Do It, Baby - Make Me Hungry!

Yes, Yes - the blog header says we're Science Fiction and Fantasy authors, but *some* of us (cough), write in other genres. Like me, with my contemporary, erotic romances. When this week's topic, What Novels Made You Literally Hungry, came up (appropriate enough, with this being the week of U.S. Thanksgiving, the holiday of gluttony), I immediately thought of my own book, RUBY.

I wrote this book at the urging of a friend, in fact, who really wanted me to write a story where food and sex intertwine. This one juxtaposes a self-disciplined, driven woman in the fashion industry who watches every calorie she eats with a New Orleans chef and owner of a five-star restaurant. He courts her with food - and all kinds of sensual indulgences.

Danielle Sosna has no problem denying herself in order to achieve her goals—after all, that attitude landed her a dream job at Vogue Paris. But in New Orleans for one last assignment before heading overseas, she’s faced with the most decadent of temptations. Seductive Cajun chef Bobby Prejean takes Dani’s strength of will as a challenge, and offers her a night of wild indulgence—if she will agree to obey his every command.

Dani can’t resist Prejean’s invitation to join him in a world of carnal desire, complete with fetish costumes and masks. Determined to keep her emotional distance, she gives Prejean everything but her name. A night becomes a week, as she spends Mardi Gras suspended in the delicious space where pleasure meets pain.

Too late, she realizes the cloak of anonymity has not protected her—and that chasing her dream might come at the expense of her heart.

I'll tell you what - WRITING this book made me hungry! Any time a new reader picks up this story, I get messages, cursing me for making them hungry. One blogger, the fantastically creative Elisabeth Lane at Cooking Up Romance, even recreated one of Bobby Prejean's recipes that he feeds Dani.

In an interesting coincidence (maybe not - holiday of gluttony and all...), another of Bobby's recipes will be featured at Pearl's Inner Goddess Forum. She's doing a series on Feisty Foodies: Recipes and Reads from Romance Authors, which will include Bobby's Gingerbread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce.

It's a funny thing, and a conversation Elisabeth and I have had, that romance books tend to be much better for food inspiration than SFF, in general. She thinks this is because SFF characters spend so much time running around, questing and eating field rations. She has a point there.

However, one in-genre author who does *fantastically* at this is Jennifer Estep in her Elemental Assassins urban fantasy series. Her heroine, Gin Blanco, is an assassin, yes - but also owns a barbeque restaurant. Throughout each story, Gin - who cooks when under stress - serves up the greasiest, sweetest and unhealthiest home-cooking you've ever read. With all the characters forever in danger of death, this works out for them, but if you plan on living to old age, watch the cravings this addictive series induces!

Total autobuy series for me, book #14, BITTER BITE, comes out in February! Yes, I've totally preordered mine. With the holiday time-off coming, you all have time to catch-up on this action- and food-packed series. It reads super-fast. You can do it.

Working Up My TED Talk

I always say that one of the best perks of being an author is befriending other authors I love to read. Here's me and the amazing Jennifer Estep at the RT Convention. I have mad love for her assassin heroine Gin and her Elemental Assassin series. And not only because she's up to 14 books in that series. The woman is a powerhouse. Dayum. We got to sit and have a long conversation, which is just my favorite things about conventions - picking each others' brains, hearing other perspectives on both our art and the business.

It's like having a week's worth of intimate TED talks.

I'm fascinated by TED talks and listen to/watch them over the internet from time to time. Which is saying a lot because I really don't like to spend the chunks of time that can require. My days are pretty packed and stuff like that feels like a diversion from the work I need to accomplish. But I also love the concept - "Ideas Worth Spreading" - and some of the talks have really opened my mind. Some favorites are Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking, Stella Young's incisive breakdown of "Inspiration Porn," Eli Pariser's eye-opening discussion of online "filter bubbles," and Elizabeth Gilbert's wonderful discussion of creative genius.

(Apologies if I just sent you down a rabbit hole of TED talk watching...)

At any rate, I contemplate sometimes what I would say, given the opportunity to give my own TED talk, which is why I suggested this topic for the Bordello. I figured it would make me think about it in a more focused way and I want to hear what the other Word Whores would say.

But when I sat down to write this post, I still didn't have a clear idea. I have about ten-thousand pieces, but not a single, concise thought. Which left me feeling daunted until I realized that's partly what the TED process is about. A colleague of mine - from the day job - did a local one on drinking water. She told me that she worked and reworked her talk with extensive coaching from the TED people. They kept telling her that they didn't really feel her passion for clean drinking water and that it was a revelatory process for her to dig into what that really meant to her.

The point then, I suppose, is that I wouldn't need a perfectly clear concept to begin with. That's how essay-writing always worked for me. I started with a nugget of an idea, a pivotal moment, and explored it. That's how I cemented my process of writing for discovery, no doubt.

I think I'd want to talk about balance, the concept of the middle path. In my bio, I used to say that I'm a fence-sitter - something I later took out because people interpreted that as me being indecisive, neither here nor there, which isn't very accurate. No, by that I mean that I'm a right-down-the-middle person. On most tests, I come out balanced. I'm equally right- and left-brained. My writing voice is equally male and female. I'm neither Type A nor Type B, but an equal measure of both. Though I come out as an INTJ on the Meyers-Briggs test, I'm mildly so on all four parts and could easily tip into the opposite designation.

Which is why it should be no surprise that I'm both a scientist and a writer of romance and fantasy. Once I told my agent a true story that involved me using a pendulum to dowse and how I inadvertently caught the attention of something vengeful and not-quite human. He exclaimed, "My God, Jeffe - you're a scientist!"

Yes, I am.

And as such, I'm a believer in empirical evidence. This is why I double-majored in college, in biology and comparative religious studies (another two-sided aspect) - because I see both sides of the world. That which is material and that which is immaterial.

That is what I'd talk about.

Wouldn't it be fun if I got to, someday?