From one Romance Diva to Another...

BRUSH STROKES by Jax Cassidy
Release date: January 10, 2010
Publisher: Amber Heat
ISBN-13: 978-1-60272-627-7 (Electronic)
*Heat warning: erotic, explicit sex scenes, language

For Sage, attending the Parisian sex club, Plaisirs Sombres, was the ultimate fantasy. So when the conservative gallery assistant is cloaked behind the velvet mask, she never expected to be the object of the club owner's desire. Spurred on by D.S. Gregoire's erotic and sensual brush strokes of the exclusive club, she gives into a brief liaison that leaves her breathless and wanting.

For Damien, known to the art world as D.S. Gregoire, his art has always been an adrenaline rush. But when an exotic and mysteriously uninhibited 'sex club virgin' enters his establishment, he is willing to break his club rules for another taste of the dark pleasures she brings him.


Author Bio:
Jax Cassidy followed her dreams to Paris, then Hollywood to pursue a film career but managed to fall in love with penning sexy romances and happy endings—finding Mr. Right was just an added bonus. She writes contemporary, paranormal, and multi-ethnic romances and is Co-Founder of Romance Divas, and award winning writer’s website and discussion forum. Jax is also known as one-half of the retired writing team of Cassidy Kent.

For more information on Jax, please visit her online at www.jaxcassidy.com or www.jaxadora.blogspot.com

News

Wow. So much for my resolution to post more regularly in 2010. It's been over a week since my last post.

Okay, from now on, I intend to post twice a week. But for now, a quick catch-up on the writing front.

I sent out my first new story of 2010 two days ago. "In Adversity," the tale of an aging, broken-down superspy who encounters a long-time adversary he'd long thought dead.

I participated in a workshop at the Cobblestone Press forums this afternoon, conversing with Sable Grey and a few other Cobblestone writers about writing goals and marketing ideas. It was a valuable effort, and I hope it will bear fruit. As a result, I've created a Yahoo group which I will be using as a newsletter to keep in touch with my legion of fans.

(Cue quote from Spider-Man: "Fans? I have fans?")

I've also set up an excerpt exchange with anothe author, which will be coming to a blog near you--this one--in February. Be there or be square!

Happy 2010, everyone!

So it's the year 2010 A.D. We're living in the future. The far future, at that. Far from my childhood, at least. I distinctly remember lying bed one night, having watched a television special about the (then) unimaginably distant year 2000, and all the technological wonders it would hold. I remember calculating how old I'd be in the year 2000, and was slightly shocked--and more than a little horrified--to realize I'd be OLD. At least, from the perspective of a child who was only ten at the time.

The year 2000 is now a decade behind us, and I don't feel old. But then, I suspect I'll always feel like that child on the inside, no matter how old I look on the outside.

But, anyhow. 2009.

In 2009 I Got Serious about writing. Starting if February or March, I began working at writing stories on a regular basis and sending them out. At the end of April, I was handed my walking papers by my employers of fifteen years. After consulting with my spouse, much of which occurred during a weekend at the coast, we decided that we could afford to let me pursue the goal of being a professional writer.

To that end, in the year 2009, I completed 18 stories and sent them out. I have received 24 rejections, have 9 stories outstanding (no response yet), and sold 5, all to Cobblestone Press. I also wrote a 50,000 word novel for National Novel Writing Month. It was my first novel, but it won't be my last.

For 2010 my intent is to continue writing short stories--to write, finish, and submit one story per week, and to keep the stories in circulation until they sell, or until I exhaust all the markets, whichever comes first for a given story.

In addition, I've set the goal of writing three novels this year. And, again, with the intent to write, finish, and submit them to at least five publishers each, and when/if a given publisher rejects my query, to send the rejected novel to another publisher. And to continue doing so until either the novel sells, or I run out of publishers.

It's a numbers game, really. If you're a halfway decent writer, you can sell your work if you're persistent. The trick is to write a lot, finish what you write, and keep it out there, where editors can see it and decide to buy it. You have to be willing to face rejection--everyone gets rejected. Even the biggest of big name writers get rejected; it never stops. But if you're focused on writing the next project, and the next, and keeping the work in circulation is just part of the job, rejections don't sting so much.

It's like being a salesman. Or a world-class home run hitter. The salesmen who get a lot of yeses get a lot more nos. Babe Ruth struck out far more often than he hit homers, but if he wasn't swinging for the fences, he'd never have made all those home runs. So this year is the Year of the Numbers.

Lots of stories written.
Lots of stories finished.
Lots of stories submitted.
Lots of stories kept in circulation until they sell.

I hope "Lots of stories sold" will be at the end of that list on January 1, 2011. But that part isn't in my control. Everything on that list IS in my control. So that's the part I'll be focusing on.

My latest release is now available!

Daisy Cooper's fellow secretary likes to think of herself as a bad girl, but she'd be shocked to discover her unassuming co-worker's secret pastime. Every weekend Daisy sheds her mild demeanor and conservative image to revel in the hedonistic pleasures of the notorious Soixante-Neuf sex club. She knows exactly what she wants from the men there--and she isn't shy about getting it.

She also knows what she doesn't want--emotional entanglements. But when a new co-worker stumbles upon her secret, Daisy knows things will never be the same. Her only choice is how to deal with the changes.

To read an excerpt, or to purchase a digital version, click here.

For more titles from Gail Roark, click here.

Signals From My Subconscious

No, you aren't seeing double. That's the title of both this post and my blog. The blog title is taken from this post. The blog title's been "Gail Roarke's Blog" since I first created it. Not terribly novel, but it had virtue of being true. I always figured I'd change it when I came up with a name I liked, and this was it.

The origin of the post title was my experience this week working on a new short story. It started out very well, but as I got deeper into it, I started to bog down. It got tougher and tougher to pull the story together into finished form. Today I realized what the problem was.

In short, I was finding it difficult to finish the story because I didn't believe it. I couldn't convince myself that the heroine (call her Patricia) would act as I was trying to have her act. It just didn't make logical sense for that character to behave as I wanted her to.

So I swapped out my heroine for someone else, another character I've had in my stable for a long while. Rachel, we'll call her. She's always been a bit player before: the sidekick, the best friend. She's always played second banana to Leah, who has starred in two published stories to date and will appear in a third early next year.

Today Rachel got promoted to star of her own story. Leah will be making a supporting appearance in Rachel's story this time. That change has worked wonderfully--some of the character "bits" and personality traits I'd added to "Patricia" turned out to be far more appropriate for Rachel, as did some of her backstory. The story is humming along now and should be finished in a day or so.

So where do the "signals from my subconscious" come in? The difficulty with finishing the story, my inability to believe my own plot, were (in retrospect) signals from my subconscious that I was going down the wrong path. Writing the story should be fun. I get to sit in front of my computer and make shit up and get paid for it. If that's not fun, I'm doing something wrong. I just need to remember that, and learn to recognize it as a clue to re-examine my story when that happens.

So, Rachel gets a promotion to star. As for Patricia? She'll get a story of her own eventually. Just not this one.

The Writing Life

I wrote a novel in November. Not a great novel, but a novel nonetheless. From now on I can speak of the next novel, because now I've written one. It was a interesting (and sometimes uncomfortable) experience. While I knew, intellectually, that writing a novel is simply a matter of eating the elephant one bite at a time, emotionally it was a much bigger deal. I was anxious before and during the Nanowrimo project, at least for the first few days. At some point it really sank in that, yes, if I simply sit down and write on it every day, I can and will eventually reach the finish line.

And I did, on the eighteenth of November, a little over halfway through the month--an average of 2,777 words a day. Not that I wrote every day. Some days I didn't write at all, most days I did 3,000 words or more. At that pace, a full month's work would net me roughly 83,000 words--and that's in the ballpark for an actual, publishable novel. Fifty thousand words isn't really long enough for a novel. But 80,000 words? Now we're talking.

On the flip side, I haven't done any writing to speak of since the week of Thanksgiving. Little or none prior to Thanksgiving, then none during Orycon, and none this week while I've been dealing with con crud. (Although, in retrospect, I suspect I picked up this bug from the grandbaby on Thanksgiving rather than at the convention. I started feeling puny on Sunday, which would have been fast work for a bug I picked up Friday or Saturday.)

I got an email last night from Cobblestone Press. They've accepted a fourth story--Three On A Rooftop. That's the working title, which I'm not entirely happy with, but unless I come up with one I like better, and soon, it's probably what we'll stick with. I just signed and emailed back the contract for that one.

I also learned that "Queen Bee", which I figured would come out in late December at best, or more likely in January, will be published in December 16th as part of their Twelve Days of Christmas--a story a day for twelve days leading up to Christmas. Go me!

But lest I get too full of myself, I got an emailed rejection for "Ink" from Shock Totem today. But I've already turned it around and sent it out to the next market on the marketing list. A hint from the workshop I attended in September with Kris Rush & Dean Wesley Smith in Lincoln City, Oregon has been very useful.

To wit: when a story is ready to mail, sit down and make a list of the top ten markets you want to send it to. Send it to the first one. When and if it gets rejected, just send it to the next one on the list. Lather, rinse, repeat. If necessary, when you get thru that list, list the next ten markets and keep going.

It's not quite that simple, in practice. I always check to make sure the market in question is a) still active, b) accepting submissions (a lot of electronic publications, in particular, have "windows" when they're accepting and when they're not), and c) hasn't changed their focus so they're no longer an appropriate market for the story. But once that's done, I send the story out. And it really does make it easier than researching potential markets for each story every time it comes back.

And speaking of stories in circulation, I've taken one story ("Unconventional") out of circulation. I've exhausted the markets for it in its current form, but I think with a little reworking, it would likely find a home elsewhere. So that's on my to-do list, along with getting back to writing every day. I have several story ideas I need to write (or finish) and get out there, several for Cobblestone Press, who seem to like my stuff.

Oh! And I got a review for each of my first two stories at the Got Erotic Romance website. Four and a half diamonds for Flying High, four for Bound by Convention. You can see the reviews for Flying High and Bound by Convention at these links.

From one Romance Diva to Another...

A fellow Romance Diva is being published today. Congratulations, to R. F. Long.


"The Scroll Thief: a Tale of Ithian" by R. F. Long

Love is the wiliest thief of all.

A Tale of Ithian

Malachy and his sister rely on his talents as a thief to survive the dangerous streets of Klathport, former capital of the once-great kingdom of Ithian. Stealing a few papers should have been a simple job. Instead, it nearly costs their lives and throws them into an improbable alliance with a shape-shifting official, a desert tribeswoman, and a healer of enchanting beauty.

Cerys is far more than a simple healer—and the roots of her mission go deeper into the past than anyone can know. She needs Malachy’s skills to recover a stolen scroll, one that can be used to rewrite history and, in the wrong hands, release the dark powers of the Demon Realm.

Her mission was supposed to atone for a dreadful, long-ago act. Instead, it unleashes a chain of events which sees them pursued through city and desert by the fearsome Dune Witch and a killer known only as His Lordship. Romance, tragedy, and adventure blend in a tale of a magical land on the brink of war, and five unlikely allies who, by putting their lives—and their hearts—on the line, have the opportunity to finally set things right.

But at a terrible cost.

Warning: Contains scenes of graphic violence and torture, captivating magic and beauty, two dashing heroes, three gutsy heroines, several love stories and a heartbreaking sacrifice.

BUY IT HERE!
Read an excerpt HERE

Another fellow Romance Diva is being published this week. Let's take a look at what Jennifer Leeland has to say about her latest work:


"The Christmas She Rules"
Control is her kink…and she’s losing it.

It’s another gloomy Christmas for Pamela Dane. Not only is it the anniversary of a dark period in her life, but all her friends had the nerve to hook up. It’s not easy for a female Domme to find a playmate. Maybe The Cage in San Francisco will be the perfect place to escape—and find a willing man to chase away the memories.

Christian Nolan is at the BDSM club for the hell of it. Yet the minute Mistress Dane takes control of him, she not only stuns him with her talent, he stuns himself with his willingness to surrender. Her offer to meet him there for another night is intriguing—and frightening.

Pamela’s session with Chris shakes her to the core, resurrecting memories she’s afraid to face. But Chris isn’t willing to let her past haunt her…even if it leaves his heart in tatters.

Warning: Hot, strong man on his knees, which will bring you to yours. Strap-on action, anal play, lots of leather and tons of tension. Alpha male who likes to do whatever the right woman tells him to do, including another woman.


BUY IT HERE!
Want a taste? Read an excerpt HERE