.”

“What?” He whirled around to face her, glass in hand. “Bloody hell, do you seriously think I’d go to all that trouble just for a little refreshment? I can get that from the vampire groupies.”

Her pulse hammered in her temples. “Well, isn’t that what I am to you?”

“Eloise, no!” He hurried to the couch and sat near her. She edged as far away as the space allowed. “I feasted on your mind, your passions, not only your blood. That’s why I didn’t want to take any risk of letting Philip see us together. He would realize instantly that I care for you. And I meant it when I said I’d like to have you stay here.”

“How can I tell what you mean? You turned me into a puppet, like one of those blow-up sex dolls, and wiped my memory on top of it. Anyway, you’re an actor. You could turn on the charm at will even if you weren’t a vampire.”

“Please, ma belle, let me prove that isn’t true.” He caressed her shoulder and gazed into her eyes. In this light, his no longer glowed red, but they still held an inhuman sheen of silver that she could hardly believe she’d missed before.

She jerked away from his touch. “Don’t look at me.”

“I’ve vowed not to mesmerize you again.”

“I don’t trust your vows. Not yet.”

He stalked to the bar and leaned against it, half-turned away from her. “Very well, I’m not looking at you. Now will you listen?”

“I’m listening. What do you mean, you vowed not to do it again?”

“I want you as a friend, an equal.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Something we don’t say to ephemerals very often. Many of my people would think I’m going soft even to consider it.”

“Ephemerals? That’s what you call us? Here today, gone tomorrow. No wonder you think you can treat us like puppets.”

“I don’t.” He gritted his teeth with a muted growl. “Some ephemerals. Not you.”

“Well, at least you admit it.” A new thought chilled her. “How many people have you killed?”

“Oh, for hell’s sake!” He slammed the glass on the bar. “I don’t kill for food. I take no more than they can spare, and I reward them with pleasure. Pleasure that I thoroughly enjoy sharing. I’ve killed in self-defense now and then. Not often. I told you, I prefer the quiet life.”

“That Philip guy said you killed his beloved, or caused her death anyway. Is that how he knows you’re a vampire?”

“What do you think he is?”

“He’s one too?” Speechless for a minute, Eloise sorted out this new bit of data. “Wait a second, he walked around in broad daylight.”

“You’ve read enough books like *Dracula* and *Varney*, not to mention reams of folklore, that you shouldn’t believe that tripe about vampires bursting into flame in the sun.”

“Yeah, but he was out on the beach with no shade at all.”

“Goes to show how much he’s willing to suffer for the satisfaction of harassing me,” said Claude. “How was he dressed?”

“White suit, gloves, hat, sunglasses.”

“You see? Probably sunscreen as well. I could walk on the beach in that costume too but I wouldn’t enjoy it much.”

“What about the cross? It didn’t seem to bother him.”

Claude fidgeted with his glass as if self-conscious about the topic. “I suffer from a phobia for religious objects. He doesn’t. He was fortunate enough to grow up in the enlightened atmosphere of Victorian England. I was born in a French village in 1738, when rural folk still seriously believed demons might walk among them. It was also the height of the vampire-hunting craze in Greece and Eastern Europe, as you know. I became infected with the superstitions of the culture around me.”

“Really? Does that happen a lot?”

“It can. We’re highly adaptable, especially in childhood. We have to be to fit invisibly into your world. We tend to pick up human attitudes unless our mentors are very careful.” He sat down, more relaxed now but still making a point of not looking directly at her. “It still happens to some young vampires today if they’re allowed to watch horror movies.”

She had to laugh at the image of stern vampire elders censoring their children’s viewing habits. “Tell me about Philip. Who was the woman, and why does he blame you for her death?”

Claude sighed. “He’s not far wrong, but I never intended her any harm. I suppose I’d better tell you the whole story.”

“Yes, please do.” She folded her arms and frowned at him, determined to shield herself against his charm until he offered her some basis for trust.

-end of excerpt-

A matter of survival?

2007-07-28T07:32:00.000-04:00

Males do some pretty disgusting and unromantic things from time to time. No doubt females do, too.... such as eating the head of the male while, or just before, he impregnates her.

Infant cockroaches, and infant koalas eat their mother's waste. And one type of infant spiders eat their mothers.

When it is a matter of survival, one does what is necessary, no matter how gross.

That was gross!
Moreover, it's not something that inspires me to write a scene for a romance. I just cannot imagine any heroine wanting to kiss him for any reason under the sun any time soon after that.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the nearest object of great attraction to flies, in order to have heard the camera crew's remarks during filming. Unlike SURVIVORMAN, who was filming his own, original series, in Africa during February/March --and who carries 50lbs of his own, self-operated filming equipment--, "Bear" Grylls has a cameraman with him.

Judging by the quality of the video, I'd guess that the cameraman was shaking with laughter.

Males are better equipped to carry out this survival trick. There is a long tradition of unspeakable things that thirsty men will drink. Warm beer. "The stale of horses" to quote from one of Shakespeare's plays with Roman heroes. "Goat's" in a recent film about a Beerfest (involving competitive drinking).

I wonder what kind of toast would be appropriate?
Here's looking at you?
Bottoms up?
Your very good health!

All the best,
Rowena Cherrry

Alternative-Read.com: REVIEW: Insufficient Mating Material ~ Rowena Cherry ~ Dorchester Publishing

2007-07-21T08:37:00.000-04:00

Alternative-Read.com: REVIEW: Insufficient Mating Material ~ Rowena Cherry ~ Dorchester Publishing

Rowena Cherrry

Men in trees

2007-07-01T15:19:00.000-04:00

I try to look everywhere for romantic inspiratio, but some things are simply not conducive to writing "heated science fiction romance."

Take men in trees.

Now, in Insufficient Mating Material, I do place my hunky hero up a tree when the heroine, thinking herself alone, says something that prompts the hero to ask the "How about it?" question.

I've got six or seven "important" ash trees in my back yard. They are not equally important. The one that grows through the deck is much more important that the others, though their canopies all dropshadow my roofline.

We've got the alien Emerald Ash Borer in Michigan, and it is a continual and expensive struggle to treat the trees. I am doing a good job of making the wood taste unpleasant, but not all my neighbors are.

Last Thursday, reluctantly, I tore myself away from the romantic and riveting pleasure of writing about the first heroic lip lock between my hero and heroine in order to keep an eye on three tree surgeons who were giving my trees a first class pruning.

I can't say that it was a romantically profitable morning. One chap could have modeled for Pieter Brueghel. Another for Jabba the Hutt. Oh dear, that is cruel. I suppose he would not have made such an unfortunate impression if he hadn't been wearing only low-slung trousers and a short T-shirt which he used as a face towel when the ambient heat became too much, and sent his pores into overproduction.

It took from 8am to 12.15 pm including chipping, road sweeping, and so forth.

After that, the man who cleans my deck came.

I did not have to worry about him falling out of a tree and the insurance ramifications of that (you thought I watched those guys out of lust?) but men with power sprayers just cannot help squirting things they are not supposed to squirt.

This guy's method of preparing the soil for planting pacysandra was to squirt it. He squirted a hornets' nest, too!

World-building in the vegetable kingdom

2007-06-10T09:41:00.000-04:00

Hybrids aren't just cars that run on more than one fuel source.

There are hybrid animals, and hybrid plants which occur either naturally or with the assistance of mankind, also hybrids in Greek and Roman mythology. Some hybrids are sterile, and some are not. Some hybrids are called after a combination of the father's name and the mother's (father's name first).

The mythological creatures do not appear to follow this convention... and in fact, now I understand the convention, my mind boggles over the Manticore (man-lion-scorpion).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid
wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid

The etymology is delightful. According to wikipedia, hybrid comes from the ancient Greek for "son of outrageous conduct."

This week, I'm more interested in plant hybrids. For world-building in a hurry --not that I recommend taking a short cut, but sometimes one has to-- a few hours in the grocery aisles can be quite inspiring.

There are some astonishing hybrids available, as well as exotic fruits and vegetables that might or might not have been hybridized. I look at the Ugly Fruit, and I wonder whether it evolved to be visually appealing to anything (assuming that its fruit is "designed" to be dispersed with the assistance of creatures that eat the fleshy parts and eject the pits).

There's something spiny and orange that looks like a cross between a sea urchin and a sea slug, and I'm fascinated by those waxy green globes that come inside a pale green papery looking flower. If you were to change their colors, rename them, and describe them carefully as if you'd never seen them before, you'd hardly need to dream up your own fruits and vegetables for your alien romance's world. And, then there are the roots. You have to be careful what you do with your root vegetables, in my opinion.

How did we ever start to eat root veg? Did we observe a primate and copy them? Did our earliest ancestors' curious gaze fall upon something intriguingly orange, or pleasantly white, pushing up through loose soil? I suppose we do have an instinct (as children) to pull things out of the ground and bite them as an experiment. I'm told that I ate a worm once when I was a toddler! Would your aliens have similar instincts?

Your human heroine has to eat in outer space, so not all her food can be unrecognizable (or she'd have to have major allergy testing) or her gut would not be adapted to handle it. We're accustomed to stories about our domestic pets eating human delicacies which are not natural for them... which their guts are not adapted to handle. I've been thinking about what natural carnivores can and cannot eat, because I want my tigers to play a larger role in my next story.

In fact, having spent several hours reading the ingredients on dry pet food for research purposes, I do have to wonder under what circumstances a dog in the wild would eat corn on the cob. Or rice!

There are some schools of alternative healing thought that claim some of our painful ailments (such as arthritis) are a consequence of us eating fruits or vegetables that we are not adapted for, or to which some of us are allergic. My mother cured very painful arthritic swelling in her hands by giving up all produce in the tomato families. Other people have a problem with potatoes. (Some have a problem but don't know it.)

In Insufficient Mating Material, the hero and heroine are marooned on an island on an alien world, and they have to test food and deal with the possibility that the heroine might not have a tolerance for some of the fruits and vegetables growing there.

Why do I think roots are a problem? Carrots are easy, and you can eat them raw if you want to. Parsnips look like big carrots only white... but you really do have to cook them. Watch out for onions and shallots, because they look like tulip bulbs. There are different roots that look alike. Take ginger root and Jerusalem artichoke. They are both about the shape and size of a small, pudgy hand, with gnarly, stub-tipped fingers, root filaments like fleshy hairs, and are beige-gray.

On our world, some plants do not want to be eaten, especially by the roots (!) so they evolve to be poisonous. What happens in your alien world?

For those interested in research, or obsessed with plausible alien anatomy --and possibly inspired by the fact that a carrot fresh from the ground does not necessarily look "carrot shaped"-- M.I.T. (an eminently respectable place of scholarship) sells --or used to sell-- a to-scale, and anatomically correct poster called "Penises of the Animal Kingdom".

I thought the plural was Penes, but I suppose a few people wouldn't get the point.

And having Googled that, because none of the three of my dictionaries within easy reach gives any guidance on what a proper person should call multiple schlongs, I'm off to pursue other lines of romantic alien research.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherrry
Insufficient Mating Material
"racy, wildly entertaining futuristic romance" ~Writers Write

Insufficient Mating Material -- excerpt

2007-05-27T10:47:00.000-04:00

Insufficient Mating Material has just been launched in the UK as of May 25th 2007. I'm told that it can be found in Tesco, WHSmith, Waterstone's, and Blackwell

"Be good..." they say. "And if you can't be good, be careful!"

It must be almost impossible to be careful when all the worlds are watching all the time, and not always sympathetically.

Princesses and celebrities have everywoman's problems, but their problems are magnified a hundredfold by the telephoto lens of public scrutiny. Everyone wants to know who they are seeing, what they are drinking, what they did in bed and with whom, whether or not they are pregnant...

A single alien princess might precipitate a constitutional crisis if an unflattering camera caught her just as a breeze was bellying out her bathing costume... especially if it was common knowledge that she'd slept with a foreign terrorist for kicks.

Princess Martia-Djulia has all the problems of a youngest child (the third child) but more so. It seems pointless to compete with her brilliant older brother and sister. Until senility overtakes them, they will always be older, wiser, better-read, more experienced, more athletic, more powerful.

In a world of feudal primogeniture, the older she gets, the lower her status. She is only interesting if she is scandalous.

Insufficient Mating Material's heroine was introduced in FORCED MATE, where she got a great deal more than she bargained for when she flirted with a handsome --and most unsuitable-- commoner.

She also went through her brother's private "stuff" and got caught, did the gustatory equivalent of spiking the drinks at her brother's wedding banquet, made a compromising video of herself in bed with a tattooed stranger, and fell hopelessly in love with a hunk who was honor-bound to marry someone else.

She makes her dramatic appearance in Insufficient Mating Material as the Royal bride at an Imperial shotgun wedding. As she surveys the throngs who have come to see her married to the mate of her dreams (who has miraculously been relieved of the fiancee he intended to marry and brought back to her) her happiness seems complete...

CHAPTER ONE

Never in all Great Djinn history has any Imperial Princess had such a Mating Ceremony on such short notice, and to a mate freely chosen by the Princess!

Princess Martia-Djulia savored her unique happiness. The second best part was that she was going to get away with it. By taking an alien and a commoner like Commander Jason to mate, she poked a defiant finger in the eye of Imperial tradition.

“You’re glowing,” her tall, grimly magnificent brother commented as he joined her on the raised throne-stage and offered her the support of his bent arm for the slow, gyring descent of the stage into the Throne Room below the Imperial suite.

“I’ve a lot to glow about,” Martia-Djulia retorted. She could have made a barbed remark about how Tarrant-Arragon had tricked his own cold, pale bride into saying the irrevocable Imperial Mating Vows, but she didn’t.

After all, Tarrant-Arragon had hunted down Commander Jason, and brought him back to her.

Her thoughts returned to her Jason who shared her taste for subversion and mischief-making. He was the Mate who would change her sad, lonely life; her boring, bottled-up life. He was her rescuer, her lover, her private hero, the warrior who made her feel young and beautiful, and who awed the Fewmet out of her insolent, uncontrollable sons.

He was the only male in all the forty-two gestates of her life who had ever given her an orgasm.

Martia-Djulia took a deep, happy breath as the last notes of the Fanfare Royal drifted up from the balconies of the Throne Room, and the Crown Prince’s throne stage —its stark, craggy contours pleasingly draped for the occasion in her favorite colors of dusk-sky mauve and midnight-purple— descended silently, like one of her brother’s deliberately placed chess pieces, only fortress-sized.

“I can hardly believe it,” she whispered to herself as she nodded graciously to the crowd below. “I’m about to be Mated to the only male who has the physical strength to pick me up and sweep me off my feet, and the desire to do so.”

Tarrant-Arragon lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, when I think of Jason’s passion--” she said, "When I think of how violently he knocked the ceremonial headmask off an interfering Saurian Ambassador, and of the wicked, sexual insults he threw….”

“You liked that, didn’t you?” Tarrant-Arragon teased. “But, I hope you don’t expect your new Mate to pick you up, attack Saurian Ambassadors, and hurl sexual insults in front of our distinguished guests.”

Martia-Djulia took in the carefully orchestrated tableau where she stood on the stepped stage, waiting for Jason to make an entrance through one of the Throne Room’s soaring central portals.

What would he be thinking? Would he remember how they met at a Virgins’ Ball in this very Throne Room? Would he mentally undress her with his strange, dark-nebula eyes and notice that she looked better than he remembered?

Surely, even a fashion hawk like Jason would approve of her sense of style. For her second Mating, she could hardly usurp the pallor of a Royal Virgin bride. She had chosen the subtle, shifting colors of a fast-frozen sea, glittering with the palest, most precious gemstones aligned in all the right places for the most flattering effect.

“They all came back!” Martia-Djulia breathed, gazing out at the heads of state, ambassadors, military leaders, and subject royalty who had been hastily recalled, some before they had returned home after her brother’s nuptials.

“Of course,” Tarrant-Arragon murmured. “On occasions like this, no matter how lofty the ceiling, it is never high enough, is it?”

The pentagonal Throne Room shimmered with the warmth rising from the thronged guests. Massed body heat made the vast room a battleground of assorted perfumes and less intentional odors that only Djinn nostrils might identify.

Suddenly, Martia-Djulia was conscious of emerging mature notes from her own signature perfume.

“Tarrant-Arragon,” she whispered anxiously. “Did I overdo the Queen of the Night?”

“You seem to have put it absolutely everywhere,” he drawled, and grinned, confirming that his Djinn-sharp olfactory senses were as embarrassingly acute as those of a sea-predator.

“I’ll let Jason lick it off,” Martia-Djulia quipped brazening out her secret embarrassment.

“If he’s got any Djinn in him, he might find that joy a little overpowering,” Tarrant-Arragon said.

Martia-Djulia felt a vague, fleeting apprehension. Was it a certain enigmatic tone in her brother’s voice? Something wasn’t right. Tarrant-Arragon had once threatened to kill Commander Jason if her lover turned out to be of rogue Djinn lineage.

Why was Jason late?

Her anxious gaze searched the double avenues of ground-lighted, living trees which flanked the four grand entrances.

“Ah. The so delightful Henquist and Thor-quentin.” Tarrant-Arragon jerked his head to indicate the upper level balcony where her two tall sons leaned negligently on the elaborately carved stone balustrade. “They look pleased.”

Martia-Djulia smiled hopefully at her usually sullen, sulky sons, until she realized that Tarrant-Arragon was being ironic.

...

“Nervous?” Tarrant-Arragon asked mockingly.

Before she could retort, a loud fanfare made further conversation impossible. The pentagonal room vibrated with the thunder of massed war-drums. Colored plumes of scented smoke surged up and tumbled from the Imperial throne-space, reminiscent of an ultraviolet tinted, pyroclastic cloud. The Emperor’s throne-stage thrust up through the smoke like a coldly gleaming, ice-volcano rising out of a swirling fog.

Her father, The Emperor Djerrold Vulcan V, appeared to stroll on the pinkish-purple vapor trails, high above his guests. Martia-Djulia tried to imprint on her memory every detail of this splendid, dramatic illusion.

“Dear friends, welcome back,” the Emperor began with his customary, affable menace. “You are now here to witness the exchange of vows between my younger daughter and her new mate. Since The Princess Martia-Djulia is a widow, and a mother, and since this is her second marriage, there will —obviously— be no display of proofs of virginity.”
He pointed his Fire-Stone-Ringed forefinger around the room, his guests shrank in their seats, and he smiled tigrishly.

“There will come a point when my dear daughter will ask anyone who objects to her choice of mate to speak out. Anyone who dares to do so will be incinerated.”
Star-blue lightning sizzled and flashed from the Emperor’s finger. Regrettably, her father had flatly refused to even try to color-coordinate his laser ring’s fire for this one occasion.

“Out of consideration for your fellow guests’ nostrils,” Djerrold Vulcan V continued pleasantly, “I advise against any interference. Proceed!”

High above, another fanfare blared from long, deep-noted instruments. The massive central doors at the far end of the Imperial throne room opened.

“I kept my promise,” Tarrant-Arragon said quietly, “…to bring back Jason, if he agreed to come, or to find you a mate like your Commander Jason.”

She wasn’t paying attention, though it was an odd thing to say. Unseen, a massed male voice choir roared out the Mating Anthem... usually heard only once in a generation at the Mating of an Emperor or the Emperor's male heir.

This, too, was her due. She’d been promised that her Mating would be as splendid as the one she had organized for her big brother. And so it was. Only prettier.

“Here he comes!” Martia-Djulia whispered, trembling.

A tall, broad-shouldered silhouette limped from the darkness beyond the doorway.
His beloved, scarred face was a shadowed, distant blur… but something wasn’t right. Had Tarrant-Arragon tortured and starved Commander Jason into agreeing to Mate with her?

“What is wrong with him?” she hissed accusingly. Time stretched out. A sense of creeping horror chilled her vitals. “You promised not to force him.”

Her thoughts raced back to three Imperatrix cycles ago.

She vividly remembered what they’d agreed, just before Tarrant-Arragon left to exact terrible revenge on the unknown villains who’d tried to assassinate him on his honeymoon.

I want him to be happy, she’d protested when Tarrant-Arragon caught her trying to erase compromising footage of Jason on top of her. Jason’s happiness hadn’t been on her mind when she triggered the surveillance systems.

Do you think he’d be happy with me if I force him to be my mate? she’d asked her brother, who had no scruples when it came to mate appropriation.

No, Tarrant-Arragon had bluntly told her, dashing any lingering hope that she could blackmail Jason into returning to her bed permanently.

At the Virgins’ Ball, Commander Jason had made it clear that he’d rather be searching the rim worlds for his errant mate-to-be, but he was on duty. Since he had to be at the Ball, he’d been in the mood for a revenge dock in any bay that would accommodate him.

Martia-Djulia had only wanted illicit excitement — until Jason gave her so much, she wanted him to do it for the rest of her life.

“Did you force him? Did you torture him?” Martia-Djulia demanded urgently.

“Not really,” her appalling brother replied.

Something was wrong. Martia-Djulia's heart thumped. She clasped nervous hands to her glittering breast, and glared in an effort to get a better look at her promised Mate. At this distance, across the Throne Room, it was hard to tell…. Closer he came. Closer.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of Martia-Djulia.
Read her story in Insufficient Mating Material

Rowena Cherrry

2007-05-20T05:51:00.001-04:00

Hi Rowena,

Slack damn, that was a splendid read! (not to mention your inscription! :-)) This was my first of your stories, you know. The tension was fabulous, though I was nervous for a long time that there would be a rut-rage-based rape scene. There very well could've been, but I'm glad there wasn't (thanks to Djinni's sucker punch). That would have been beyond my personal comfort zone.

I love how you gradually worked Tarrant-Arragon into a more likeable person by the end (even if he's still not entirely trustworthy!) by way of Djinni's and Grievous' interactions with him. By the way, I'm curious about names. Is Tarrant-Arragon meant to conjure the mental parallel, Tyrant-Arrogant? It struck me that way, and I had to wonder. I think it's delightful Djinni calls him Tigger.

As much as I like the others, I think my favorite character might just be Grievous. He's so deliciously tongue-in-cheek-y! "How very shark-like of you, Sir." Too funny.

I suppose I'll need to read Insufficient Mating Material to find out if Djinni's father's and Tarrant-Arragon's mother's Saurian identities get revealed at last. Perhaps I'll find out there what happens to poor Bronty. She's in a bit of a pickle right now.

Anyway, thanks for a very enjoyable read, the first of many, I'm sure.

Sincerely,

David Gray

2007-04-17T08:17:00.001-04:00

Rowena Cherry

Google and you shall find. Archimedes, beware!

2007-04-04T18:43:00.000-04:00

Recently I've been mystified to receive emails from readers (other authors' readers, I think) containing phrases like,

"You write erotica..." or "As an author of erotica..."

To the best of my understanding of that genre I do not write erotica. Here's why.
My heroines do not make love to more than one hero per book, nor does the hero make love with anyone other than the heroine once they have met. Every book ends happily, which means that the hero and heroine decide to get married and live monogamously.

So, my correspondents' assumptions presented a challenge.

Today (because my horoscope is negatively aspected for more serious endeavours) I decided to Google (or google) "Rowena Cherry" and "erotica".

Eureka! But not in a good way.

My Search produced several obliging quotations, most containing ellipses (those three or four dots that are a heads-up that words have been omitted.) However, the casual searcher could definitely receive the wrong impression.

Since I was familiar with the review most quoted, I did a second search:

"Rowena Cherry" and "not erotica"

Eureka, again! The very same reviewers' quotes came up, but instead of the ellipses was the word NOT.

It would seem that Google obliges the searcher by giving them what they are looking for! No more. No less. How dangerous!

Nevertheless, Google is still my favorite stock pick, and my favorite Search Engine. I shall just have to remember to be scrupulous about clicking the links on even the most obvious-seeming quotes that appear to prove whatever I am seeking to prove, before I leap out of the proverbial bathtub, crying Eureka, and thinking that I've found proof of whatever I was searching for.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Drive-By Signing Insufficient Mating Material

2007-03-18T09:45:00.000-04:00

I'm back. Did you notice that I had been away?

If it is March, and rainy season in Northern Florida, the chances are that I shall be down there for a paddle in the Atlantic, for research purposes, of course, and for the Amelia Island concours d'elegance.

This time, I had a couple of ulterior motives... apart from research. I needed some photos of the sort of luxury location one might find on a scene depicting the sheltered, spa-like "Island School for Princesses".

I was so pleased with Ed Traxler's video for Insufficient Mating Material that I'm having a slide show made for Mating Net.

Unfortunately, the hotel on Amelia Island has remodeled the pool area. Gone are the rolling lawns, and the cool views through arches and columns. Instead, there are lots and lots of sun-loungers and cement paths between palm trees. It's not quite plausible for an underpopulated, supremely exclusive school for alien goddesses!

Other areas were cluttered up with gorgeous antique cars. Again, this is not what you'd expect to see in outer space, so as a photo op for a book trailer, the trip was a bust.

Since we were driving (that's why I've been away for nearly two weeks) I arranged to make strategic stops at major bookstores along my route (the I-75) to do "drive-by signings" of however many copies of INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL were in the stores I selected.

To my surprise, not every bookseller whom I contacted had heard of drive-by signings. Either that, or they were supreme diplomats and did a great job of making me feel original!

We set off from Detroit, not as early as I'd have liked, but on the other hand, the morning rush-hour traffic had cleared. By around 3pm we were in Lexington, Kentucky, which I'd chosen because I thought that --if we had a tiresome drive owing to weather or roadworks-- we might want to stop at the Super 8 near there.

There is only one Barnes and Noble in Lexington, so that is where I signed, while my husband and child stretched their legs and enjoyed the store's fine displays of magazines and games.

I'm a "hurry up and wait" type, so I was very surprised that my family enjoyed the car-park time while I did my authorial thing in bookstores. I assumed that my family would be hot or bored, or that they would resent the interruption in kids' videos or adult audio books.

(The best audio book of the trip was "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson).

The next day, around eleven a.m., I was in Knoxville, having got off to a record slow start which had not a little to do with a blocked toilet (not blocked by us) which meant that I had to repeatedly flush what you might expect, by bailing water (from the bath) using the room's fortunately-large-and-plastic trash bin.

There's only one Barnes and Noble in Knoxville, too, and I had a great time chatting with the CRM.

Around three pm, we almost overshot our turn-off. Actually, we did. As one of my favorite secondary heroines is called Tarragonia-Marietta, of course I had to sign in Marietta!

I had appointments at two stores, but we'd seen the Atlanta Northbound traffic back-ups, so decided to drop by a third store to while away the time, and keep us off the motorway for a while longer, but still going in the right direction.

Finding the Cobb Parkway store took a lot longer than we expected, partly because I hadn't "MapQuested it", however, we received a pleasant welcome, and three extra copies of Insufficient Mating Material were signed as dusk descended.

On the third day, we got into Jacksonville in the early afternoon and found the first store, on Atlantic, with relative ease although I'd misidentified an East-West street, and thought we were going North-South!

I didn't have an appointment for the Dalton store, because they are closed on Sundays, which is when I was doing my telephoning. However, that was in a mall, and not too hard to locate. We gave up trying to find the Mid-Town store, owing to my misreading of the map, and the fact that we wanted to paddle in the sea before sunset, now we were so close.

Armed with a better map, and expert directions, we found the store the next day, and I think the St. John's Town Center was the most impressive store, in the loveliest open air shopping mall that I've ever visited.

SIGNED COPIES CAN BE FOUND AT THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS:

KY

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Man-O-War
Hamburg Pavilion
1932 Pavilion Way
Lexington, KY 40509
859-543-8518

TN

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Suburban Plaza
8029 Kingston Pike
Knoxville, TN 37919
865-670-0773

GA

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Town Center Prado
50 Barrett Pkwy Suite 1100
Marietta, GA 30066
770-422-2261

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
The Avenue West Cobb
3625 Dallas Hwy SW
Marietta, GA 30064
770-424-0511

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
2952 Cobb Pkwy
Atlanta, GA 30339
770-953-0966

FL

B.Dalton Booksellers
Regency Square mall
9501 Arlington Expressway #250
Jacksonville, FL 32225
904-721-2446

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
9282 Atlantic Blvd
Jacksonville, FL 3225
904-721-2446

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
St Johns Town Center
10280 Midtown Parkway
Jacksonville, FL 32225
904-928-2027

(Also, Barnes & Noble Booksellers

The Streets of Westchester
9455 Civic Centre Blvd
West Chester, OH 45069
513-755-2258)

see the Insufficient Mating Material video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLuEtY7oP7A

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL takes up where FORCED MATE ended, with Djetthro-Jason (Jethro-Jason) severely beaten, about to undergo surgery to change his face and identity before his shotgun wedding to the frivolous Princess Martia-Djulia (Marsha-Julia).

No one gives a thought to what Martia-Djulia might do when she realizes that it’s not her unsuitable lover, Commander Jason, but a stranger being frog-marched up the aisle to become her Mate.

Her surprising reaction sets off a firestorm of rumor… and rattles a murderer who thought he’d gotten away with an ancient crime.

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL EXCERPT

A Tricky Experiment

“Maybe, sweetheart, we should have sex to prove to you that you can and will enjoy it.”
“I enjoyed it once. I am very happy with my memories. I don’t need you or your experiment to prove anything,” she said stiffly.
“Once?” He raised an eyebrow. His lips twitched. Too late, Martia-Djulia realized that she had just contradicted one of her earlier statements.
“The Aim of the Experiment is to discover whether or not we are sexually compatible,” Djetth said loftily. She suspected that he was amusing himself by parodying a formal checklist. “Method: to have mind-blowing recreational sex using positions and techniques that mitigate or avoid unfortunate consequences. Expected result--”
“What unfortunate consequences?”
“Insects in your hair?” he teased. “Sand in your baby box. A baby. Infection. Injury. Legal consummation of a Mating we might not want.”
His gaze flickered. Martia-Djulia had the impression that his list was deliberately ordered.
“Injury to whom?” she asked, ignoring the glossed over “baby.”
“I’ve wondered why you haven’t blasted me backward onto my butt since our Mating Day. I’ve certainly deserved it.”
“Yes you have!” she agreed heatedly.

ISBN 0-505-52711-1

Bit of Self-promo

***** Five Stars!
Excellent adventure and highly recommended!
~ Detra Fitch, HUNTRESS REVIEWS

This book has one of the best ending sequences. … Ms. Cherry has created a seriously evil villain. … Trust me, INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is a book you don’t want to miss. Be sure to check out the back-story in Rowena Cherry’s FORCED MATE.
~bookmaedin, for www.ibookdb.net

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is an outstanding sequel to FORCED MATE! Cherry skillfully combines mystery, romance, and humor with a fast-paced science fiction adventure. I couldn’t put it down! ~ Jean, Fallen Angel Reviews

Rowena Cherry is one of the best sub-genre writers due to her skill at placing the heroic characters in impossible scenarios
~ Harriet Klausner, Affaire de Coeur

For those of you who read and enjoyed FORCED MATE, the long awaited story about Commander Jason is finally here and what a story it is! It was well worth the wait! I highly recommend running to get this book the minute it hits your local book store!
~Kathy Boswell, The Best Reviews

… a powerful romance laced with devastating family secrets, treachery and a sizzling passion hot enough to singe your fingers as you turn the pages. Ms. Cherry pens a compelling plot with vivid imagery and fascinating characters that will leave you breathless….Ms Cherry has become an auto buy author for me.
~Billie Jo, Romance Junkies

Insufficient Mating Material... Excerpt

2007-02-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

I encourage anyone thinking of buying one of my books to read a free sample chapter from my website or barnes and noble.com, or just stand in the romance aisle of your favorite local bookstore and check out a few pages.

These might be some good pages to scope out for a fair idea of whether
or not this book is your cup of tea.

Royal wedding: page 33

Sexually frustrated swearing: page 199

A fish bit my ... : page 244

Battle scene: page 253

Cover scene : page 264

Grievous explains "the trots" to an alien: 273

Here is a very short excerpt with genuine survival advice.

In this scene, the hero, Djetth (pronounced Jeth) and the squeamish fashionista
Princess Martia-Djulia (Marsha-Julia) are marooned on a Costa-Rica-like island. They have been shot down, landed in the sea, and Martia's elaborate gown is wet, and she will not remove it.

She is embarrassed about the corset she wears underneath her preposterous Court dress. She doesn't know that Djetth has already seen her corset and more, before his plastic surgery, when he had a wild one-night-stand with her.

Djetth has decided that their first priority should be to get a fire going.

-----
"There are a lot of things we could do without for one night." Dinner came to
mind. Sex…
Djetth grunted and rose to his feet.

The most natural thing in the world would have been to hook an arm around
Martia-Djulia's tightly cinched waist, and point to the campsite he'd chosen. Instead, he put his left hand on his hip and pointed with his right hand.

"You see that little stand of trees -- the ones with twisted trunks, which fork
into three or four branches at about the height of my hip? Those two, there, will make good supports for the entrance to a shelter. I'll thrust a long, straight branch between their crotches as a ridgepole."

She looked doubtful, but Djetth was on good ground with his woodmanship.

"A 'crotch' is where a tree bifurcates," he explained, simply so she would think
about crotches, and long, straight objects being thrust into them. "They're a good
choice because their canopies lean inland, away from what becomes the obvious spot to clear for a fire pit. Do you agree?"

He took her silence for consent.

"Right. I'll start by digging the fire pit. Do you think you could find something we can burn? There are three types of fuel needed for a fire. Tinder is the most important."

Chivalrously, he assigned the greatest importance to the easiest, lightest,
most enjoyable, most feminine task.

"I can't start a fire without tinder," he added with strategic disregard for the
fact that he was a Great Djinn in possession of three Rings of Imperial Authority, one of which was the laser-like Fire Stone.

"What is tinder?" she asked, sounding suspicious.

"Ahhhh," he drawled, overcome by a mischievous instinct. "Look here."

With his left hand he lifted his T-shirt, with his right forefinger and thumb he
reached into his navel, confident that after eight weeks of hard exercise he had well defined abs and a very deep and attractive "inny" of a tummy button.

He withdrew lint.

"Oh, slurrid!" his squeamish Princess exclaimed, predictably, but she stared at
his lower abdomen and perhaps at the bulge in his trunk briefs with flattering interest.

"This fluff--" He placed it in the palm of his left hand as reverently as a
scientist explaining an important specimen, "is created from the action of hard work. Friction attracts filaments of fabric from my cotton T-shirt, and works them into a flat, fluffy mat."

He moved his cupped hand closer to her.

"Good tinder needs to have irregular edges, plenty of airspaces." He teased his
tummy button fluff into a looser wad. "It must be dry. Would you like to touch it?"
.....

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

PS
Some readers might be interested to recall that in one episode of Survivorman, Les Stroud plucked lint from his socks to use as tinder to start a fire. When I saw Les do that, I sensed that he and I shared a sense of humor, and that he would be the perfect "survival details" expert for Insufficient Mating Material.

Another tip... besides surprising things that are flammable, is that it is better to be naked and dry rather than clothed and wet.

The Superbowl of Romance (a metaphor)

2007-02-04T11:08:00.000-05:00

"Rowena, compare your books to THE ALIEN SUPERBOWL OF ROMANCE..." was the challenge that my good friend Lillian "Creator" Cauldwell tossed at me, virtually live on a recent Passionate Internet radio show.

I'm not very good at thinking on my feet, and promptly dropped the novel from which I'd planned to read an excerpt, and which was a totally ineligible receiver for this hardball question. I fumbled, recovered, and ran with it,

"First," I said manfully, "there was FORCED MATE .... a chess term.

"You might say, there were the two champion teams.
At one end of the star field..." (I thought "star field" was rather good, inspired by Soldier Field, of course. I couldn't think of a Dolphin Stadium pun).

"In Black, was Tarrant-Arragon of the Tiger Princes," I ran on, Coltishly, "definitely the Top Dog team.

"In White, was Commander Jason of the White Knights. I called them Saurian Knights, like dinosaurs, in the book, and they were the underdogs."

Lumbering, like a Bear? I paused before continuing the metaphor to the goal line.

"Ummmm, both Tarrant-Arragon and Jason competed for POSSESSION of... in this case, not a pigskin, nor a pawn, but a lovely, intelligent sensitive young woman from Earth."

By this point --it was the pigskin reference that did it-- I've got my second win, and the end zone is in sight.

"Whoever got his hands on her and his arms around her, won the game, and made her his Queen."

Yah! Doing a mental victory dance offside, I regret that my football-loving husband wasn't around to hear that.

"Now, there IS INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL....in bookstores everywhere, just in time for alternative entertainment on Superbowl weekend."

OK. I was pushing it. Since I was going through the interview to promot Insufficient Mating Material (and the Hidden Image Contest) I was going for the extra point.

"In Insufficient Mating Material, Commander Jason is back, badly beaten up, furious and frustrated that he didn't get the girl, still an underdog, but with a new face, new uniform, and a new name.

He's out for revenge, and it's a whole new ball game. "

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
author of alien romances where heroes steal heroines when they touch down on Earth

Insufficient Mating Material --secrets

2007-02-03T14:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Superbowl Sunday, by the way. Have you seen my 50 second advertisement? Not on TV, naturally, but on MySpace and You-Tube and anywhere else that will put it up (including my home-run website... which isn't run by me!)

For the record, Edward Traxler --Myra Nour's brother-- did my video. However, I put in a lot more time and did a lot more work than I expected, so I really hope that it is as effective as a marketing tool as everyone who has them, seems to think.

I don't know. Seeing a cover cut up and moved around on a screen has never sent me to a bookstore with the speed and purpose of a heat-seeking missile.

When we started, I thought I knew what I wanted. For about $75 (not my end cost!) I wanted a Me-Too product, just to hedge my bets in case Susan Kearney, Linnea Sinclair, Mel Schroeder, Myra Nour, Ruth Kerce, Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow (I watch Mandy and Michelle, because they must be the most savvy self-promoters I've ever seen, and I mean that in the nicest possible way) are right.

Music: I wanted the Pilgrim's Chorus from Wagner's Tannhauser. I'd once seen a feeble --but choral-- version on a Royalty Free site. Failing that, yeah, Billy Idol's White Wedding or Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath would do nicely, but that idea was quickly squashed. One cannot buy Royalty Free 30 second clips of Rock Star's music. Alas!

And, to get anything except the orchestral Overture from Tannhauser, the sites I visited required Membership and a commitment to buy more than 30 seconds of good stuff.

Ed gave me links to six sites that sell legal-to-use music, and told me to find what I wanted. Imagine... well, I am picky and I have expensive tastes. If I couldn't have someone famous, I wanted a lot of people, so I hunted for a good, bombastic choir. I'd hoped for massed, warrior-like men in extasy, but settled for kick-butt females going Aaaaaaaahhhhh.

I'd seen Lightboxes in an earlier reconnoitre, but hadn't figured out how to use the site. I learned. I thought I wanted beach and sea and an aurora borealis to play up the cover art, which I assumed we'd be cutting up.

Unfortunately, my From-Here-To-Eternity cover models are in an isoceles triangle configuration, so there was no way to make them roll over (and over again) in the surf.

Using the index and search functions, I wasted a lot of time looking at seascapes, hoping to find ejaculating clams.... or something that could suggest that.

Also, I went through a lot of little campfires (most had unsuitable men in
baseball caps silhouetted against the flames). My romantic aliens do not wear baseball caps or Chicago Bears helmets. Eventually, I decided that it was witty, funny, and appropriate to show a really big fire. If you've read Insufficient Mating Material, you'll understand why.

Then Ed sent me to a NASA site, and I spent a day or two looking at starfields and comets and planets.

Next, he sent me to the airforce to check out jetfighters, and then to....look at fonts and colors.

And meanwhile I was trawling MySpace trying to find a cheap, naked man.

I found one enjoying a shower (which would have been really good, given one of the archetypically dirty tricks Tarrant-Arragon plays on his sister) but .... it wasn't to be.

Thank Evan I remembered what a good sport Evan Scott is! He said I could use one of his photographs. Oh, but the trouble we had removing Evan's hair, and putting a piratical headsquare on his head. The early efforts looked like a hard, orange hat. No one wears a construction site helmet and nothing else in the sea.

There was another shot we considered... Evan was waist deep in the sea, proudly holding up a manly bathing-costume. We turned the swim suit into a big fish, as if he'd just tickled a sea-going trout and caught it.

However, the fish was a distraction, and would take too many words to explain, even if there IS a school of thought that says you can use fish skin as a condom. SURVIVORMAN (who was my survival techniques consultant for the book) opines that you can't, but that rabbit guts are an option.

Back to Evan's inconvenient hair. You can imagine me googling Pirates of the Caribbean for good-looking headwear. Unfortunately, most of that looked good because of the explosion of dreadlocks and beaded beard underneath the scarf.

And, Djetth should have had a goatee, but Ed draws goatees like a subway grafitti artist putting facial hair on the Mona Lisa (it must be his only weakness), so I googled Men In Goatees. (That was an interesting search!) I also found Max Von Sydow's Ming from Flash Gordon, and Andre Agussi and Brad Pit and chin curtains. Chin Curtains!!

In the end, I decided that Djetth did not need a goatee for the purposes of this trailer.

Then, finally, the video is done, and Ed puts up a really good resolution, and I discover that the hero in the sea has what looks like monster love bites around his visible nipple.

No one seems to mind, though.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
"Insufficient Mating Material is a strong, intelligently written book..."
~Marcy Arbitman, reviewer for Just Erotic Romance Reviews

Why We Read Fiction

2006-12-18T11:43:00.000-05:00

The November/December 2006 issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER has an article by this title. It explains the "theory of mind," by which psychologists mean our assumption that other people have thought processes similar to our own and that their thoughts and intentions can be extrapolated from their behavior. For instance, if someone gets a glass of water, we assume she was thirsty. We constantly engage in "mind reading," not in the sense of SF telepathy, but "when we attribute to a person a certain mental state on the basis of her observable action." People with autism suffer from a severe lack in this area; their "ability to interpret behavior in terms of underlying mental states is drastically impaired." Interestingly, they also lack interest in fiction and storytelling. Works of fiction "cheat" the reader's mind into treating verbal constructs called characters as "agents endowed with a potential for a rich array of intentional stances. " An author, whether he analyzes the characters' emotions in depth like Henry James or presents actions with a bare minimum of commentary as in many Hemingway stories, supplies "cues" from which we deduce the fictional character's mental state, emotions, and motives. Fiction engages our "mind reading" cognitive capacities in a stimulating interaction with these imaginary people. Reading fiction exercises the mind, just as lifting weights exercises the body. As I've always suspected, storytelling really is important!

50 ways to help your author

2006-12-17T10:20:00.000-05:00

50 ways to help an author
(without buying her book)

Originally I had a longer and more accurate title, but I can’t get the song “Fifty ways to leave your lover out of my head”. I’d love feedback, or additional suggestions. The idea is to share all the things that authors can do to help each other, and that authors’ friends and family could do, might like to do, but may never think of doing. For the sake of argument, all authors for the purpose of this blog will be considered female. (No sexism intended).

Help the search engines find her:

1. Google your friend.
2. Ask Jeeves about her.
3. Dogpile her.
4. A9 search her. (That’s the Amazon search engine)
5. Does Yahoo have a search feature?

Even if you know where to find your friend, her blog, and her books, “hits” help. The more visitors the search engine spiders find, the more priority the author's website gets.

6. Visit her website… not just the home page.
7. Visit her blogs.
8. Find her Amazon Connect page
http://www.amazon.com/gp/arms/directory/A/2/105-8737680-2353243#directory

This link is to the alphabetical directory by author’s last name. Click on the name (which is blue, underlined and therefore a live link) and you will go to the author’s Amazon page. From there you can:

9. Invite her as an Amazon Friend
10. Add to your list of Interesting People
11. E-mail the page (about her… to your other friends)
12. Add her posts to your plog

As you explore her Amazon Connect page, you will find:

On the left, under her picture, links to any reviews she has written.
13. Click on them. Read her reviews. If you like them, click on Helpful.
14. If you see an opportunity to comment on her review, do so if you have something nice to say.

If authors write reviews, their books are advertised free in the attribution line, and their links to their page and their books are seen by people who are interested in the products that your friend reviewed.
There’s a link to her own web site.
15. Click on that… just to bump up the site and give it traffic. Then go back to Amazon.

If the author has blogged (written a note about what she is doing/thinking/ or given an insight into her books), there is a blue link to Comment.

16. Comment! Vote that you liked her post (it’s encouraging feedback)

If the author clicked “product” as she wrote her blog, there will be a live link on her blog to one of her books.

17. Click on the cover. Give her book page traffic. Or scroll on down and see her bibliography, who your author friend’s friends are, what reviews she has written, what search suggestions she has made, what “tags” she has created for each of her books, and what tags her readers have added. See her Reminders.

18. If you live near to the author, and she has a reminder on the calendar for a booksigning near you, click on Remind Me Too. Support at a booksigning is always wonderful.

19. While checking out her friends, maybe click on the image of other authors whose books you like. Amazon often pairs up two books by different authors and suggests “Buy Both”.

When you are on a book page, without buying that book, click on links to:

20. Put it on your wish list. It’s extra, free advertising.
21. Tell a friend

Scroll down the book page to Tag this product. (or make a search suggestion)
22. Add a tag. (Loved it! Can’t wait to read it! Soooo romantic! Etc)

23. Join in the Customer discussions. Ask a question. Start a discussion. The search engines pick up on the discussions, and quote interesting responses.

If you have read her book:
24. Write a customer review. It doesn’t have to be long or scholarly. Be as generous with the star rating as you can. Try to be specific about what you liked best about the story or one of the characters. Don’t give away the ending.

25. Ditto all of the above for Barnes and Noble, E-Bay, Borders, Chapters Indigo, Waterstone’s, Amazon uk, Amazon ca, or any other bookstore chain that allows customer reviews, comments, discussions etc. Or, simply search for her name, titles, reviews.

26. If you have a MySpace page (and if you don’t, but really want to help, get one… it’s free) invite your author friends to be your friends there.
27. Write a bulletin about your friend or her book.
28. Add a comment on their profile page’s comments section. Your comment is their opportunity to say something about their book without the appearance of soliciting.
29. Review their book on your MySpace blog.

30. If her publisher has a forum, join it and ask her questions. For instance, Dorchester publishing (home of Leisure and LoveSpell authors) has
http://forums.dorchesterpub.com/

Again, your comment will be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, and it will give your friend a reason to post something interesting and quotable about her book without seeming to be self-promoting.

31. If you see a good review—on any bookselling site that allows customers and visitors to comment on reviews-- click Helpful if it is a helpful review.

Votes help both the reviewer and the author (especially the reviewer’s rankings ).

32. If you see a bad review, click Not Helpful.
33. If you see a personal attack disguised as a “review” click Report This, and tell the author. If enough people click to report ugly remarks, bad reviews come down in 50-60% of the time

If you see your favorite author’s books in a supermarket or bookstore:

34. Facing her books (if there is room, turn one so the cover shows)
35. Tell store personnel how much you like that book, or that the author is local.

36. If you don’t see her books, especially when they ought to be there, ask about them.

37. If you have a blog, publicize your friend’s upcoming signings/author talks/workshops on your blog. Mention her website URL.
38 Link to your author friend’s website or blog on yours
39. Offer a quote if asked--or volunteer if you’re not asked.
40. Do a review for her, asked or not. It doesn’t matter if some people think that you are friends. More often than not, you became friends because you like and respect each other’s talent, or sense of humor, or something you bring to your writing. People do respect recommendations

41. If you belong to readers’ group sites, or book chat sites, or special interest sites, post what you are reading. Plugs never hurt. These are also picked up on RSS feeds and the search engines.
42. Link to other writers. It drives everyone up in the search engine.

43. Ask your library to order your friend's book.

44. Join your favorite author’s yahoo group, let her know where you’ve seen her book in stores, or where you’ve seen discussions of her book, or reviews of her book.

45. Drop in on her online chat to say how you enjoyed her book. Supportive friends at chats are cool because chats can be chaotic, and typing answers takes time.

46. Put her book as a 'must read' on your own Web site, or in your own newsletter.

47. Send e-mails to your entire address list recommending the book.

48. Be her 'friend' on You Tube.

49. Offer to take a bunch of her bookmarks to conventions, or conferences, and make sure they are put in goodie bags, or on promo tables. Or simply visit her table at a convention, and sign up for her newsletter, or pick up her bookmark and tell someone else how good the book is.

50 Offer to slip her bookmarks into your own correspondence when you pay bills, taxes, etc.

51. Instead of quoting Goethe in your sig file, try quoting a line from your friend’s blurb in the week of her launch.

With thanks to the following for their help and suggestions

Kathleen Bacus, www.kathybacus.com

Diana Groe, www.dianagroe.com

Joyce Henderson,
www.joycehendersonauthor.com

Diane Wylie, author of "Secrets and Sacrifices" www.dianewylie.com

Jacquie Rogers, http://www.jacquierogers.com, http://www.myspace.com/jacquierogers.

Deborah Anne MacGillivray, author of The Legend of Falgannon Isle, www.deborahmacgillivray.co.uk Dorchester Love Spell, Kensington's Zebra Historicals

Charlotte Maclay, author of Make No Promises,
www.CharlotteMaclay.com

Rowena Cherry www.rowenacherry.com, author of Insufficient Mating Material, available 1/30/2007.

Rowena Cherry.

Excerpt from Insufficient Mating Material

2006-12-10T09:58:00.001-05:00

Insufficient Mating Material is the sequel to FORCED MATE and MATING NET. While it will not be in the brick and mortar bookstores until January 30th 2007, there is a free little reminder that some readers might like for a stocking stuffer.

EXCERPT;

Tigron Empire of the Djinn
ARK IMPERIAL, Operating Theater

Damn them! Prince Djetthro-Jason eyed the masked males and the unpleasant array of implements they were preparing to use on him.

I haven't told them everything, and I'm not about to. No way am I going to invite anyone to take a laser to my privates. Ahhh, Fewmet!

The "battlefield analgesia" was wearing off. During the duel that he'd begun as Commander Jason and ended--defeated--as Prince Djetthro-Jason, he'd felt almost no pain despite the damage Tarrant-Arragon had inflicted.

Now, his massively bruised thigh throbbed heavily, his neck muscles ached, and his jaw...it hurt even to think about his jaw. Perhaps worse--but less so by the moment--was the damage to his alpha-male machismo as he lay strapped down, stark naked, in his enemy's operating theater, preparing his mind for surgery without anesthetic. Also for "the fate worse than death" which was to come.

If Tarrant-Arragon had observed Great Djinn tradition, the duel they'd fought less than an hour ago ought to have been to the death.

Why hadn't Tarrant-Arragon killed him then and there? To the victor went the Empire, the Ark Imperial, and gods-Right to any female he wanted...and they both wanted the same female.

Damn it! Even if he wanted to stop, I should've fought on after he crippled my leg and shattered my bloody jaw. Why didn't I? What's left for me?

What indeed?

I'll be the Djinn equivalent of a broken thoroughbred stallion put out to stud. It's fairly obvious why Tarrant-Arragon made an excuse not to finish me off.

The Great Djinn were nearly extinct. In twenty years' time, Tarrant-Arragon's and Djinni-vera's children would need true-Djinn mates, all entitled to the silent D-prefix to their royal Djinn names. That's why!

When the "fate worse than death" had been spelled out, it had been sheer bravado to mumble that he wanted to marry Princess Martia-Djulia.

Maybe I do. Maybe I don't.

It hurt how much he still wanted Djinni-vera, who'd been the last Djinn virgin in all the Communicating Worlds, and betrothed to be his, until Tarrant-Arragon abducted her by force and took her virginity.

What consolation would it be to have Tarrant-Arragon's sexy, fashionista bitch of a sister in his power and in his bed instead?

Djetth winced at the savagery of his thoughts about Martia-Djulia. Shards of pain shot along his broken jawline.

"Well, Djetthro-Jason, are you ready to be carved up for your new identity and your new life as my little sister's glorified love slave?"

From somewhere out of Djetth's line of sight, Tarrant-Arragon taunted him, stressing the part of Djetth's real name that he'd used until his cover as "Commander Jason" was blown and he was overpowered and arrested.

Djetth did not turn his head. The pain in his face and head was intolerable enough without moving.

"Ahhh, I do believe that Our Imperial surgeons are ready to do away with that distinctive jagged scar on your cheek," Tarrant-Arragon crooned. "And screw together your jaw."

What else might they do while he was under the laser and the knife? While his face was open, might they carve out a sensory gland or two? Implant a tracking device? Use his broken jaw as an excuse to weld a mask over his head?

Prince Djetthro-Jason would be a latter-day "Man in the Iron Mask" if they realized how closely he resembled Crown Prince Tarrant-Arragon. Which he would, without his scars, his colorful contact lenses and his long, blond-dyed hair.

Djetth glanced at the treacherous, turncoat 'Rhett, who'd been his bloody useless "second" at the duel, and who was still hanging around.

What for? Damn him. 'Rhett was too much the intergalactic statesman for his own--or anyone else's--good.

If the patient lost consciousness, Tarrant-Arragon could decide that the chances for galactic peace would be better if Djetthro-Jason were neutered...one way or another. Given the secrets 'Rhett knew, 'Rhett might agree.

"No--" Djetth groaned with the unexpected agony of trying to speak. He wanted to refuse anesthetic again. How he wished there was somebody present who he could trust!

A door swished open.

"Does he have to be in such pain?" The cause of all the trouble spoke from the doorway. She sounded on edge, as if she felt his pain telepathically.

Djinni-vera! No longer his Djinni. By conquest, by the irrevocable exchange of vows, and finally by her own choice, she was Tarrant-Arragon's.

By All the Lechers of Antiquity, how he loved her! At that moment. For coming. Mentally Djetth qualified his thoughts. Djinni-vera might not love him now, but she was honorable to the core. Tarrant-Arragon wouldn't dare do anything dastardly in front of her.

As she glided to his surgical table, Djetth looked at her wildly, helplessly, with mute appeal, hoping that she would read his mind and aid him this one last time.

Djinni-vera's amethyst eyes widened as if she had Heard him and understood. Her gaze averted, she reached out and dropped a gauzy white cloth of some sort over his monstrously inappropriate erection.

To others, her action might have looked like public modesty on her part. Djetth assumed that Djinni had read the part of his mind that was worrying about the striking tattoo that only showed up in the dark or when he was suitably excited.

Thank you he thought. Please help me. Stay.

She nodded, and took his fettered hand with her undamaged left. "You've been macho about this too long, J-J. Why won't you let them put you to sleep?"

"Careful, my love," Tarrant-Arragon said, moving possessively to her side. "You can never call him J-J again. Nor may you use any of his other damned traitor's aliases. Not J-J, not Commander Jason. Traitors cannot be seen to survive their attempts on my life. Commander Jason is officially dead, and everyone--including Martia-Djulia--must believe it. From this day forward, he's Prince Djetthro-Jason."

"What a mouthful..." Djinni began; then her changing expression told him that she must have read a thought-pun he couldn't resist. "Djetth!"

She frowned sternly.

"I know you Great Djinn males can't help thinking of sex all the time. But it's not helpful, Djetth. As long as you have your saturniid gland, you're dangerous."

Not dangerous to you, kid. You won't ovulate while you're pregnant, and probably not for a while after that, he thought back at her.

Her mouth twisted in a wry smile.

"You'd be safer if you let them remove it."

Some aspects of Royal Djinn maleness one would rather die than surrender, he rejoined, hoping she would not read his darker thoughts.

"Martia-Djulia would be better off if you couldn't have the rut-rage again, too..." As she spoke, Djinni tossed her head as if shaking off a bothersome fly.

Djetth wondered if Djinni had unexpectedly Channeled someone else's reasoning. Djinni couldn't possibly know how savagely Martia-Djulia liked to be served in bed.

"I saw Palace footage of you having the rut-rage with Martia-Djulia." The little mind-reader's voice rose in protest at the thought he hadn't meant her to sense.

You saw? You saw what, exactly? His thought question was a ploy to distract her from thinking about the rut-rage, but no sooner had he asked than he dreaded how detailed her reply might be.

"What you might expect, given that the camera was being a mirrored ceiling, and you were on top," she retorted, keeping his tattoo a secret. "Tarrant-Arragon fast-forwarded you, because you went at it so long."

"Not that long," Tarrant-Arragon murmured maliciously, probably to remind them that he was listening to Djinni's half of the conversation.

"Long enough," Djinni said. "Djetth, you might already be a father."

"Granted, that is remotely possible," Tarrant-Arragon sneered while appearing to examine a wicked-looking lancet. "Let's hope you weren't that thorough, Djetthro-Jason, or your firstborn would have to be--and remain--a bastard. Unfortunately, my slack-wit of a sister can't keep a secret. If Martia-Djulia thinks Commander Jason got her pregnant, the rumor will be all over Court before we get home, and before she hears that her lover is dead."

Djetth felt an inexplicable distress at the idea that he could never claim this theoretically possible child as his own.

"Shall we begin?" Tarrant-Arragon's too perceptive eyes ranged over Djetth's body, lingering for an instant on the cloth covering his penis. Not for the first time in his life, Djetth thanked the Great Originator that Tarrant-Arragon had lost the power to read minds.

"I'm staying with him," Djinni announced, gripping his hand tightly.

Djetth was careful not to wrap his fingers around hers or to respond to Djinni's comforting touch in any discernible way. Touching the Heir Apparent's Mate was yet another act of high treason punishable by death.

"Very well, my love. You may stay as long as you keep your gaze on his face." Tarrant-Arragon's lips curled into a sneer. He had certainly noticed the hand-holding.

"Djetthro-Jason, I'll ask you for the last time: Have you declared every identifying mark on your body that my sister might recognize? Every scar...?"

"Yes!" Djetth snarled back, one eye on Djinni to see whether her face betrayed his lie.

Head turned, distracted by Djinni and the explosion of pain in his face from speaking aloud, Djetth forgot that his neck was exposed where 'Rhett could reach it.

He felt the cold, numbing touch of 'Rhett's fingers on his most vital acupressure point, strove to turn his head, and couldn't.

'Rhett is using Djinncraft to put me to sleep! Damn 'Rhett and his secret agendas!

The growing paralysis had not yet reached Djetth's eyes. As his vision dimmed, his desperate gaze met the cool green, inscrutable eyes of his bastard cousin and half-brother, 'Rhett.

He'd be lucky to wake up with a new face, a new and dangerous identity. If he woke up. "

Looking too closely

2006-12-03T15:37:00.000-05:00

The public lending library wants its books and videos back, so I am under a bit of a time crunch, but I have a follow up thought from last time's blog about The Empire Strikes Back.

This is just my opinion. As I've said, I'm researching what I consider cinema history's best sword fights to try and figure out what the most "sexy" fencing moves are, who made them, and how I'd put the action into words.

I mean, "He thrust in tierce, and he parried in quarte" (if that's possible anyway) isn't going to communicate to the average reader what is going on, is it?

So, I was watching TESB, frame by frame, and in my opinion... I might be mistaken ... the champion fencer Bob Anderson was inside Darth Vader's mask for the really, really cool duel scene in the Han Solo carbonfreezing room (which is not a revelation, Richard Cohen wrote about that), but someone else wielded the light saber for the scene on the inspection platform.

In the first scene, Darth Vader appeared to hold his light saber in one hand, in the other he used both. In the first, there was a great deal of wrist action, and the saber moved in smooth, efficient arcs. In the second, it was like Darth Vader was splitting tree trunks for firewood.

I hope this doesn't ruin anyone's enjoyment! It's a marvellous movie.

best wishes,
Rowena

Empire of Dreams

2006-11-26T09:16:00.000-05:00

This is a duplicate posting to the one on alien romances.
Sorry!

Stayed up late last night, I did.

Empire Of Dreams was absolutely fascinating, to me, and to those with whom I watched it. I'm sure each one of us took something different away from it.

The insight that I appreciate most (at this moment) was the fact that the actor inside Darth Vader's helmet was pronouncing --and acting-- from one script, and Luke was reacting to another.

Now that really was the ultimate in saying one thing and meaning another... or of not being on the same page! I suppose it wasn't really much different from script management for Who Shot JR...? But it seemed deeper to this viewer.

I knew that Darth Vader's voice had been dubbed in later, but how cool it was to hear the difference in soundtrack when the original actor spoke. What a difference the "right" voice makes! Or the right howls. Wasn't it fascinating that Chewbacca originally had lines? Talking of Chewbacca, I greatly enjoyed the revelation that some of the movie makers were worried about the Wookie's lack of underwear. I'd noticed that uncivilized omission only the night before.

On Thursday night I tried to watch The Empire Strikes Back. I have it out from the library too, but it's a VCR and in almost unwatchably bad condition. Imagine my joy when it was on TV on Friday night. I was very pleased to see swordmaster Bob Anderson's name in the credits as a stunt double. (Recently I blogged about the account I'd read in By The Sword of why a genuine swordsman, not an actor, had to perform Darth Vader's fight with Luke.)

The music was something else I'd never really thought about--apart from the "declarative" Imperial theme for whenever Darth Vader stalked across the screen, like the wolf theme in Peter And The Wolf, only much more wicked.

How fascinating that the composer had recently finished the score for Jaws, where the
antagonist got the catchy, sinister theme music! What a twist for those of us accustomed to the Bond theme... the Here Comes The Hero refrain. When the movie music is really, really good, I don't notice it much, apart from the theme tunes. It's amusing what a difference a good orchestra makes to an aerial dogfight, isn't it?

I've watched a lot of The Making Of... documentaries, but I don't think I've grasped how much goes into making a great movie quite as vividly as I did last night, watching Empire Of Dreams.

What did you like best?

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Hot in Armour

2006-11-12T09:24:00.000-05:00

The things one picks up in the course of research!

Of course, I had thought --briefly-- that Knights in Armour probably did not smell very nice, but I had not considered how long they'd spend inside a metal suit of armour (like all day long) or how hot they'd get on a sunny day.

I wonder whether warrior Kings timed their quarrels to avoid fighting in July and August?

What do Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day, Roger Moore in Moonraker, Sean Connery in Highlander, Chris O'Donnell in The Three Musketeers, Catherine Zeta Jones, Anthony Hopkins, and Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro, and Liv Tyler in LOTR have in common?

I found this fascinating!

According to Richard Cohen in By The Sword, the sword fighting consultant for all those great movie swordfighting scenes was Bob Anderson. A tidbit that interested me most was that it was Bob Anderson himself in the Darth Vader costume during that steamy light saber duel with Luke in The Empire Strikes Back.

Apparently, in order to keep the steam-effect from freezing Han Solo, the stage had to be kept very hot indeed, which was especially uncomfortable for a man in a helmet and long black robes plus heavy cloak.

None of this --movie trivia-- is especially helpful to me in my research for a swordfighting hero for my next alien djinn romance, but it gives me a new respect for Hollywood, and a new perspective on the "romantic" versus the "swashbuckling" versus the "pain of it" schools of movie swordfighting.

My next title is Knight's Fork. It's not about a Retiarius! Although it is Rhett's story.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Worldbuilding: Is going to the toilet going too far?

2006-11-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

Have you ever "seen" anyone go to the toilet in a romance?
Well? Have you?

It's a strange phenomenon. In a romance novels (I assume they are classified as romance novels), heroic characters can deploy "butt plugs" in loving detail, but the reader cannot follow them into the bathroom for anything other than a wash.

In my world view, the bathroom is a very important place, not least because it is one of the few places where most heroes and heroines are allowed to be completely private... or not, if one happens to be aboard Tarrant-Arragon's space ship, Ark Imperial, because he is one Big Brother who really does watch everything his guests do.

On the loo is a very good place to be, if one is surrounded by unscrupulous mind-readers, and a lot of FFandP characters are psis, these days.

Bathroom scenes or latrine-trench scenes are part of my world building. The logistics of necessity are important to my fashionista heroine, Princess "Marsh", when she is marooned on a previously uninhabited island in INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL. She warms up to the super-practical hero considerably when he takes the time to fashion a decent toilet seat for her.

There are bathroom fixtures I've considered that would probably never get past an editor of romances. Just like only villains in Regency romances have bad breath, no one breaks wind in a spaceship, and there is no mechanism to deal with a problem that even aliens ought to have... I would have thought.

It's simply not heroic to back up to an interior, miniature porthole equipped with carbon filters. Do carbon filters actually work? I'm off topic, a bit here, but I do so love the MythBusters tv series. They do such practical and interesting experiemnts!

Returning to science fiction romance, and assuming that all romantic aliens are humanoid... now my mind wanders off to think of the alien who kept his genitals in his knee caps... I wonder how many different toilet designs would make sense.

I've never been sure about fictional bathrooms on spaceships that appear out of nowhere at the push of a button. Walls move. Space is created with no discernable impact on the size of the living area. Solid bathroom fixtures appear. How? Is the bathroom like Dr. Who's Tardis? I could accept a shower, but not a jacuzzi, I guess. But, then, I am not a plumber.

Why push a button? What about a Clap-On Crapper? What fun if the alien-romance's human heroine were to clap her hands in delight over some unrelated matter, and the toilet would shoot out of the walls, slosh and retreat, and reappear until she had the wit to stop clapping!

Can any reader point me in the direction of a well designed alien loo?

Best wishes,

Rowena
RAH interview

For those who like to scavenge and win

2006-11-04T08:13:00.000-05:00

Romance Junkies is running a scavenger hunt. Now!

The Hunt is live on the Romance Junkies website, www.romancejunkies.com, accessable through their contest pages or directly at http://www.romancejunkies.com/RJNovScavengerHunt.html

I think 60 authors have offered prizes, which probably means that "hunters" may end up visiting 60 websites.

Have fun,

Rowena Cherry

Writing Speeds

2006-11-02T15:26:00.000-05:00

Within the past few days I've read two news bits that struck me with shock in different ways, illustrating opposite attitudes toward writing speed and productivity. An article about the death of distinguished author William Styron mentioned that he typically produced only a page or so per day and refused to let himself proceed with the work until the present paragraph or page had attained as close to perfection as he could make it. That approach is so diametrically opposed to the standard advice-to-writers (and it's the approach I've tried to break myself of). The conventional wisdom is that, since some revision is inevitable, working too hard at getting the first draft perfect in every detail is likely to be a waste of time—because some of those details will almost certainly get changed. Maybe Styron was like Isaac Asimov, such a confident and fluent writer that he hardly ever revised. At any rate, since he was a Pulitzer Prize winner, Styron must have been doing something right.

The other bit comes from an article in WORKING MOTHER magazine, "Get a Life," about mapping out a concrete plan to achieve the ideal life you dream of (including the possible hiring of a "coach" to help you construct and adhere to your life plan). One woman in the article aspired to become a writer. "Cate and her coach agreed she'd have 90 days to get a book deal—that long only because Cate wasn't giving up her day job to pursue her writing dream." She sent out queries to 61 literary agents and hired a babysitter so she could work on the book every Thursday in addition to nights after the kids went to sleep. Lo and behold, she met her deadline and has a nonfiction book forthcoming this spring. !!!!! I certainly hope nobody reads this article and thinks this path to publication is realistic or typical. Ninety days from proposal to publication offer? This Cate person achieved the authorial equivalent of winning a multi-state lottery jackpot. Somebody really should write an article for WORKING MOTHER describing what the typical career path of a freelance writer is really like. :)

Can one go too far with research?

2006-10-15T18:05:00.000-04:00

Have I told you how much fun I have with researching my alien romances?

Possibly the high point of my week this week was a visit to a sword master's lair. My quest was to get inside the head of my next hero: Prince Djarrhett.

'Rhett is a swordsman, which seems rather anachronistic in a high tech, albeit feudal, world, so the Sword Master and I had a wide ranging chat lasting nearly two hours, which covered the real-life Sword Master's opinions of the fight scenes in the Bond movie Die Another Day, and The Phantom Menace. (He feels that the light sabres are cool, but is concerned about the balance of the hilt, given that light can't weigh much, which is why Darth Maul is his favorite!!) We also discussed the logistics of weapons aboard space ships. Swords come in various lengths, and the big ones --like rapiers-- could be rather antisocial.

I so love this analytical thinking!
You can bet that if an opportunity presents itself, a lot of Sword Master Todd's opinions will filter through into 'Rhett's point of view.

"Have you ever cut someone?" I asked, never hoping for an affirmative answer. Fencing is supposed to be safe, right?

"Yes."

"What does cutting someone feel like?"

I couldn't believe my luck! After all, if I'm going to write a swordfighting duel from the point of view of my hero, he is going to have to sink some portion of his weapon into someone else's flesh.

The answer presents some literary challenges, but I can handle that, secure in the knowledge that if any Sword Masters read my next book, they will not hurl it at a wall--or trash can-- because my hero feels unrealistic sensations.

I think I must have asked more than twenty questions. I will share one more:

"Is your image of yourself different when you have a sword in your hand?"

(Oh, I did ask what he'd fight in, if he did not have to worry about protection. Would you believe, Underarmor? )

"I feel younger, stronger and faster with a weapon in my hand."
I really liked that answer, because I can make use of a double entendre. Now, I have four books to read, including The Secret History of The Sword. I had no idea there was a secret history. I cannot wait to find out what it is!

Until next week.

Rowena.

Make my day

2006-10-04T17:11:00.000-04:00

It's been a Michelob day.
You know the jingle "Some days are better than others" ?
I love the positive spin it puts on days that are NOT among the better ones.

Yesterday I had oral surgery, and today the face I see in the mirror reminds me of a cartoon rodent... like the prehistoric one with an acorn lodged in one cheek. Laughing hurts, yawning is worse, and I'm drinking delicious, sober liquids out of the non-operated-on side of my mouth until my stitches come out next Monday. I have been forbidden to use straws. Sucking is verboten.

So, having spent the best part of a day (Monday) on an interview for the benefit of aspiring authors (when I ought to have been pounding out the pages for a book in a month!!!) I was delighted to find this email in my account today:

-------snip---------------------
Rowena: First, thank you for your OUTSTANDING responses to my
questions. Yours is a prime example of exactly what I was hoping for
with the interviews. Education, entertainment and promo. Extremely well
done!

It's now up on the blog. Thanks again!
Lynda
http://paranormalityuniverse.blogspot.com
------------end of snip------------

Best wishes,

Rowena

FIND and REPLACE... a rabbit's testicles

2006-09-18T11:18:00.000-04:00

In case you are boggling, I am author Rowena Cherry, and I write science fiction romance, survival romance, and I have just finished edits on my next novel INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL.

Last Thursday (eleven days ago)
was my deadline for finishing revisions on INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL.
I made it.

Over the weekend, I discovered that although we had deleted a passage about
skinning a large alien creature resembling a rabbit, but bigger, we had not removed a later
reference to the skinning.

To be specific, the deleted skinning conversation between the hero and heroine
went into detail about handling genitalia and other sources of potential contamination of
the meat.

Once that was gone, the heroine's subsequent thoughts about touching a rabbit's
testicles did not make sense.

On the following Monday, I spoke with my editor and she assured me that she had
taken care of the rabbit's nuts. I shall have to wait four weeks for the galleys to
see if she took them out acceptably. If not, I can request a change at that point.

I'd also like you to know that INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is already up for
pre-orders at Amazon. Another cool new feature is that readers or potential readers can
add TAGs to say how much they are looking forward to the next book (or whatever).

http://tinyurl.com/ftqwy

THE OUT-TAKE

“Now, look here, and learn.” He brandished a wicked looking knife. “You don’t have to concern yourself with how to skin and gut large animals. With smallish ones like this, it’s easier to skin when its cooled.”

He used his knife as a pointer.

“The first thing to do, which I’ve done, is cut its throat. Next, place your animal belly up. That way, you can see what you’ve got.”

A very healthy, ridiculously well-developed male animal.

“Starting ‘north’ of the penis —if there is one—“

In this case, there is a very prominent one.

“If there is, remember that there’s usually a bone in it. Make an incision just big enough to slip two fingers in.”

“Why?”

“You use your fingers to press the internal organs down, away from the skin. You do not want to nick the bladder or entrails. That really spoils the meat, so you’d have to wash it, and we don’t have water to spare.

“Cut up the body as far as about the breastbone.” He stroked the body with the point of his knife. “Then go down to the far end, cut neatly around the anus, and also cut a good circle,” he tickled the area in question with his knife, “around the genitals, taking care not to cut the urinary tract.”

“Why?” she breathed, disgusted.

“Unless you want to eat its testicles, it’s simpler to pull the whole lot off with the entrails. Think about it. When we come back from wood-gathering, you can have a go. You’re not going to be sick, are you?”

Martia-Djulia shook her head. At some point during his revolting demonstration, her hand had crept up to her mouth.
Djetth stood. He had removed his flight suit, his chest and shoulders glistened, though it was too cool and too early for him to be sweaty, she would have thought.

“I’ll go on ahead, and check on the beach well. Catch up when you’ve used the facilities. I don’t suppose you fancy a morning dip, do you?”

You must be mad! She stared at him pityingly.

“You’re quite right.” He grinned. “It’s not as warm first thing in the morning when the tide’s out. The water will be pleasant once the tide comes up over hot sand. I’ll teach you to swim at high tide. Of course, one finds the best shellfish at low tide.”

*

Grinning, Djetth loped down to the water’s edge to wash the blood off his hands. One way or another, sooner or later, if Martia-Djulia were pregnant, she’d have to let him know.

Meanwhile, he intended to keep her too busy to think. Maybe she’d forget about wanting to shave him. Already, she knew that Prince Djetthro-Jason was a degree of cousin. If she found out how much like Tarrant-Arragon he naturally looked, well, Djetth could imagine that she'd dream up plenty of new reasons to object to his sexual pursuit of her.

CAVEAT

SURVIVORMAN, Les Stroud advised me that this skinning method isn't quite right for rabbits. These are alien rabbits, and bigger... they also begin their literary life as more like porcupines. Now, it is a moot point how to skin prey animals for meat and fur. It's out.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Long Words

2006-09-05T19:17:00.000-04:00

I recently got a book from the Writer's Digest Book Club called THE GILDED TONGUE: OVERLY ELEGANT WORDS FOR EVERYDAY THINGS, by Rod L. Evans. It's a glossary of elaborate, obscure words, all of them real (not made up by the author), as far as I can tell. A great treat for lovers of language. The reverse dictionary in the back -- meanings first, followed by words -- should be quite useful, in case, for instance, you're seeking a fancy word for "taking time off work" (feriation), "swimming" (natation), or "sun-worshiper" (heliolator). Some of the entries are polysyllable equivalents of simpler words. Others offer precise terms for concepts that have no widely known single-word equivalent. Most people probably know murdering one's wife is uxoricide, but did you know sexual intercourse in a parked car has a name (amomaxia)? Or that sexual intercourse without orgasm is acritition (a word that would sound very impressive in Viagra ads)? The potential for arcane insults is practically infinite, e.g., limicolous (living in mud). Personally, I think the author cheats to fill out Y and Z by including such not-so-rare specimens as yenta and zaftig. Haven't these Yiddish words become familiar to most Americans, especially in urban areas? But in general it's just a fun book to browse.

As a writer, do you use lots of arcane vocabulary? As a reader, do you like to encounter "big words" or unfamiliar ones in fiction? I enjoy seeing an author discover the mot juste rather than "dumbing down" his or her prose with a crude approximation. A skillful writer can make the meaning clear from context or subtly work in a definition. For instance, I like the way Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's historical fiction uses the proper names for clothing unique to a particular place and century. In contemporary fiction, of course, the vocabulary should fit the character. If he or she would use a certain word -- because of his/her profession or level of education -- that word shouldn't be avoided just for fear some readers might not get it. I like authors who expect intelligence and literacy of their readers, as well as the willingness to look up an unfamiliar word now and then.

Out, damned weaver fish

2006-08-06T10:43:00.000-04:00

Maybe I'm peculiar, but when I read a book, I expect to come across the scene on the cover, and I feel vaguely cheated if it is not there.

I don't think everyone can possibly feel this way. Linnea Sinclair has had some very interesting comments on the alien romances blog regarding a very similar thought.

As a reader, I'm not so bothered if the cover is an artistic grouping of artifacts, although... if there's a bejewelled dagger and a lace doily, I suppose that I do expect them to be used to good effect in the novel.

Please do not misunderstand me. I'm not criticizing anyone's cover or art department. I am simply sharing my inner thoughts about covers in general, and my gut reaction to the gorgeous cover of my next book... and the hazards of hasty research.

The colors are fabulous, and the artwork is sexy. I couldn't ask for a better looking cover (unless I was absolutely out of my mind). It's just a little more "romancy" than I had in mind.
An author friend who is a bit of an expert on cover psychology says that I should tell readers, especially male readers, to ignore the cover. But should I?

My gut instinct is that if the scene is on the cover but not in the book, then I have to --somehow-- write the scene and beg my editor to fit it in. Is that extreme?

If only they'd given me a bare-chested hunk staring out to sea (face not visible, so his features could not be wrong) or up to his waist in the ocean... I should have suggested that! I'm not blaming the Art Department at all. I was warned that I could not have a hunk in underpants out of respect for buyers' fine sensibilities.

Anyway, how many cover models would want INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL displayed boldly across their groins?

Verisimilitude is important, and there are times when you just cannot ask your more exhibitionist friends to commit an illegal act and tell you how it felt.

Illegal? Well I think you can be pinched for doing the deed on a public beach.

In case any members of the law enforcement community are reading this with professional interest, I must disclose at this point that the sea was too cold for my husband.

Suffice it to say that my scrupulous --and ingenious-- attempts at research took longer than expected. Either the tide was wrong (too far in or out), or the waves were too mighty, or too placid, or the sand was too gritty, or the light was wrong....

On the last day of my time by the sea, when my bags were packed and it really wasn't convenient to get my costume wet again, my dear husband and our child decided that despite the low tide, and a stiff onshore breeze, it might be fun to experience the surge of surf.

My mother went to get towels from the car, and we splashed into the North Sea (English Channel) to join dozens of screaming bathers and people surfing on one sort of board or another.
August. Low tide, but only a seven foot drop, not like the nine foot range one gets at the full moon or with the spring tides. For a month I'd watched the shallows at low tide for signs of sinister movement. That day... I forgot.

I did get to refresh my memory of whether there is any difference between the feel of sun-warmed masculine, muscled skin in cold seawater (as opposed to in a fresh water bath, shower, or chlorinated swimming pool) but it's not useable. I like to think that I can do almost anything with words, but I cannot find romantic synonmyms for "slightly slimy".

The chance of copping a romantically inspiring feel was not worth the risk I took that last day. If anyone in my immediate family had to step on a weaver fish, I'm glad it was me. I have very high arches, and go barefoot a lot. Thanks to that, only one spine got me, and it broke off before it could deliver much of the excruciating neurotoxin.

Knowing what had stung me, I flicked off the spine, got out of the water, got home as quickly as possible (luckily it was not far), and immersed my throbbing foot in the washing up bowl filled with water as hot as I could bear. And epsom salts. And more water.

That's what you do to draw out the poison, if you are unfortunate enough to step on a weaver fish or lesser weaver fish. They are spined, venomous little predators (they eat prawns, I believe) who like to bury themselves all but the spines in sand when the water is warm.

Keeping the water as hot as possible until the pain was gone meant regular top ups. My dear husband was especially enthusiastic about this, and had no compunction about tipping very hot water onto my toes (the arch area was what needed it). I noticed an odd thing. Near boiling water feels almost cold for the first second or two as it is added to hot water. Then the brain resets, and registers that the water is very hot.

I didn't even limp the next day, as I lugged (schlepped) my little family's three heavy suitcases from Guernsey, to Gatwick, to Detroit. I was lucky.

I'm glad to have my feet under my desk again.

Rowena

Tricking Oneself into Writing

2006-07-25T19:44:00.000-04:00

I envy authors who enjoy the process of writing. I love outlining (just call me weird). I don't mind minor revisions and proofing galleys. It's the work in between that I find laborious and slow. Maybe it has something to do with performance anxiety evoked by an empty screen.

In Peg Bracken's I HATE TO HOUSEKEEP BOOK, she discusses ways to trick oneself into cleaning. One way is to start several jobs at once. After you've got the laundry halfway to the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner out, oven cleaner sprayed in the oven, and the bed stripped, you have little choice but to finish the tasks.

Similarly, I've spent years looking for new and improved ways to trick myself into writing. Discovering FIRST DRAFT IN 30 DAYS, by Karen Wiesner, came as a terrific help to me. The "draft" created by this method is actually a very detailed, scene-by-scene outline that ends up about one-fourth the length of the finished book. The more detail I build into the scene-by-scene "formatted outline," the more wordage I can produce while continuing to fool myself that I'm not really writing, just outlining -- the part of the process I enjoy. The next step is to expand each summarized scene into a fully fleshed-out passage of narrative. Since I have a rough idea of how long it takes to expand a scene, I can plan out a writing schedule with more accuracy than I ever could before.

Another plus of this method is that I'm working with a template of the entire novel on the screen in front of me. So if I get a stray idea for a scrap of information, description, or dialogue to incorporate into a future scene, I have a place to insert it. No more jotting notes in my workbook or on loose sheets of paper and then forgetting where I put them. (Even though, as suggested in FDin30D, I now maintain a "story file" for each novel, I find it's still possible to lose track of miscellaneous notes in the folder.) This method makes it, if not quite painless, at least measurably easier to produce what I think of as draft 1.5.

Isn't housecleaning romantic when an alien does it?

2006-07-09T09:14:00.000-04:00

(Substantially, this is the same content as posted on my other blogs, Rowena Remarks, and Alien Romances)

Would I want to see a Mr Spock type vacuuming up my dustbunnies?
No. I don't think the spectacle would be either romantic or funny. Not for me, anyway.

I imagine that a highly logical alien, if confronted with the need to use alien household appliances, would locate the appropriate user manual, study the instructions, and carry out the domestic operation with great efficiency and a deadpan expression.

Maybe he'd raise a quizzical, flying eyebrow. Actually, that might be romantic in a traditional Regency romance sort of way.

Of course, in my home, a highly intelligent and efficient alien might have trouble finding instruction manuals. If I were to write a blow-by-blow account of the exercise, I think an alien would comment. His remarks would probably be very funny to everyone except myself, the butt of his cool wit.

I am sure many authors have written scenes where their aliens have issues with human housecleaning appliances....Dara Joy's splendid early novel, Knight Of A Trillion Stars, comes to mind. What was it her alien hunk attacked with his broadsword, thinking it was a rival? A TV? An answering machine?

That scene was so funny, and so "right" in its context. I really love Dara Joy's work. I adored Rejar, too. It was the cat that got me!

Is chopping up the furniture the closest that any alien hero has come to housework? If not, I'd love recommendations. Generally, I think alien heroes tend to be extremely macho. They are world rulers, starship commanders, space pirates, intergalactic diplomats or trading tycoons.... they have servants, or orderlies, or androids to do the domestic dirty work.

Maybe I just haven't read the right books. No one seems to wash their clothes, or scrub toilets in an alien romance. Susan Kearney said that her aliens' clothing was self cleaning (smart!!! and with nano-technology, this is becoming a reality). Intelligent spaceships have aircleaning devices that work a lot better than the monsters we keep in our human furnace rooms. I once thought of modeling an alien toilet on a whole-house vacuum.

Then I read a joke about a sexually adventurous man who did himself a mischief.

In FORCED MATE my alien prince does have a little bit of trouble drawing a bath, mostly because he takes a macho stand (sitting on its edge, waiting for the heroine to take her clothes off and get in) without realizing that human baths don't automatically stop filling once the water reaches a sensible level.

He also has trouble with a shopping list.

And... he has trouble with the heroine when she discovers that his spacecraft toilets perform automatic urinalysis and a few other functions and announce the results. Romantic? Maybe not, but it appealed to my low sense of humor.

And then, there's recycling. We all do it, I suppose. Like Susan Sizemore who blogged recently on www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com , I like military books. I find them a treasure trove for research, for instance for battlefield uses for urine (to make communications equipment work).

My heroine of FORCED MATE is grossed out when she learns how spacefarers obtain yeast to make deep space bread. But that's getting into cuisine, and housekeeping, rather than house cleaning.

My "thing" is to gaze at the underbelly of an alien character's lovelife and poke fun at it. And, you might not have guessed it, but of all the sciences in science fiction, Biology is my favorite.

I'll be gone for the next four weeks. Do you know the ins and outs of a crab's sex life? I do. :-)

~Rowena

July/August newsletter www.rowenacherry.com/newsletter
Warning, there is a completely nude guy in this issue.

When the high and mighty trip up (or when the low and obnoxious do)

2006-06-26T09:55:00.000-04:00

Last night I couldn't resist staying up much too late to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets --again.

My favorite scene, perhaps of all the Harry Potter movies so far, is the demonstration duel, where Gilderoy
is so busy posing that he gets legally zapped by Severus Snape.

At least, I'm pretty sure Severus Snape is simply quick onthe spell-casting draw, in neat dramatic contrast to Draco Malfoy, who cheats.

Why do I like that scene?
I find it immensely gratifying when a poser gets their come-uppance! Don't we all?

One of the most enduring themes in literature is hubris: the dramatic downfall of someone who gets too big for their boots.

If one cannot zap someone obnoxious, or watch them being zapped, it's fun to imagine warning them that they are about to get their come-uppance.

"Your High-and-Mightiness, you are in deep shit!" one of my characters tells Prince Tarrant-Arragon with great glee, in my next book, Insufficient Mating Material.

Ah, but does he live? History has shown that it isn't healthy to be the bearer of bad news.

An other program that stands out in my mind is Nigel Marvin's scientific documentary about the swings and roundabouts of a lion's sex life.

Actually that is my very loose, personal interpretation of what I got from what was a high minded and wide ranging program.

The up-side of being a lion with a big, dark mane is that the lionesses like you (and you have fewer parasites).
The down-side is that you have a lower sperm count. Presumably, it's the dirty, itchy, blond boys who get the job done.

I haven't figured out how I can work that quirk of nature into one of my alien djinn romances, but --trust me-- I will.

I wish you all an interesting week.

Rowena

New Concepts Publishing is looking

2006-06-18T08:27:00.000-04:00

New Concepts Publishing is looking for new short stories.
Have you all seen this?
I'm snipping from Andrea De Pasture's announcement
-------------------------------------------------------------

New opportunities for authors (Permission to post)

We have many new projects we're working on throughout this year and the next, and we're very excited about these themes. These lines/series are open to all authors, so please spread the word to any writing groups you're on or to your writing friends.
Also, please be sure to include the series title in the Subject header of your submission.

Kinetic Series—Releasing November 2006

The theme for this series is psychic powers. Examples include, but are not limited to psychokinesis, pyrokinesis, hydrokinesis, and other superhuman powers. Let your imagination run wild! Stories should be between 10,000 and 35,000 words, but longer novels will be considered. Genres can be historical, fantasy, futuristic, or paranormal/contemporary and can be in any locale or setting. Spicy or erotic sensuality is preferred. Current NCP authors can submit a detailed synopsis and 5-10k words. Non-NCP authors must submit full manuscript. Stories should be turned in for consideration no later than the end of July 2006.Send to submissions@ newconceptspublishing.com (no space)

Harmony™ Line—Ongoing release dates

We are actively acquiring high quality, original interracial and multiracial romances for this line. This line is widely advertised in print media and heavily promoted wherever opportunities arise. Romance genres we are most interested in are paranormal, futuristic, fantasy, and historical—spicy or erotic are preferred. Straight contemporary romances are rarely accepted for this line. Novels should be at least 70,000 words but novellas will be considered for anthologies. Current NCP authors can submit a detailed synopsis and 10-15k words. Non-NCP authors must submit full manuscript. More information about this line can be found on our website: www.newconceptspublishing.com/submissionguidelines.htm(We've had requests for more Domination/Captive themes for this line, but are not limited to this theme alone.)Send to submissions@ newconceptspublishing.com (no space)

The Brood—Releasing February 2007

The theme for this series is animal shifter clans, either of earthly origin or of the fantasy variety. (Please, no bestiality themes) Examples include, but are not limited to wolf, lion, bear, dragon, griffin, swan, etc. Stories should be between 10,000 and 35,000 words, but longer novels will be considered. Romance genres can be historical, fantasy, futuristic, or paranormal/contemporary, in any locale or setting and use any plot device, as long as shifting is used within the story. Spicy or erotic sensuality is preferred. Current NCP authors can submit a detailed synopsis and 5-10k words. Non-NCP authors must submit full manuscript. Completed stories should be turned in for consideration no later than the end of October 2006.Send to submissions@ newconceptspublishing.com (no space)

Enchanted—Releasing May 2007

The theme for this series is magical enchantments and curses. Examples include but are not limited to retellings of fairytales like Beauty and the Beast, Rose Red, Sleeping Beauty, etc. Stories should be between 10,000 and 35,000 words, but longer novels will be considered. Romance genres can be historical, fantasy, futuristic, paranormal, or contemporary, in any locale or setting and use any plot device, as long as the theme is used within the story. Spicy or erotic sensuality is preferred. Current NCP authors can submit a detailed synopsis and 5-10k words. Non-NCP authors must submit full manuscript. Completed stories should be turned in for consideration no later than the end of December 2006.Send to submissions@ newconceptspublishing.com (no space)

Inferno—Releasing August 2007Theme is summer and heat. These stories should be VERY SEXY and should include high sexual tension. Stories should be between 10,000 and 35,000 words. Romance genres can be historical, fantasy, futuristic, paranormal, contemporary, in any locale or setting. Spicy or erotic sensuality is preferred. Current NCP authors can submit a detailed synopsis and 5-10k words. Non-NCP authors must submit full manuscript. Completed stories should be turned in for consideration no later than the end of April 2007.Send to submissions@ newconceptspublishing.com (no space)

Sincerely,Andrea DePastureNew Concepts Publishingwww.newconceptspublishing.com

Out, Out, Damned Cherry Kool Aid!

2006-06-16T13:07:00.000-04:00

I could be Lady MacBeth (or Hannibal Lector) right now...my hands look like I've dipped them in blood! If you ever decide to dye your hair (or anyone else's) with cherry Kool Aid, do NOT forget to wear latex gloves.

No, it's not MY hair taking a walk on the wild red side. It's my daughter's. After spending megabucks on a salon dye job that started fading form day one, she decided to touch up her red ends with cheapo Kool Aid dye. Ugh. I'll say this, I will never again drink the stuff.

We used 5 packets of cherry Kool Aid. The kind with no sugar added (this is key). She wet her hair and I mixed the Kool Aid with hair conditioner, a dollop about the size of a quarter for each packet.

Then I smeared the whole mess on her hair (and also on the sink, the floor, the towels, my shirt, the dog...) I wrapped her hair in plastic wrap and she left it in for 24 hours before rinsing it out.

And I must say, it worked great!

Now, if I could only get the stuff off my skin...

Joy

Politics of nicknames

2006-06-11T14:21:00.000-04:00

Somewhere, apparently not here, I pledged to blog on Sundays, so here I am, but I must confess that I almost forgot!

Why? (How rude to admit it!)

I'm in the middle of an editing exercise that I'm finding fascinating. Recently... (actually May 31st -- I'm the sort of person who simply has to check facts) my Dorchester editor, Alicia Condon, emailed that she liked my suggestion that maybe the heroine of Insufficient Mating Material ought to have a nickname.

The heroine has a royally long, formal, hyphenated name. I began to feel that constantly repeating the full name was a bit tedious, but I didn't have time before my deadline to put sufficient thought into shortening it. I'm doing so now.

Have you ever given much thought to nicknames? Just because a hunk comes into the heroine's life, and he decides to call her "Ro" (for example) doesn't mean that she thinks of herself as "Ro" all of a sudden, when she has spent thirty years as Rowena, or Ro-Ro, or Janey, or I.

The rest of her friends and family won't suddenly start thinking of her as "Ro" or addressing her as "Ro". Will the hunk introduce Rowena to his friends as "Ro" or "Rowena"? How will Rowena feel about mere acquaintances using the "private" name?

Is this an alien idea? Different nationalities have different sensibilities about how they are addressed, and by whom. Factor in that the nicknamee is a member of a royal family, and life becomes really interesting.

Up the ante. Suppose the nickname isn't a variant of her given name... "Sugarpuss"? Suppose there's a slightly rude innuendo?

So, maybe only the hero uses the nickname. Does he ease into using it? At first, does he substitute "Ro" in conversation, where before he might have addressed the heroine as "Miss Rowena"? At what point does he wonder whether "Ro" can cook, and what "Ro" is like in bed. You might suppose that he wondered such things from a distance before he even learned the heroine's name!

Anyway, for what it's worth, this is what I'm wrestling with this week.

Best wishes,
Rowena

2006-06-02T23:14:00.000-04:00

Well, here's what's going on with me.

In two months, Cerridwn Press will have been sitting on JAGO'S PATH for a year, and that only a partial. Meanwhile two other publishing houses have been waiting for a full submission. Additionally, they have not bothered to give me any Status Check when I asked. Sure, I recognize that they're overwhelmed, but enough is enough.

So, as of June '06, if I don't hear from Cerridwn Press by August 1st, I'll withdraw JP from their consideration and deliver it to New Concepts Press and/or Amber Quill Press. And then I'll make the global changes to send it to Dorchester.

If things work out ok.

Inspired by a shark's underside

2006-05-29T17:37:00.000-04:00

I was making progress with my next book until a bad boy-shark's genitals got me thinking.

Instead of following the I 75 all the way to Florida for the Romantic Times Bookclub convention, I took a detour East through the Smokey Mountains to visit the aquarium at Gatlinburg. As a result, I drove on through North and South Carolina, and Georgia.

I also let my mind wander.

The concept of a male shark's claspers (which look like labia when not deployed) fascinates me. However, I am not about to give my alien djinn males claspers in their groins. A penile bone and a tattoo is about as far as I'm willing to deviate from the conventional wisdom of what is romantic and "normal" in a hero's wedding tackle.

The Gatlinburg aquarium is impressive. It has a very long viewing tunnel of three inch thick glass (it might be perspex) through which visitors progress majestically on a travelator while very large and dangerous fish swim overhead and alongside.

One hears how sharks have to keep swimming to live. Not these boys. Their bellies and genitals were pressed to the glass above the gaping tourists. I wonder whether the tunnel vibrated pleasurably --because of the travelator-- or whether it was warm, or whether the sharks are exhibitionists.

That thought led to musings about figuratively cold blooded heroes, which is unfortunate.

The logical choice for the next Great Djinn to find a mate, fall in love and live happily ever after ought to be Rhett, or so I thought. He's the elegant, calculating, slightly anachronistic swordsman, inspired more by Adam Adamant than any of George Lucas's knights.

However, if Rhett is too shark-like -- or too busy being an intergalactic statesman-- to fall in love, I may need to find an alternate hero for the next book. So, perhaps it is back to the drawing board for me!

Best wishes,
Rowena

Drive-by Posting

2006-05-08T17:16:00.000-04:00

Writing a book is tough. It requires slogging it out every day, every week, until finally there's something to show for it. So I'm going to do a quick drive-by Posting and Announce that I have started my new book. I stared it in the face a while today, but I won. I sat down and wrote a first sentence. Then I wrote another, and another and another. I crossed a few out. (I'm a throwback. I write first drafts in longhand...) And I wrote some more to take the place of those I crossed out. And by lunchtime--my usual stopping time--I had written six and a half pages. I almost stopped at five and a half, but I decided that I was going to write six and make my goal for the day, so I kept going, and didn't get 'round to stopping till I'd written a whole nother page. Ha! It's started. The bad guys didn't win today...

Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am....

2006-04-02T18:39:00.000-04:00

That Rowena Cherry packed so much action into less than 15,000 words is mind-boggling. It's hard enough when you writer Contemporary Romance or Historical Romance - the readers are "used" to these worlds so you don't have to fill in all the spaces. But in Sci-Fi Romance, you are really biting off a major task. Cherry does it and with style, originality and deftness that will leave the reader amazed.

It's a racy, razor edge of a tale, which will leave you amazed at how she does so much with so few pages.

~Deborah MacGillivray, author of A Restless Knight, Reviewer for The Best Reviews, Paranormal Romance Reviews, Sensual Romance Reviews & Rambles

His Mightiness looks for Romance...and coffee

2006-04-01T07:17:00.002-05:00

The god-Emperor Djohn-Kronos hasn't had decent sex in a gestate and is looking for a good time tonight, April 1st. His High and Mightiness will attend the Coffeetime chat at 9pm Eastern in hopes of meeting a few witty, willing, and pleasantly impressionable Earthwomen.

http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/ctr_chat.htm

Could someone shine a light on the dark paranormal?

2006-03-28T13:46:00.000-05:00

Dark paranormal. Everyone wants em. But I'm not sure what it is everyone wants. As a grittily determined author clawing toward first publication, it's a source of frustration.

What I think of as "dark" may be dismissed as just weird. Or too tame. Or (probably) oh-my-God-how-can-you-even-consider-putting-something-that-gross-in-a-romance-novel?

So what the heck is going through your minds, editors and agents?

Are you looking for the that classic noir feel, with the jaded narrative voice backed up by smoky saxophones and slow-walking baselines?

Are you looking for the hero and heroine to overcome life-or-death, or worse-than-death, jeopardy to find their happy ending??

Do you want the reader to be on the edge of her seat, wondering if the hero will win the heroine's heart or just rip out her throat?

Do you need one of the lovers to be a paranormal person, or can they both be human fighting a great mucking evil?

Are you looking for epic-poetic internal discourses about the anguish of sucking blood? (Please no, as I reader I beg you not more of that!) Or, you know, sucking anything? (This is a much better option.)

Or are you looking for Clive Barker-esque or Hannibal-and-Clarise-ish where the important people actually end up happily together? (Because that's what I want to read, baby.)

Someone deliver me from confusion!

Keeping the writing going

2006-03-27T00:27:00.000-05:00

It's a long slow slog through pages and pages of story. You just have to keep going till you get to the end, through orgasms and coitus interruptus, through sword fights and gun battles and curious fish and one blasted thing after another until you can finally write The End.

And sometimes, you get to pull stuff out from under the bed and look it over and think: "Damn, that's still good."

So, yeah, I mailed one of those to my agent on Friday. Let's hope other folks think it's as good as I do.

Should I have an orgasm

2006-03-25T12:22:00.000-05:00

In my book... of course?

I'm on tenterhooks, as you might imagine. I rewrote INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL to cut down severely on the scenes with psychics and playing cards, and to engorge the pages with sexual tension, and coitus interruptus.

Sex gone wrong --for someone else-- is so much more entertaining to read about than sex going right, isn't it? Or do I simply have a nasty streak?

I think IMM is a sexy book, but now it is on the editor's desk and on the way to a few of my favorite reviewers, I have started to agonize about a certain scene.

As I've mentioned, I'm severely restricted on page count, so it's not as if I could throw pages to the wind with gratuitous sex scenes. If I were writing for an erotica line, there'd be no doubt in my mind that the hero and heroine should not miss any opportunity.

But... oh, here's my problem... if I were on a deserted island sea shore, and the sea was cold --it usually is-- and I wasn't immensely confident about my relationship with the guy, AND I was afraid of getting seawater in my ears, I don't think I'd try to re-enact From Here To Eternity.

Would you?

Did Owein have an orgasm?

2006-03-10T14:07:00.000-05:00

Hey all, I'm just thrilled to be invited to contribute this snobby, literary-minded, upper class blog! But I mean, really - penises being bitten by fish, phallic rhubarbs, oral sex - how's a nice girl like me supposed to keep up with all that?

So I had to think long and hard (about 30 seconds) about the subject of my first post.

This is what I decided: In keeping with the august literary tone of this blog, I figure there are a lot of people out there who would just love to listen in on the high-brow literary discussions that go on between an author and her editor.

So here you have it, a real, honest to goodness recap of last week's phone conversation between me and my editor at Dorchester.

Setting: my day job

Time: just after lunch

Picture this: The phone rings. It's my editor calling from Dorchester. I immediately ditch the day job to talk to her. She wants to discuss edits for The Grail King, my August Love Spell book.

Luckily, I have the final manuscript saved on my work computer.

"Okay," she says, "page 177. What I need to know is, did Owein have an orgasm?"

"Um," I say, looking around wildly. There are a couple people - of the male persuasion - on the other side of the room.

"Because," she says, "it's clear that Clara had an orgasm, but I'm not sure if Owein had his."

"I bet you don't even blush when you say things like that," I say, blushing.

"No, pretty much at this point I've gotten over all that."

Since editors are busy people with no time for trivial things like false modesty, she forges right ahead.

"Since Owein is really vulnerable to Clara's psychic power just at the point when he reaches his orgasm, I think it's important to make sure the reader knows that it happened for him right here, before you go into the flashback."

"Um," I say again. "Okay." I eye the guys on the other side of the room. "Let me think about that and get back to you."

"All right, good. Now, on page 295..."

So I go home and print out the orgasm passage. I don't know about other writers, but I really like to see the words on an actual sheet of paper rather than on the computer screen.

It's a nice scene, I think. Owein has been trying to shield himself from Clara's psychic ability to see inside his mind. He's got some nasty stuff in his past that he just doesn't want to face. At the same time, Owein hasn't had sex in two years, so he's REALLY hot for some action.

Unfortunately, when Owein has an orgasm, he can't keep Clara out of his mind.

I realize my editor is right (of course) - I have to make it clear that Clara has made Owein lose control of both his body and his mind. After all, that's a romance heroine's job, right?

Here's the original passage:

Her passion broke. His fingers moved on her, sharpening her pleasure. A sob tore from her throat. Her body convulsed as she gasped his name.

The sound echoed in his soul.

Here's what I add:

It caught him and pulled him with her. Sensations expanded, until he could no longer keep them within. His pleasure broke, shattering what was left of his emotions. The door to his heart splintered.

Next line:

And suddenly, he felt her there, inside.

I was pretty happy with that. I sent it on to her the other day. Hope she likes it!

Blog with you later,

Joy
www.joynash.com

About that penis bitten by a fish

2006-03-09T20:13:00.000-05:00

I want to thank Brenda for the comment on an earlier thread... does he have to wank?

After mature consideration,
I decided that if the heroine was examining the penis for fish tooth indentations, that would be exciting enough considering all the things the hero could think about. That saved a paragraph!

I sent the manuscript in to my editor yesterday. It was 404 pages including the blank final page that said only The End.

The book is INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL, it is scheduled for February 2007.

It's About the Treatment of Women

2006-03-08T11:04:00.000-05:00

A Public Service Announcement:

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/billnapoli

Cute Advertising Ploy

2006-03-05T23:23:00.000-05:00

Hi all,

I was cyber-chatting with Joy Nash and she directed me to her site.
She'd done a cute advertising ploy, a psuedo-interview with her characters.
I thought: WHAT A GREAT IDEA! Especially since my www.dellishchronicles.net is sort of geared toward a neo-reality. (Have you all read Jago's welcome letter to new recruits?)

Anyway, I thought this was a great idea and thought to share, with Joy's permission of course.
http://joynash.blogspot.com/

Cheers!

stasis-- a way to get off the pot...boiler

2006-03-01T07:36:00.000-05:00

Sorry to be clinically crude....

I'm eight days from my submission deadline for a 100,000 word story (that I've been asked to cut to nearer 80,000 words).

Cutting left me with about 16 pages of disjointed story points and lines of dialogue or internal dialogue that I simply have to retain. I've been blocked on what to do about it for over a month.... a precious month.

Today--already!--, I realized that I should try putting some of it in the heroine's point of view, even though it was counter intuitive because the hero was eavesdropping on the heroine chatting with a hooker... yes, about his strange looking dork.

I had a boring but important preamble to the fish bites penis action scene, and I could not, as I've said, figure out what to do with it.

Eureka! It adds immense depth.... the heroine wants to be overheard!

What a really good rotorooter when you're stuck on the potboiler.

Best wishes,
Rowena

Fish bites Penis--a gorilla testicle?

2006-02-26T09:07:00.000-05:00

I need you to be honest, Bloggers.
Is this episode best kept as an out-take to showcase my sense of humor etc?
Or should it be retained in INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL at all costs?

This scene takes place on a deserted alien island, where the Earth-educated hero, Djetth, was marooned with Martia-Djulia, so they could mate. Martia-Djulia did not want to mate. Feya is there by accident. She used to be his favorite hooker. Then he had plastic surgery and a change of face and identity. The one giveaway is his unique penis tattoo.

Now, he has to find a tactful way to explain to everyone that all human males have designs on their penises.....

(Djinni is the girl he knew all his life, to whom he was once betrothed before Martia-Djulia's brother appropriated Djinni.)

If he happened to be exclusively sexually active with either Feya or Martia-Djulia, it wouldn’t be the thorny issue that it was.

An injury! That would be the way to go. For some mysterious reason, females seemed to find male injuries funny.

Djinni, at three, had rejoiced in calling his positor a ‘flopping bottom’ not that his Imperial Positor had ever flopped in her presence or in anyone else’s. She’d seen an actor’s penis on TV when she should have been fast asleep.

Was it absolutely necessary that Martia-Djulia see his ‘injury’ take place? What were the logistics of staging a penis accident?

Djetth cast his mind back thirty or so Earth years. Canderu! That was the way to go. Djinni had been fascinated and horrified by the phenomenon of a little Amazon river fish that was attracted by moving urine in the river water.

Apparently, this fish was prone to mistake a urinating penis for the gills of the much larger fish upon which it usually preyed. How could it make such a terrible error? Presumably it was a very short sighted fish.

Way to go!

If a male came splashing out of the water, clutching himself, alleging that a fish had bitten him there, Martia-Djulia and Feya might be maliciously amused. Surely, though, they would think it the most natural thing in the world for Djetth to examine himself.

“Something bit me! Slack damn.” Djetth swore volubly. Screaming was more than his Imperial Machismo permitted.

Feya, who was obviously feeling better, giggled.

“Shit, it hurts like the very blazes. I hope it wasn’t the sort of fish that goes up inside. I am sorry, Ladies. I'm going to have to inspect myself for damage.”

Djetth threw himself on to his back on the sand, tempingly close to where the girls sat, thrust down his trunk briefs, hooking them just below his bent and spread knees. Nothing was worth the actual loss of his trunk briefs and the lethal contents in the secret pocket.

“Whoa...that's horrible,” he groaned, knowing that females like to see anything horrible.

Moaning, he clutched himself with both hands, one behind the other, in a golf club grip, the little finger of his left hand hooked into the forefinger of his right. Peripherally, Djetth saw the girls exchange glances. They were interested.

“Fewmetty thing. Why the blue blazes would a bloody fish want to bite my positor?” he muttered eloquently.

The trouble with a bioluminescent tattoo is that the little organisms have a mind of their own. They only flash when life is gooooood.

Problem. How to wank without looking as if One is having a good time?

The "EW-w-w-wwwwwww" Factor

2006-02-24T19:18:00.000-05:00

I have been writing merrily away this week on the new book--and sometime yesterday, I realized that at least two of the elements have a very high "ewwwwww" factor.

These are elements in the book that have a very high likelihood of making a large number of readers who read them go either EWwww or Ick! This is not the same as a squick factor, which tends to involve sex of some sort or another. The Eww Factor tends to involve disgusting things. Like blood-guts-and-gore. Or used condoms. Or spit. And I had two of these kinds of things in the book.

Both things work very well in the story, make logical sense and create story tension and even some conflict. But they are pretty Icky. And after thinking about it, discussing it with my daughter (who thought one of the things I didn't think rated the Eww Factor was icky), thinking some more, and sleeping on it, I took one of them out. The ickier thing. The other's still kind of gross, but it's not quite so eww-y, and I just can't make myself take both of them out because it messes up the story logic too much.

I still have 37 pages typed in, and about 10 or 12 more written. I've almost got that proposal done...

Menstruation and Men with their hair on fire

2006-02-22T17:31:00.000-05:00

Please understand this: I have never considered taping up a guy's mouth, and certainly would not do it for a love scene, and I've never fantasized about a lover combusting with desire.

This is a summary of alleged findings of a UCLA study.
Caveat: I am reporting something I saw on another loop. I have not checked for accuracy. I have not been to scropes.
It may be a joke.
It is not in very good taste.

A study carried out by someone in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA
suggests that the kind of face a woman finds appealing may be different
depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle.

For example, if she's ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features.
If she is pre-menstruating, or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with ..... tape over his mouth ... on fire.

I actually deleted the original posting, but went back to it because I realized something.
At certain times of the month, I can stand to write ... let's say ... beyond my normal level of comfort.

Happy the editor who innocently chances to ask me to spice up a love scene as soon as possible if her request comes through when I'm at the appropriate time of the month!

Now, I'm going back to my work in progress.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Fruit Between Friends

2006-02-19T05:11:00.000-05:00

I filched this comment from the "main loop"--all due apologies--but thought, "What a GREAT thread!!" Where else but this blogg could we have at this topic, in the manner of our Spicy Group? Here it is:

<<>>

My first thought: "what are we gonna call it? The mighty shaft of love? The lance of manhoood?" But that was just my first thoght. Here's my second....

Quoth--> I can see it now: "Her hands tangled in his belt, frantically working the zipped.It hissed down, a sound of relief, freedom, and anticipation.Or had that come from Jimmy?At last. At last. He sprang from the nest of curls, straight and proud as a glorious, glorious rubarb."

Hum, brings a whole new understanding of Purple Prose. har har har!

b

Oral sex interruptus

2006-02-16T08:14:00.000-05:00

You must tell me if my postings are too vulgar. I would not want to bring down the high intellectual tone of this blog.
However, if I'm starting a thread about my writing progress this week, it has been gratifying.

I am now writing the oral sex interruptus scene.
Originally, there was a dirty dance interrupted scene, where the hero is destroying vegetation with his thwacker to the tune of chopsticks--which he hums, he is on a desert island--while the heroine admires his prowess and insensitivity.

Since my editor told me she needed only 400 pages from me, the dance had to go. Esp if I keep Montezuma. One really had to see the video that inspired the dirty dance scene to fully appreciate it. Unfortunately, I cannot think of another hero on my immediate horizon who would want to play an imaginary piano with his penis... a leaf banger, if you will.
Do you think I should post it on my website?

I thought cutting would be easier, but Insufficient Mating Material has such deep POV stuff about anger and jealousy and unacceptable secret thoughts that I'm having a hard time.

Rowena Cherry

Author Courageous

2006-02-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

Marissa did a great job explaining why we write, but I think there's even more to applaud in Gail's post. She didn't just write the book -- which is, of course, a monumental achievement. She is willing to share it, too.

A good novel, the most paradoxical of all the storytelling arts, requires that an intensely introverted and solitary sort (the author) hook up through time and space with someone they probably have never and will never meet (the reader), and together they create this magical connection we call "reading." That's such an inadequate word for the experience of a novel. You can "read" a tax form, a jury duty summons, a WalMart receipt. There's more to it when you open a novel and slide into the world the author created.

Without the benefit of graphics, or an actor to convey non-verbal communication, or a singer's voice to layer shades of meaning to lyrics, an author trusts that her novel will hook up with a stranger's imagination and create for that stranger the visions and emotions the author experienced when she put the words on paper.

If you think about it, the act of giving a novel to someone to read, and having that someone read the novel, is almost as intimate and mysterious and courageous as making love.

Either that, or I just link EVERYTHING to sex. It's a possibility.

Congrats to Gail and Marissa on their recent success! :)

Gotta do it

2006-02-14T12:08:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Gail posted on our goal loop that she'd mailed the ms. that was due on her editor's desk. (Brava, Gail!) She was now going to take a few days to do some character work and a few other things, and then get started on the next book.

Now, that's a writer.

A writer writes. There may be different reasons we write, ranging from "my editor expected it yesterday" to "I had an interesting dream last night and want to play with it". But they all boil down to the same thing--we write because that's what we do (after all, you wouldn't have an editor tapping her toe impatiently if it isn't). It's how we make sense of the world. We write because there are stories inside us that have to be told. Some days it's easier than others. Some days we toss out everything we wrote the day before. Other days the words flow, already polished and gleaming, from our fingers. But we write. It takes discipline and training, just like any other profession. But teachers teach because they have to, because that's the way their brains are made. My engineer husband designs wireless communications systems because he can't NOT scribble circuit ideas on napkins in restaurants (very embarrassing if we're eating somewhere upscale).

I know that I get v-e-e-rr-ry cranky if I go more than about two days without having written something. It's like a boiler in my head, constantly bubbling, and writing down what has been simmering in the boiler keeps the engine running smoothly. I know that as I get to the middle of one book, the next book starts whispering (or simmering, to maintain the simile) and gets told that it has to wait its turn. It may only be a page a day, which seems to be the case for me lately :( But I write, because I have to.

How about you?

The Post Office

2006-02-09T11:11:00.000-05:00

Eventually, in every successful writer's life, comes the moment when one must admit defeat--or success, which can sometimes be tougher to admit--realizing that perfection is not attainable this side of glory, and package that manuscript up and ship it out.

Sometimes this involves saving the file one last time, attaching it to an e-mail and hitting send. Sometimes it means printing out 647 pages, typing a cover letter, finding a giant rubber band that won't break when you wrap it around that monstrous pile of paper, locating an envelope that will fit around it (those free Priority Mail Tyvek envelopes from the post office just barely do), and then hauling the thing down to the post office. It's almost as much work getting it out the door as it is writing it.

Well, no, not actually. The writing encompasses several months (years for some writers) (weeks for others) of effort. The printing, packaging and schlepping only take, oh, a day. It is an inevitable part of the process if one wants to be successful. And it's one of the most nervewracking.

I mean, your baby is going out into the world. What if they don't like it? What if they hate it? What if--? Authors can come up with more scary what-ifs than anybody else in the world, because that's what we do. We make stuff up. We're professionals, for cryin' out loud! And it's almost enough to make you want to bundle your baby up and keep it under the bed where it's safe. Almost.

Thing is, if nobody ever sees it--nobody in a position to buy it and publish it so other people can buy it and read it--nothing will ever happen. It won't hurt you. Some people are perfectly happy to write lovely things for themselves and their families. And if that's where you are, great. But me? I'm going to go put on my tennis shoes, stick that humongous envelope in my RWA Anaheim totebag (the perfect size for mail runs) and hike down to the post office. After a while, it hurts less.

Monday Number Four

2006-02-06T13:12:00.000-05:00

Man, what a crap week I had.

Yeah, yeah, the Stillerz won the Super Bowl. But I had the flu and didn't put one single word to paper (or screen) in seven days. I wasn't sick enough to call off the day job, but didn't have anything left for the stuff that matters to me once I got the day job done.

This fills me with resentment. You can bet there will be writing done at the day job this week! mwah ha ha evil laugh!

How did everyone else do?

MONTEZUMA'S REVENGE--outtake?

2006-02-05T07:18:00.000-05:00

Where a human tries to explain the trots to an attractive alien....

“I can’t go with Tarrant-Arragon.”

“Oh, so you remember who he is, do you? Scary fellow, isn’t he? Gives hardy fighting men the trots when he is in one of his bad moods. Not so much these days, though.”

“What are trots?”

“Montezuma’s revenge, love. The squirts. Loose bowels. The runs. Trotting is just a slower, more vertically jerky method of running. If I thought about it, I’d have to say that a man might elect to trot if he wanted to clench his buttocks while moving briskly in the direction of a toilet.”

Grievous considered a demonstration trot around the room, but decided against. It wasn’t the image a suitor wanted to impress his future ladylove with.

“No, love. Even if you were back on your feet, and able to remember what the bad guy did to you, you can’t go to a party with Tarrant-Arragon.”

So, what do you think, Bloggers? Should I move literary Heaven and Earth to keep it in, or should I cut it with immense relief (since I need to shorten my novel by 100 more pages) ?

Rowena Cherry
INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL

Men and Their Nuts

2006-01-31T10:20:00.000-05:00

From the time they are little boys, men are constantly checking to make sure everything is in place. Boys are always touching, sometimes indiscreetly to make sure the package is secure. Like it's going somewhere? You don't see women doing this. We check our makeup, we know where our 'package' is, and it aint going anywhere. You see men checking the package, while playing sports, did it fall to the bottom of their jock strap? Did it shift position and feel good? Sometimes, they disguise it by adjusting their pants belt.

Men look down at their nuts and this THIS???

2006-01-30T10:20:00.000-05:00

Brenda, and Joyce,

Thank you for your encouraging comments.

A wanking scene!haahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!Any reference to used tea bags?

But I ask you, rhetorically, do you know of any men who look down at themselves and think:
By Golly, my nuts look like a used tea bag! :-) ?

I think the teabag simile is feminine POV.
I'm told that a male is so used to what he has down there that it doesn't occur to him to describe its looks any more than he would describe his forearm... unless there was something wrong/unusual about its appearance on a particular occasion.

What do the rest of you think?
Best
Rowena

Rowena Cherry www.rowenacherry.com

Male Point of View Masturbation (scholarly thoughts)

2006-01-28T09:28:00.000-05:00

BIAQers,

I have to share. I've written my male POV wanking scene.
First draft, reasonably polished, but not something I've ever attempted before, not --obviously-- having the necessary appendage. Anyway, my dh read it, snorted over a couple of lines, chortled over another, and passed it as being very "me" but realistic.

The only thing he questioned was that anyone would even think about having sex in a corset. He'd forgotten about what Madonna wore on stage at one point in her career.

Best to all.

Rowena Cherry www.rowenacherry.com

The Me I Do Not Want To Be

2006-01-24T21:28:00.000-05:00

Somebody at work today asked me what I write. When I told them dark romance, they asked "Why dark?" I answered, "Because I'm a pacifist."

On the way home, a man driving a large pickup truck zoomed up behind me while I was passing a wide load transport. I was going 60 mph, but yet he felt it necessary to drive right up the ass of my Buick as I passed. And I thought, very distinctly, that the world would be a much better place if everyone on the planet were fitted with high-voltage-delivering electrodes in their brains, and I controlled the button that turned on the juice. I frequently have thoughts like this, and not just involving electrocution. Sometimes it's flamethrowers. Or, my eternal favorite, the application of Baseball Bat Justice. I often fear that I have these thoughts more than I should. Hence, my commitment to non-violence.

But I can't deny the part of me that wants to breathe firey wrath, wreak vengeance and cause pain. So in my villians, my plots, and many times in my heroines, I let out the Me I Do Not Want To Be.

So you know, somebody better publish me soon or I'll burn down the world. hehehehe.

WRITE FIRST

2006-01-23T18:02:00.000-05:00

Recently someone asked how to get back into writing harness after taking some time off. I had some suggestions, and Joyce asked if I'd post it here. So here it is.

Write First.

I tend to give this advice a lot. Figure out when you have time that can be set aside for writing. If your kids are little, it may be naptime. If you have a full time dayjob, it may be after dinner. If you've finally sent your youngest off to school, it's going to be the minute they walk out the door. (I just sent my youngest off to college--and oh the peace and quiet--though he did leave the electric guitar behind...but it's quiet too when he's not here.)

Anyway, figure out when YOUR time is, and when it gets here, Write First.

Leave those toys in the middle of the floor. The kids can pick them up when they get home. (Okay, you may have to crack the whip a little, but it's good for them.) Leave the supper dishes in the sink till morning, or make the kids do them. If you have to wash clothes or go naked the next day, throw a load in the washer and sit down to write while it's washing. I've been lucky enough to be able to write full time the past 6 years (since before I sold), and I discovered very quickly that if I do not sit down to write shortly after I do my hair (I simply cannot do much of anything worthwhile if I don't fix my hair--bad (neglected) hair day = bad writing day), then I usually don't get any writing at all done that day. (I can put laundry in the washer, and dishes in the dishwasher, but that's it.) If I don't Write First, I generally don't write at all. (When I had a day job, I wrote after dinner. I didn't watch TV for years...)

Now, as for how to get back into the story. Go back and read it. From the very beginning, if you have to. If you don't have much written, read over your notes. Look back to discover what it was that excited you about it. I took a 3 week break from this !@#(*!&! book I'm trying to finish (In the next 2 weeks! and I (oh so foolishly) thought I was ahead of schedule) over the holidays, (The Cold from Heck that turned into The Cold That Wouldn't Go Away caused its own set of problems) and had to get my brain back into the story. I went back a couple of chapters' worth and read, so I could remember what had happened already and figure out where I was and where I needed to go next. I write from beginning to end, so I still have the end left. If that still doesn't get you where you want to be, you might try journaling about it, in longhand. Write down what bothers you about it. What you think you want to happen. What you like about the story. Somewhere in there, even if you don't find what excited you about the story to begin with, you might find something new that excites you, and you can fly with that.

Best of luck, and congratulations for making your laborious way through all that heavy verbiage. (And yes, I know I ought to be at least typing the silly book into the computer, if I'm not going to make new stuff up for it...)

I think I jinxed myself by naming it The Eternal Rose.

Gail (who wrote 31 pages last week, and STILL hasn't found the end)

NaDa, Zip, Cut

2006-01-23T16:41:00.000-05:00

I have nothing to report from last week. I had gum surgery that went well. So, today's Monday and I should be up and around this week. More later.
Dorothy w/a Yasmine Phoenix