Howdy!

Last night while I was trying to fall asleep with a huge headache brewing, I thought of the state of mind you have to be in to do different things. Work, play, whatever you are doing requires a particular state of mind. For me, I can't write unless I'm somewhere close to the zone. It's why some weeks my blogs will make sense and other weeks they will be just a bunch of rambling nonsensical words. If I'd got up last night instead of willing my brain to slumber, I would have had an awesome blog that I could be happy with. Instead, this morning I woke up with the start of a migraine and had to take some pretty heavy drugs. All my great thoughts from last night are gone but I'll try to amble along the right path to something that at least makes a tiny bit of sense.

Right now I'm pleasant;y exhausted. I spent most of the day making a costume for the RWA conference's themed dinner. My state of mind is nowhere near any kind of zone to be writing and I long for the warmth of my electric blanket so I wouldn't dare open a word document and start typing or editing. I do wonder if I was a plotter, would it be easier to manipulate my story when I'm out of ideas? So far all of my manuscripts have pretty much written themselves so far as the character is making choices and I'm merely guiding their way. I like it like that but if I already knew the end result it would be easier to get there. Wouldn't it?

Do you think when Stephanie Meyer started book one of Twilight that she knew exactly where all four books would take her? Someone asked me the other say if I write the book in parts and then slot the pieces together like a jigsaw. It never occurred to me to do anything like that but there is some logic in the question. If I wrote the end first and then the middle, would the beginning be a walk in the park? I have watched a movie where the end was the first half of the film and the beginning the last bit. I think it was a Quentin Tarentino so he can probably get away with it but my partner lost interest and didn't watch the beginning cause he'd already seen the end. Am I making sense? I think I'm confused...

Anyway now that I've got you reading what I wrote twice to try to work it out, I will tell you about the compliment a very smart man gave me but was worried that I'd be offended. He said something along the lines of "You are really good at dribbling shit and then making it make sense". I would never take offense at this kind of compliment and I knew exactly what you were saying and thankyou!! I'm just happy that people read my blog every week and I hope like hell one day soon I will have an audience to read my novels.

So, I'm hoping tomorrow morning when I wake up I will be in a better state of mind because I have to start planning my pitch for the conference in 3 weeks time. In the meantime, I'm going to work on lots of different things and put some thought into what a very smart man thinks me capable of...

See you next week =)

Well, it's been another week full of promise and then shattered dreams... Nah, not really.

I got my results back from the Molly and the Golden Claddagh and to say I bombed out would be right on target. The comments I received are priceless so it's all worth it but it is still really disappointing not to final. One thing that makes me feel so much better about my writing is my fantastic critique group. 

When I proposed to start posting chapters of my historical, some of them asked me to send my contemporary straight to them by e-mail because they wanted to keep reading! Gave me warm fuzzies for the rest of the day. Every time I send a new historical to my unofficial CP, she says I get better with every story. Even if these woman are just being nice, I'll take what I can get =) I'm not the greatest at handling compliments but that doesn't mean I don't love to get them!

I'm in conference count-down! I'm so excited about going to Brisbane next month to attend RWA's romance writers conference. A whole bunch of us from Adelaide are attending and the conference is at full capacity, fully booked out. I know I'm going to pick up so much usefull information to help my own wriitng but four days in sunny Queensland at luxury hotel... Who wouldn't want to go?

Speaking of going... I'm heading into town to go shopping with my girlfriend and then off to see an old school friend coming back to Adelaide for a week.

See ya!

 

Lets talk about sex baby, lets talk about you and me, lets talk about all the good things and the bad things...

Well, not the bad things. And lets try to keep it clean!

So many ignorant people think romance novels are just about the sex and that they contain no story line at all but there is a rule of thumb so many publishers go by, even erotica publishers. If you take the sex away, there still has to be some substance.

Even the hottest books I've had the pleasure of reading (J Hali Steele) still have a story line and damn good ones. Whether it's a rake taking a virginal miss, or a cowboy making love to a saloon girl or a twenty first century career woman dominating a stranger or even a vampire changing a human, the passion has to be real. If the reader can't imagine herself in the hero`s arms at that moment, then you`ve done something wrong.

Romance novels are about the ROMANCE, not the sex. The sex just makes it more interesting for people who want the spice. Every story must have a happily ever after (HEA) or a happy for now. Why would we want to read it if the hero dies and the heroine commits suicide to be with him in the afterlife (unless the story is about their HEA in said afterlife).

Some famous authors drag their sex scenes out for pages and pages. I won't name any, but personally I get so bored, I skim through it and get back to the story. My love scenes are just that. They are about progressing the story and getting to the realisation that my characters love each other. All good stories are about someone's journey, they have a beginning a middle and an end. There is no compromise on these three levels.

So what makes a good sensual, sex scene? I'm not entirely sure myself. Someone told me that my scenes are very sensual but I can't see much of it. I just write what seems natural for my characters. If I have a shy mousy heroine who is a virgin, she isn't going to suddenly turn into a dynamite in the sack. Sure, I can throw away her inhibitions and make her really enjoy herself but only because I think that's how it would play out. I always try to see myself in the room with the characters (I kow how weird it sounds). I wonder what they can smell, what they can hear, how they feel to each other. And then I take it deeper. What would his chest hair feel like against her sensitised nipples, how would the weight of her breasts feel in his hands with her hair tickling his throat. What would her skin taste like to him? What would she taste when she tentatively licks his neck and how does it make her feel the first time he... Well, you get the point.

Sex is a natural progressor of a relationship but it has to happen at the right time and for a good reason. Throwing together two strangers for a one night stand is interesting and new but why does it happen? Has she just been told she only has a few months to live? Is he trying to forget a recent break-up? Are they doing it for a dare or a bet? To be honest, I can't read Sweet or the kind of stories where anything intimate happens behind closed doors. I like the door wide open for all to see which is why I write Blazes. Great story lines, great characters and even greater sex. 

Now if you're a guy who is reading this, you are asking yourself where I get my inspiration? No, I haven't had sex on a super yacht, I haven't been laid down on a 18 person dining table and had my mind blown. I am a woman with an overactive imagination and I read heaps! I'd like to say that I have sex in public places all the time and everywhere but that isn't reality for anyone I know. When it comes to me and my man, my door is locked, deadbolted and barricaded. 

The point of a good read is to escape reality. I don't want to know about about a mum of two kids working part-time, studying and pulling her hair out with frustration that she has trouble paying the bills. I already know that story! Give me a hunk of spunk with an amazing body who is romantic and sensitive but still as rough as guts. *Sigh*, never going to happen but next time you want to escape reality and jump into someone else's life, or bed, go down to your local bookstore and find something that will make you smile and laugh and be happy. Or better yet, read my WIP's and let me know what you think or what you want to see. I reckon I could write on demand =)

As always have a great weekend and do something that will make you happy!

I'm having one of those days today, on the back of one those weeks. I have decided to change my blog days to Saturday. Friday's do not have enough hours in them. I racked my brain trying to think of a subject for this weeks blog and I was going to do something on writing sex scenes (they're not always about love) but now my Father-in-law is a regular follower (thanks) and remarked that reading this every week feels like reading my diary...

Sex might be out of the question (today) but it took me back to what I did used to write in my diary. Who I had a crush on, who sucked at school and why, those kind of immature musings but the diary was a way of blowing off steam. Face book seems to be another good avenue to a have a good old bitch about something or someone. I even had my very first old fashioned bitch fight on facebook which was interesting and an experience I'm not keen to repeat in the near future.

How do you blow off steam? I know I talked a little about stress releases but I think getting something off your chest is a much different concept. Some of us bottle things up inside until there is an implosion, or explosion, and it comes to a head with a fight or a nasty word or two that weren't entirely necessary. I used to do a pilates class and it was my release of the tension until I couldn't relax anymore and shut my brain down for forty minutes. I gave up. This blog is also a good way for me to blow off steam and get stuff off my chest.

For example, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T I GET SOMEWHERE IN THE CLADDAGH???? I haven't got the feedback yet but I do know I didn't final. It shits me to tears everytime I get news that I didn't final in a contest. Is it my writing? Is it my story? Is it the person who judged? How about a combination? Each time I send an entry in, I'm more than sure it will do well and the last few contests I only just missed out on placing but it's the 'only just' that gets me. Oh well. Can't win em all. I'd settle for just ONE!!

Hopefully I have more luck in the Molly (I have two entries in historical). Anyway for now, I've decided to concentrate on two historical undones. I have a western and I'm halfway through a regency. I'm starting to get impatient that I will never get published and patience equals frustration which equals anger. Not a good mix for writing romance. I just need to get my little toe in the door so I can get a foot wedged in there and eventually climb through into the unknown. I may post some of my western undone (only 15,000 words) and you can let me know what you think? Let me know if you get lost or bored?? I'll put it up in a few days. In the meantime, this is fair warning that next week I intend to talk about writing a sizzling sex scene so if you are a prude, or Rob, maybe give next week a miss. Let me know with some comments if you want to know anything about me or my writing and I'll try to get back to you or address it in next weeks blog. If you have time head over to the new tab 'Short Stories' and check ou

Thanks for hanging in there :)

See ya!