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.

The Pleasures and Perils of Audiobooks

To audiobook or not to audiobook...

What was the question again?

 I mean, this topic could be do we listen to them or do we like to have the books we write in audiobook format?

My answer to both: YES!

(By the way, the awesome pic above is my superheroine alter ego, provided to me by sister Word Whore, Linda Robertson. Isn't it PERFECT?)

Okay, back to the topic at hand. I love listening to audiobooks. They make doing housework actually pleasurable. I'm always looking for more opportunities to fit in reading time, so being able to listen to a book while I take care of necessary chores is awesome.

I also love that my books are sometimes converted to audiobook format. I wish they all were! So far, of the eighteen books I have out (as of July 13, with the release of my latest erotic romance UNDER CONTRACT), five are available in audio format. I particularly love the cover they made specially for the audio version of THE MARK OF THE TALA. Because I'm working primarily with traditional publishing, whether to produce an audio version of my books is not up to me. I've never gone that way with any of my self-published books, but I'm considering it. At a signing for the THE TALON OF THE HAWK, a faithful reader asked if there were plans to put the other Twelve Kingdoms books in audio. She's already read them all, but she likes to listen to her favorites while walking. I had to tell her "not yet," which is all my publisher will tell me. If they don't do it, I might see if I can get the rights to do it on my own.

One thing I notice about my audiobooks, however, is that reader ratings are significantly lower for them than other formats - by pretty much an entire star. I think this is related to the impact the narrator has on the experience. Jen Twimom has a great series on her review blog called Listen Up! where she specifically reviews audiobooks. She tries to split out the story from the narration, which I appreciate. The biggest error in all of my audiobooks - which makes me cringe every time I think about it - is with RUBY. My New Orleans chef hero calls the heroine "chère," which is a common endearment in that region. But it's pronounced like "share," and the freaking narrator pronounced them all as "sharee." Which is French (though it would be spelled "cherie"), NOT New Orleans.

Alas. So it goes.

What do you all think? Do you like audiobooks? Any cringeworthy tales to tell?

Three Ways to Add an Important Character: the Environment

When I first nursed the fragile and unlikely idea of becoming a writer, I took a class called "Essays on Self and Place." It was taught by a visiting writer at the university where I was a grad student in Neurophysiology. In other words, I felt both brave and... I'm trying to think of the right description. Not afraid so much as kind of a fraud. I didn't have any good reason to think I could make a career as a writer instead of as a scientist, as I'd planned and invested in. And I felt like every-other person I mentioned the idea to replied that, oh yes, they wanted to be a writer, too!

It's a difficult transition to make, so to all of you out there contemplating taking that step, I get it.

At any rate, I took that class with that writer mostly because of timing. I wanted to get going on seeing if I could be a writer, the evening class fit my schedule, was open to people outside the department and degree program - and sounded interesting. So much serendipity smiled on that choice.

I think I've always been strongly connected to my environment. My interest in science grew out of a love for the natural world. Where I live is vitally important to me - so much so that it took me a long time to get that not everyone felt the same way. This course, where we focused on writing about our connections to place and how they shaped us, crystallized that for me. My first published works - essays, naturally - came out of that class. Amazingly fast, too, which came as incredibly important validation for that step.

Though I've moved into writing fiction now, place still plays a vital role in my work. Sometimes deliberately - the City of New Orleans is pretty much another character in Ruby, something many readers love about that story - but place also plays a role in the world-building in my fantasy books too. At a booksigning, a reader asked me about my academic background and when I explained my crooked path from biology to fiction-writing, he nodded and said that explained so much about why my Twelve Kingdoms environment feels so intricate and real.

Which is terribly cool!

So, how to make the environment be a character? Here are three ways to start:

Pick a Place

This might seem like a no-brainer, but the place in which a story occurs is a vitally important decision. It should be more than whether this is a city or the country. If a city, how old is it? What kind of people live there? Is it coastal or land-locked? Think about how the humidity rises and falls, what kinds of storms the area experiences (see below). Even in city environments, there is wildlife, if only rats and pigeons. In rural areas, other kinds of animals might come in, particularly if looking for food because of other forces of nature like drought or a bad winter. The more detail of this sort (which doesn't all have to be on the page, see this post), the more vivid the place will be.

Know the Weather

The weather should be more than the cliché dark and stormy night. Place is profoundly impacted by how variable or steady the weather is. Is it usually cloudy and rainy like the Pacific Northwest? Is it a sunny desert? How does the changing weather - or lack of change - affect the moods of the people living there? In The Mark of the Tala and The Tears of the Rose, some of the action takes place at Windroven, a castle built on a dormant volcano on the coast. The storms and tides of that place play a role in what happens - for example, in a siege situation.

Be Aware of the Sun(s) and Moon(s)

The length of the day and night can affect what the characters can and can't do. Beyond what season it is, be aware of how early or late the sun rises and sets. What is the moon cycle? If not on earth, how do perhaps multiple moonrises affect the amount of light? A night with a full moon is very different than one with at the dark of the moon. Are the sunsets spectacular or always behind wall of fog? These things can be backdrops for scenes that help set the mood and influence the characters decisions.

Obviously this is a big topic, but there's some places to start. What details about place do you like to see in books? What's an example of a book you love where the environment feels like another character?

Playlists - Does Anyone *Really* Care?

We’re on our way back from Telluride today, driving through the rain on an unseasonably cool and misty morning. Yesterday we ate lunch by a firepit in the ski village and drank Irish coffee. Delightful, but possibly my coldest birthday celebration ever.

Feels like it could be an early fall. Makes me want to go out and pinch caterpillars to assess their furriness quotient.

This week’s topic is all about playlists. Do we make writing ones, do we make specific playlists for certain books, do our readers care.

I really wonder about that last one.

But, I’ll address the questions in order.

I do make writing playlists, but not nearly as often as I used to, and now usually only for specific reasons. 

When I first started writing novels, trying to build a consistent ritual of working and producing a reliable body of work each day, I used music as a tool. It was much more difficult for me then to get in the correct frame of mind to sink into the story and gather up the threads. I learned to rely on ritual to get me there – certain clothes, certain timing, a pattern of entry into that world. From very early on, I found that the soundtrack to The Mission would get me there. The opening strains of On Earth as It Is in Heaven, soft strings vibrating into life, would transport me and the words would flow.

For a long time I just played that, over and over. Then I added to it – the soundtrack from Master and Commander and then Billy Joel’s classical piano album, Fantasies and Delusions. To this day, the playlist sits in my iTunes, labeled “Writing Music.” A relic, in many ways.

Because I don’t really need it anymore.

Like a professional athlete, I’ve spent enough time and effort training now that I don’t need to trick myself into producing word count. In fact, nearly all of the time, I prefer total silence now. Not only do I not need the music, it’s a distraction.

The only exception is when I’m deliberately trying to create – or retrieve – a mood that I’m having trouble getting at. I did this last year, when I was writing Ruby, my New Orleans steamy romance that came out in May. I really wanted to capture that ineffable New Orleans vibe, so much of which comes from the music. The story mainly takes place in the French Quarter, in restaurants and clubs. There’s even dancing. So I made a Ruby playlist, composed of many of my old favorites. That meant buying a lot of the songs, as much of my collection had been on cassette tapes.

I also needed one song in particular that wasn’t Cajun or New Orleans. You’ll see why.

I only listened to it some. Once I got the groove, I went back to writing in the quiet, with the music playing in my head for just the characters to hear.

So here’s that playlist.

501 Boogie                                    Professor Longhair
Zydeco Gris Gris                            BeauSoleil
Tipitina                                           Professor Longhair
Thank You Pretty Baby                  Professor Longhair
She Walk Right In                          Professor Longhair
Ruby Tuesday                                The Rolling Stones
No Buts and No Maybes               Professor Longhair
Madame Bozo                               BeauSoleil
La Valse du Malchanceux               BeauSoleil
Kolinda                                          BeauSoleil
Junco Partner                                 Professor Longhair
Jongle a Moi                                  BeauSoleil
It's You I Love                               BeauSoleil
Hey Little Girl                                Professor Longhair
Gonna Leave This Town                Professor Longhair
Gone so Long                               Professor Longhair
G Jam                                           Professor Longhair
The Flame Will Never Die             BeauSoleil
Fais Pas Ca                                  BeauSoleil
Every Day I Have the Blues          Professor Longhair
Dr. Professor Longhair                  Professor Longhair
Dimanche Apres-Midi                   BeauSoleil
Chez Seychelles                            BeauSoleil
Cherry Pie                                    Professor Longhair
Cabbagehead                               Professor Longhair
Big Chief                                      Professor Longhair
Beausoleil Boogie                         BeauSoleil

So… now you tell me, lovely readers. Do you care? For those who haven’t read Ruby, does the playlist intrigue you? For those who have, is it fun knowing?

I’ll give a book away to a randomly selected winner – either one of mine or one from the pile ‘o books still left from summer conference season!

He Said. She Said. We Snorted.

Ruby releases tomorrow!

Thus I have my Pimping Party Prom dress on and am shamelessly cross-posting this at the Here Be Magic blog as well.

And, to complete the pimpage, here are a couple of reviews posted to today for it here and here. One is also in French, should you care to stretch those neurons you haven't used since high school.

So, this week's topic is "Dialogue Tags: He Said, She Asked, They Exclaimed ... when to use what."

I'm a really bad person to kick off this topic because, if there's one thing my Carina editor, Deb Nemeth, consistently hammers me for, it's dialogue tags. If she and I were married, this would be the one thing she'd say she'd change about me. She'd say it to the marriage counselor with a deep and heartfelt sigh, while I sat on the other corner of the couch, arms folded defensively.

Because I don't WANT to change. I feel like she should love me for who I am.

See, this comment comes directly from my most recent round of edits with her:

Most of the line edits are to correct punctuation surrounding dialogue. You have a habit of punctuating tags as beats and vice-versa. This technical aspect to craft is something I’d appreciate you paying closer attention to when you self-edit book three before sending it in to me, not only because it’s rather time-consuming to make these corrections, but because I’m always afraid the copyeditor and I won’t catch them all. Use the comma + lower case only for bona fide tags, a period + initial cap for beats. Note that laugh, snort, told, said it (as opposed to plain said) are beats, not tags. Let me know if this isn’t clear. 

How she hurts me.

Really, I think she'd be happy if I just used "said" a lot more. The thing about "said" as in:

"I hate when you harp on my dialogue tags," she said.

is that our readerly eyes go right over it. It's nearly invisible. Studies have actually shown this. Our brains process what the character expressed and register the "she said" part like punctuation. But you guys know me - I'm just not that sweet and obedient. My characters don't just SAY things - they snort them! They laugh out words and sometimes they hiss them!

(This is another of my editorial world pet-peeves - there's this "rule" that you can't have someone hiss what they're saying unless there are sibilants in the word. So you can have

"Sheer bliss," she hissed.

but not

"Get out," she hissed.

I don't know about you people, but I can totally hiss "get out." I may or may not walk around the house hissing words that my editor inSISTS can't be hissed.

Not that I'm bitter.

Amusingly, one of my publishers - Ellora's Cave - officially reversed their policy on the hissing thing. So my EC characters can hiss anything they damn well want to while my Carina ones can only hiss with sibilants in the words. I don't know where Kensington will weigh in yet.

The upshot for me is, even though my editor - who really does love me in every other way - calls this a craft issue, I view it as an editorial one. Some editors care passionately about dialogue tags, others do not. I had one editor who really disliked parenthetical asides. (You can just imagine how well we got along.)

For me, it's voice, which I'm going to stick to as much as I can. I'll bow to editorial decisions and house style, which is part of being a professional writer, but if I can get away with a bit of dialogue snorting, I'm going to do it every time.

After all, she knew it when she married me.

How I Clean Up My MSS Before Sending

A photo from our freezing fog the other day. (Another picture here.) I love the pattern of frosted vine and shadow. Layers upon layers.

Last week, my editor, the fabulous Deb Nemeth, and I finished up the copy edits on Ruby, the third book in my Facets of Passion series. (Amusingly, I tried to link to the series on Amazon, instead of just book 2, which I ended up doing. When I searched, Amazon asked me if I meant "Faucets of Passion." I'm totally writing that next!

At any rate, all the editing for Ruby went really fast, which was particularly great because we did them over the winter holidays, to meet a sale date four months earlier than expected. However, they also went faster because I've gotten smarter.

This is the fourth publication I've done with Deb. I know by now what she looks for and I've - gasp! - started fixing them before she asks me to. I actually created a checklist for my final polish before I send something back to her, to remind myself of my common errors.

So, that's why I suggested this week's topic of what kinds of final checks we all make before sending a manuscript. I'm really interested to hear what everyone else does. (And may add to my own list.)

Here's mine:

• Search for [ ]

While I'm writing along, if I can't think of a word, want to check the brand name, need to check the previous book, etc. - basically anything that would halt the writing flow - I put it in square brackets as a placeholder. Sometimes I forget about them. My CPs usually catch them, but they shouldn't have to.

• Search for “now” 
• Search for “just” 

"Now" and "just" are my usual verbal tics. I use them ALL THE TIME. It drives me crazy. I don't even know I'm doing it. Most of them can just (see???) be deleted. Sometimes I have to restructure. I leave some in, but not fifty-million.

• Replace towards with toward 

This is a Carina Press house rule. For some reason I'm addicted to towards, which is apparently more British. I fix them as a last step.

• Search for endearment of the day 

Another of my tics. I have a name-thing. Most of my stories play with names and what people call each other. I don't know why I have this - I don't plan it out at all. But it ends up being fundamental to the characters and their interaction and sometimes their transformation. But I overdo it and Deb is forever asking me to reel it back. 

• Search for actions as dialogue tags. 

Another Carina house rule, but that's probably good for me to learn. An example would be: "No," he picked up the chicken and threw it at her, "I won't cook you dinner!" I tend to construct this way. It would change to: "No!" He picked up the chicken and threw it at her. "I won't cook you dinner."

 (I feel like I should caveat that the above example is not an actual line from Ruby, or from anything else I would ever write. Chickens are not for hurting.)

• Search for overused dialogue tags. 

Deb always reminds me that "said" and "asked" are just fine and are nearly invisible to the reader. I have to go through and remove a certain percentage of my livelier tags and tone it down a bit.

 So, there's my dirty editing laundry! What does everyone else do??