Guest author, Sasha Bailey


Brooke Molineux's deepest desires remained secret. Her colleagues respected her, her students feared her, and her husband treated her gently. But one night, when she was alone in her office, one of her students decided to risk his career to give some of her treatment back to her. Brooke seized the opportunity to admit how much pleasure she took in the pain he administered. His punishments opened her ability to love him and fulfilled her deepest needs, until she went too far, and he punished too hard—and opened up another level of her desire and fantasy.

That's the blurb for Torts, and it took me two weeks to write it. Whenever I read it, I hope it's short enough. My first book, Torts, is short. My attention span is short. I have trouble writing the parts of books I don't read. So I look for a few words that characterize a setting or a person. When I read my drafts, my mind wanders. I rewrite any passage that loses my attention. If it continues to lose my attention because I skim in order to get to the action, I know the plot is strong and I cross out that passage.

What about you? When are you reading so intently that you don't even know you are reading intently? When do you skim in order to find out what happens faster? When do you tune out? If you are a reader and not yet a writer, the answers to these questions might tell you what you write well and who will like your books.

You have heard this: write what you know. Yes and no. Maybe you have some werewolves or danger in another dimension. But the desires that drive your characters are akin to deep human ones and trigger ours. You have heard this: write what you like to read. Yes and no. I like to read cookbooks and the sports section. Both, however, are vivid and easy to read and tell stories. That is also true of Torts.

I have learned this: write what you can read. You will read your work a thousand times. You will read it when you admire it. You will read it when it embarrasses you. You will read it and feel like singing with joy. You will read it and think it is contrived. But if you read it and your mind wanders, cross it out. If you read it and it leaves you wanting more detail or another scene, fill it in. Make it into what you can read. Make it what you can read easily because your nervous system absorbs and moves with the rhythm of your writing. Make it a book that reads itself to you while you receive it. Make it effortless for you to read.

This is your style. No one else has it. But your readers are waiting for it. They are waiting for your book to flow into them the way it flowed into you when it was effortless for you to read. To those readers who are not yet writers: sit down at your typewriters and pour.

*****
Sasha Bailey is a crotchety old bag whose favorite book is the Iliad. Her Zen moments of complete peace take place while she does the crossword puzzle in the New York Times.
When she has no work and no ideas, or too much work and no ideas, she hikes or goes to the movies.
Torts by Sasha Bailey
http://www.eternalpress.ca/torts.htm
Erotic / BDSM without graphic sex scenes, 15,758 words
$3.95 US .pdf
ebook: 978-1-926647-52-4
print: 978-1-926647-60-9


Summary:

Brooke Molineux's deepest desires remained a secret. Her colleagues respected her, her students feared her, and her husband treated her gently. But one night, when she was alone in her office, one of her students decided to risk his career to give some of her treatment back to her. Brooke seized the opportunity to admit how much pleasure she took in the pain he administered. His punishments opened her ability to love him and fulfilled her deepest needs, until she went too far, and he punished too hard? and opened up another level of her desire and fantasy.

Please Welcome Guest Blogger and Fellow Author, LAINEY BAINCROFT!!!!

Hey, All! Thanks to Jenny for hosting me on her terrific blog. She and I share two of the same publishers (Amira Press and The Wild Rose Press) so I think it’s pretty cool we can share some promo ops as well. Promoting is tough, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get sick of regurgitating the same blurbs and excerpts every time I hit the web. For the record, I grow weary of reading them, too. Often I visit blogs and forums not only to learn of new releases but also to learn a little about the author behind the book and their process. So that’s what I plan to blah…’er, blog about today.

My name is Lainey Bancroft and I have a fiction addiction.

Oops, sorry. Wrong meeting.

I am Lainey Bancroft, and after a dozen book sales of various lengths over the last two years, I think I am finally branding myself as the author of humorous contemporary romance, but I am forever on the lookout to further entrench that brand.

In my research travels (which is a fancy description for surfing the web as a form of procrastination) I tripped across the survey site Measure Up Place http://www.measureupplace.com/ where I found some interesting stats. The one that caught my eye today is WHAT WOMEN WANT IN A MAN.

No, I’m not man shopping. I’ve been with the same man two decades now, and it took me so long to housebreak him I’m not sure I’d have the patience or energy to train a new one. But, hey, as a romance author—particularly one who pens contemporary romance—I figure it’s pretty important to understand just what contemporary women are looking for in a mate.

According to the survey, these are the top five traits:
1. Good Judgments.
2. Intelligence.
3. Faithful.
4. Affectionate.
5. Financially Responsible.

Hmm. Great list. If you happened to be in the market for a mate and found a guy with all those qualities, you’d slap the Husband Material label on his butt in no time flat.
So this is the perfect contemporary romance hero, right?

Wrong! Take away # 5 and you’ve got the description for a freaking golden retriever! Don’t get me wrong. Who doesn’t love a golden retriever? Hell, I even sleep with mine. (In a completely normal, he keeps my feet warm kind of way, of course.)

But write a romance with a Golden Man-triever as the hero? Snore. Ho-hum. I don’t think so.
For one thing, if you’ve got a smart, sensible, loyal, gentle, dude who pays all his bills on time, where do you go for conflict?

For another, I’m not at all convinced romance readers want to read about the sort of guy they want to marry. Over the years, I have fallen hard for some badass boys who did devious and deceitful things between the covers—of a book. If my man were ever as manipulative and Machiavellian as some of these fictional heroes, he’d be best to hide the sharp objects and Crazy Glue. (Hey, he knows what I mean and that’s what matters )

The trick for an author is to create a hero who is flawed enough to make a reader’s heart flutter, but also redeemable enough that he deserves to win the girl in the end.

When you part the pages of a new story, are you looking for a lifetime of love, or to enjoy a three hundred-page affair with a man you probably wouldn’t go near in real life?

For me, it depends on my mood. And for the record, if I’d answered the survey, I wouldn’t have gone along with #5. Financially responsible is all good but a little boring. Ultimately, my fantasy man is so filthy-freaking-rich he doesn’t have to be responsible. Just like the hero in my new release from Absolute XPress!

Cole has pots of money. But not for any of the reasons my heroine Maggie suspects!

http://www.absolute-x-press.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=50&osCsid=9504e7fb05b8af6d9d6d5b772d46aa8a

Jenny Gilliam Becomes Piper Foxx

I’m currently in the process of reinventing myself. All four of the novels I released last year were written under my maiden name, Jenny Gilliam. My father, who passed when I was sixteen, was a writer, so I wanted it to be a tribute of sorts to him. But my reasons for using my real name weren’t entirely altruistic.

When I was in high school, I wasn’t what you might call a “model student.” I grew up in the heyday of the grunge era. Let’s say I was a little (okay, a lot) weird to begin with. Then, suddenly it was “cool” to be different, strange. I shopped only at thrift stores, wore funky clothes, went to raves, skipped classes, and indulged in an embarrassing amount of drugs.

Suffice it to say, my grades suffered. J

I always imagined that, had I purchased one, inside my senior yearbook, next to my picture would read: “Most likely to end up in rehab.” And while that happened, so did something extraordinary.

I changed my life.

After I graduated (which I didn’t technically do, but I walked with the class anyway), I kicked the drug habit, got a full-time job, and met my husband (not necessarily in that order). I realized that I wanted to live a healthy life. I wanted to keep seeing my husband, but he’s not a big believer in self-medicating (Hmm. Weird.)

It was an extremely rough year, but I managed to keep my man and my job—in fact, I still work there after twelve years—and realized that life was much better lived without the pot, the meth, the ecstasy.

Hold on, there is a method to my madness; I’m just one of those gals who takes the long way ‘round. So, three years ago, when I decided to pursue publication, I thought, I’ll write under my maiden name. Not just for Daddy, but for me. To show all those people from high school that I made it. That I didn’t turn out to be a loser.

Yet, when my first novel was published in March of 2008, I felt no vindication, no “Ha! Take that!” moment. Then I began to wonder about my future. I’m certain I’ll make a name for myself in romance publishing. Jenny Gilliam already has. But what if I want privacy? Because I’m an intensely private person.

And thus, Piper Foxx was born. How did I come up with the name? Nothing terribly fascinating, I’m afraid. I simply wrote down some of my favorite given and surnames, then matched them up until I came up with Piper Foxx. So everything I write from now on will be under that name. It’s a scary leap, but I’m early enough in my career that I don’t think it will create that much of an impact.

Let’s hope so anyway.

WHAT'S YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE? PLEASE WELCOME GUEST BLOGGER, CINDY K. GREEN!




Inspiration & Guilty Pleasures

Guilty Pleasures—what a great title for a romance novel. Doesn’t it just evoke all kinds of images in your head? Well, come on, we all have them. What’s yours? Is it chocolate? Okay, if you are female and breathing that one is a given. Shoes or shopping in general?? What is it?

My guilty pleasure is watching period drama films. I love them! In fact, my sister comes over every Tuesday for a weekly dose of handsome, dashing men in cravats. I often wonder why I love the Period Drama so much. I’m sure it stems from my love for classic literature, history and romance. And darn it those lovely British men in cravats are just too beguiling. I did mention the cravats, didn’t I??

It seems that the Period Drama started a trend of reading classic literature again. When all the Jane Austen films erupted in the 1990’s, her books grew in popularity once more. And even now we have North and South (2004) by Elizabeth Gaskell. The miniseries starred Richard Armitage and was highly successful. How many of us who viewed the show had to read that novel after seeing the series, I wonder? We just had to know if John Thornton was as irresistible in real life as he was portrayed by RA.

I truly believe that this surge in the period drama has not only increased the reading of classic literature but of the historical romance novel as well. I know that after watching Rupert Penry-Jones play my favorite Captain Wentworth in Persuasion or James McAvoy as Tom Lefroy in Becoming Jane that I am primed and ready to begin writing my historical stories or novels.

How great it is to gain inspiration in your writing from a Guilty Pleasure?? We want to indulge in those pleasures anyway. Why not make it a practical part of your writing process. For me the Period Drama has jump-started my inspiration, fueled my creativity and assisted me in finishing a historical piece. In fact, just this year I had two historicals release. A historical western—The Heart Never Lies. And a post-Civil War historical—Dilemma of the Heart. Guilty Pleasures and Inspiration. Yeah, I like the sound of that. How about you? What are your guilty pleasures??

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Cindy K. Green is a multi-published author with degrees in History and Education. Previously a middle school English & History teacher, she now homeschools her own children and writes in several genres: Inspirational, Contemporary, Suspense, Fantasy and Historical romance. But whatever she writes she always throws in a bit of humor and fun. Find out more about Cindy and her books at www.cindykgreen.com and http://cindykgreen.blogspot.com/. To join her newsletter email her at newsletters@cindykgreen.com, and she will send you out all three parts of her FREE READ serial, “Valentine’s Challenge.”