Rediscovering My Compass: Heidi’s Reread and Review of Jude Deveraux’s A Knight in Shining Armor

In 1990 I was a senior in high school, and I was friends with my music teacher. It was one of those odd things I never understood how it happened, though I think it started when the drama teacher cast me for the lead in Fiddler on the Roof but I couldn’t sing. (That’s a long, weird story. Don’t ask.) She was charged with fixing that minor detail, which led to a lot of before and after school private lessons. At this point of my life things were starting to come seriously apart. I’d weathered some very personal and not-at-all nice things that hadn’t resolved. My parents were mere seconds away from their divorce, and we were all living in the basement of an unfinished house. Probably this is why she was friendly to me, and undoubtedly this is why one day she handed me a paperback with a red cover and a metal gauntlet on the cover holding a rose over a bed of silk. “Here,” she said. “You should read this. You should have this.”

I remember being a little dubious, but didn’t want to disappoint her, so I tried to at least start it so I could fake it. I don’t have a specific memory of reading A Knight in Shining Armor for the first time, but I remember the feeling of something important blooming inside me, something huge and powerful and true. I thanked the music teacher, and she promptly fed me a zillion romances, many of which I didn’t actually like, but many of which I did. None were ever what that first one was, though. I ended up reading every single Jude Deveraux book up until sometime in grad school, eventually getting to the point where I purchased the hardcovers as they came out. I bought a lot of romance novels, a lot, but Deveraux was always a must.

What I remember about reading AKISH for the first time was that it was a good, satisfying story with a happy ending, which I needed at that point of my life more than water. The part that really resonated with me, however, were that these people were having sex. Good sex. Yummy, tingly sex that made neurons light up in ways that were a lot more than just a Beavis and Butthead snigger. Part of me had always been very sexual, very aware of sex and its power and confused by the shame that had to go with it.  I’d also had some not-so-nice things happen centered around sex. Now here was this book that was fun, easy to read but not simple, light but not worthless, happy but not without struggle—and there was sex. Strawberry ice cream, bitches.

The sex was there and real but so elegant, so alive and yet so classy. I never felt the need to blush. Deveraux made a safe place for me to enjoy sex, to explore. Reading AKISH healed me, reminded me of what I should be looking for in a lover. Deveraux made it okay to like sex. I remember really liking that Dougless had been sexually active and that her first several times were not great. That was so important to me, after having so many firsts ruined and messed up, but feeling like I could still be okay, because Dougless was. I felt in so many ways like Dougless, like no matter what I did, no matter how nice I was or how hard I tried, everything went to crap around me. Not while I read this book.

As the years went by and I grew older, my reading tastes changed, and so did Ms. Deveraux’s writing. I would still buy her books, but they began to resonate less, and so did some of the rereads. For a long time I bought the books anyway, determined to make this relationship work, but eventually I stopped, and every time I saw a new book I would feel sad, like I’d lost something special. Every now and again I would reread old works with varying success, but eventually I deliberately stopped rereading AKISH. I couldn’t bear to ever read those words and find anything but perfection, so if I simply relied on my memory, I’d be fine.

Some of this falling out I can now attribute to my muses trying to get my head on straight with my own writing–I had been writing stories all this time, though with no attempts to be published until 1998. By the time I hit 2005, I could read almost no romances no matter who wrote them. In 2007, I stopped reading them entirely. I went on a strange scavenger hunt through the library for any books that had anything to do with gay heroes, especially ones in a relationship, but those were very, very hard to come by. The barest crumbs were a feast. This was also the period in my life when I shut off the internet for a year and wrote like the devil. What would come out of that time would be my first two published novels, for a genre I didn’t even know existed as I wrote them.

Once I discovered the gay romance explosion, I devoured everything I could grab. I began to read lesbian romance as well. Lately I’ve started reading heterosexual romance again, though as of the beginning of April I had not gone back to reread the romances of my roots. Mostly I feared I wouldn’t like them. I can be a real reading snob, so pouty and impatient about what I want in a book, and I didn’t want to do that to my firsts.

Then came the Romantic Times 2013 convention.

Jude Deveraux would be there, I saw in the program notes, and as the time for the con grew closer, as I made my own frantic author preparations, the battered high school girl who had been saved by romance lifted her head and began to whisper that she’d kind of like to meet her hero. I worried about that. I worried maybe Ms. Deveraux wouldn’t receive me well. I had no reason to except that this is actually something I always fear, especially when something is important to me, and because Jude Deveraux is associated with such a vulnerable time in my life, it seemed a bit of a nasty risk to meet her. So much so that though I’d planned to bring my paperback copy of AKISH—yes, that one from 1990—I ended up forgetting it. My husband offered to express it with some swag that had come late, but I said no. No, it wasn’t a big deal. It was just a book. She’d be mobbed, and when would I have time to get it signed? And again, I worried, what if she turned up her nose at me? I couldn’t stand the thought.

In the middle of the night, my inner high schooler hijacked my phone and texted Dan, “Express the book.” He did. It arrived on Thursday of the conference.

I began to let myself be excited. You can ask almost anyone who saw me at RT how I got all bubbly and stupid giddy whenever I talked about meeting her. I showed the book to anyone who would give me ten seconds, and sometimes I had that horrible sense I was boring them or making them uncomfortable, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was like now that she was unleashed, that high school girl would not be stopped. When I saw that Jude Deveraux was on a panel with Julie Garwood on Friday morning, I ditched the Samhain panel I’d meant to attend (sorry my favorite publisher, I still love you) and arrived early to the Deveraux-Garwood Legends of Romance event. I sat in the front row and vibrated with anticipation.

That’s the back of my head at 5 o’clock of the picture.

Everyone in the room for that panel describes it as having been in either a rock concert or church or both at the same time. Sarah Wendell says she had to cross her legs so she didn’t pee her pants while she stood to ask a question. I sat in my seat and wept openly, feeling foolish and awkward yet unable to stop myself. She was there. They were both there, but she was there, and like something sleeping, that girl inside me sat up and basked in the presence of the woman who had set her free in so many ways.

Deveraux was wonderful. A little reserved, but charming and eloquent and articulate, and basically she was everything I’d ever wanted her to be. Garwood was gregarious and friendly, but I kind of liked that my hero was almost godlike, this sacred woman I could simply bask in. I wanted to stay and get my book signed, but there was a crush and we weren’t supposed to be there anyway, so I left. I told myself I would get my book signed the next day at the big signing. If I had to leave my own table for a length of time, I’d do it. At this point my inner high school girl would go nuclear if I didn’t let her drive this bus.

I helped set up for the big signing, and I saw where she would be sitting. I saw her books to sign get set out. I got my battered copy stamped, and the woman who did it was charmed by the age of my copy. I went up to Ms. Deveraux’s and brought Marie with me to take a photo.

I told myself not to cry or break into crazy hysterics. I had rehearsed what I would say to her, what I felt I had to say, and I sort of tunneled-out the rest of the conference so it was just my hero and that table and me, and wifey with my phone for the picture.

I clutched my book with sweaty hands, and I stood before Jude Deveraux and told her my story, how my music teacher had given me her book, this very book in my hands and how it changed my life. How she was my first romance novel and how much it altered everything about me, what I read and eventually what I wrote. I told her the reason I was about to go sit at my table and sign for my own fans was because of the book in my hands, and I thanked her for being an important part of my life.

Or that was what I hope I said. I really don’t remember. I just remember standing there and feeling like this hugely important person was there, not laughing at me, but in fact looking politely charmed, and I tried not to combust. Or pee my pants.

I asked if I could have a picture, and she said yes. Her eyes ended up being closed, but that’s okay. I remember her eyes. I remember the sound of her voice. I remember the way she smiled at me, and I won’t forget that any more than I will forget her book.

And now my copy is signed.

(I know I just put both those pics in my RT recap post, but how could I not include them here?)

When I got home from Kansas City, I kept the book on my desk for awhile, and I thought about rereading it, but I was scared. At this point I was scared to touch the book—it’s old and yellowed and rough, and now it has her signature in the front. I put it away instead. Then, like the universe was angling at me, someone tweeted that AKISH was on sale on kindle, and in a dream-state I clicked “buy now.” For over a week it sat on my kindle, untouched, because I was still afraid. How awful would it be if I reread it now after all this time, after meeting her and having all my catharsis and joy, and I didn’t care for it? I ignored it utterly, and then on Mother’s Day I got my Paperwhite, and suddenly there was that cover every time I turned it on. Not my cover, not the right cover, but it was still the book, and I knew I was going to read it soon. I kept coming up with reasons to put it off, until yesterday the high school girl got very tired of me and I was reading. Then suddenly it was today, and I was done.

It was better this time than any other time I have ever read it.

I’m so glad I put it away for so long, because it was both familiar and fresh. It has a gorgeous patina about it now, dated by its publication date and yet more intense because of its timelessness. When I closed the kindle cover this afternoon, my first thought was that it is so much better than any romance novel I have read in a long, long time, and I believe I will now elevate it to my top four books, a non-ranked quartet of Going Postal, American Gods, Tom Jones, and now A Knight in Shining Armor. Everything was there, as wonderful as it was and yet somehow better. For now as I read I could see where my own roots began, could feel how some of those moments, some of her choices and her voices were always resonating within me every time I write. I found Dougless as powerful and pure as she had ever been. I found Nicolas as charming and handsome and infuriating and flawed and utterly romantic as any hero I have ever read or penned, more so because he is the first, he is the best, he is the center from which they all began.

I learned from my reread as well. I was reminded about stakes, about pacing, about choices, about vulnerabilities and identifications between the reader and the character. I felt the breathlessness of Nicolas’s devotion, his vows of love across time. I felt Dougless’s weakness and strength balanced so expertly, so delicately and yet so easily. I noticed this time as I never have the incredible grace and skill it takes to make a book so strong and sure and yet so fluid it seems as if it is the creamiest chocolate drink in the world, not too sweet, just a bit of spice. As one drinks this story in, one feels good and happy and sated. It is a book of healing, of hope, of happiness.

And then I turned the last page AND THERE WAS BONUS MATERIAL.

Deveraux had written an afterward, talking about writing it fourteen years ago so it’s been some time now since even that addition was put in, but it was new to me, and now when I read it I heard her voice in my head saying the words. I think I’ll read it about a zillion more times just to soak it all in. I highly recommend you find a copy with this afterward in it and read through it at least once, especially if you love the book.

If you’ve never read it, please go do so now. I promise you won’t be sorry.

I feel like I’ve closed a circle in my life, and it feels very good. The high school girl inside me is very happy, very at peace. She’s also really looking forward to buying every last one of the books on kindle and rereading them, and discovering new ones. She’s thinking about the old Garwood novels too, all of which I’d given away when I was the high school teacher. In fact, I have very very few romance novels left, having given them away because of moving or because of space and now because books are a great place for my allergies to fester.

When I imagined writing this review, I thought I would comb through the book and find highlighted bits and talk about it eloquently as a work of art, as an influential piece of fiction, as the ideal romance novel. I find now that I cannot. Not this book. It is all those things, but first and foremost for me this book is magic. This book is medicine. This book is bedrock in my soul and in my own writing. I can no more elegantly speak of it than I could sit down and have a casual dinner with Jude Deveraux. I couldn’t ever. She’s not human to me, not completely, and this book is not just a book.

So this story, this abject adoration is my review. This book I am realizing has always been my compass, and I feel so much better for finding it firmly in my hand again. I have no aspirations to write a book which is this for another reader. I simply wish to pilot my waters with it in my hand, because now more than ever I am convinced it will only lead me to good things.

What more than this could I ever aspire to? A journey without end, heading always toward hope and happily ever after. And sex.

Thank you, Jude Deveraux. For literally everything.

Reality 301 with @heidicullinan

 

Tonight Twitterverse roared with outrage over Kendall Grey’s post on Authors for Life where she bemoans the fact that sometimes, publishing is hard. Grey spent four years writing and a great deal of money and effort promoting an urban fantasy trilogy; it tanked. She wrote an erotic novel she describes as a “piece of trash” in two months, spent much less in promotion and gave it much less effort, and that book made some decent money. She’s angry that she wasn’t rewarded for her “beautiful, artistic” book and that by selling out she made money. Grey writes:

I know it’s depressing to hear that in order to find success, you may have to compromise your principles. I’ve come to grips with the fact that in the current market, trashy smut sells, and urban fantasy does not. Tough shit for me. If you want to sell books, you have to feed the market what it craves.

Grey goes on to state that

once you’ve done your part to feed the reader machine, and you get paid ridiculous amounts of money for publicly shaming yourself and lowering your standards, you’ll be armed with the power to write what you want.

I think the best place to start in response is to take a moment to acknowledge where this kind of selfish, angry thinking comes from, and like most things gone awry, it starts from something well-meaning. We could build several acres of affordable housing out of the stacks and stacks of books, blogs, and inspirational memes urging writers to write from the heart, to follow your vision, to let your voice ring out and be heard. The problem is that almost always after that advice comes the promise that should a writer (or any artist, really) follow this path of purity, success and happiness will unquestionably follow.

It’s not that this promise isn’t true, exactly. It’s that for far, far too many writers “success and happiness” gets equated with “lots of money and fame.” Here’s the reality of making art: the brass ring is BRASS, not gold. To believe even for a moment that simply producing the work of one’s heart means one will now be a bestseller is beyond naive. To proceed as if commercial success is due because of one’s effort or expenditure is embarrassingly foolhardy. But most of all, publicly ridiculing readers, especially one’s own, is a hanging offense, and anyone who commits it will very quickly feel the cinch of a brutal noose.

Without question, it would be wonderful if every time an author produced a work of her heart it met with commercial success—or if not wonderful, it would at least be very tidy and cute, like a toddler league of tee-ball where both sides go home convinced that they won the game. It’s understandable that writers approach publication with the conceit that if they write it, it will sell, and probably a little of that bluster is necessary to get through those initial rounds of trying to get published. It’s an incredibly conceited idea to put words on a page and ask other people to pay to read them. Hell, even asking for their time is arrogant. Requesting payment is graduate level self-importance, and being part of a corporation allowing many people beyond the initial author to make livings off these sold words is a doctoral thesis of hubris. To even consider stepping into the hot mess of being an author takes some serious mental jujutsu, and yes, imagining one’s story as some kind of messianic tome likely cuts through a lot of white hot terror.

Writers may live in that rose-colored bubble, but authors cannot. Anyone who puts words on a page and calls it a story is a writer; authors are those who intend to make at least a subsidiary living off their works, who write for more than themselves and their besties. Authors do not write because they believe they have innate truths they must impart upon the world but because they would like to be read. Most importantly, authors, true authors, quickly shed their writerly crutch of predestination and come to terms with grizzly truth: authors exist entirely at the pleasure of the reader.

Some genres sell better than others. This isn’t because best-selling books are more artistic or even better written than their peers. This is because the books that sell well are the books which more readers wish to read. Only in literature classes are books read because they’ve been put on a pedestal. Even the snottiest, the-smell-of-a-book-makes-angels-weep erudite societies read because the books they’ve chose to elevate give them pleasure. Every reader believes the books she loves to be the most holy of texts, and the truth of the matter is that every reader is absolutely correct in her conviction. What happens in this little thing we like to call a market economy is that when a great number of readers all happen to find the same kinds of books or titles of books pleasurable, the authors of those books make money.

A failure of a book to make money might be a failure of marketing, but it also might simply not be a book which gives a large number of readers pleasure. That’s as deep as this shit goes.

I understand that it’s disheartening to pour effort and money into a work of art and find that others do not value it with the same intensity. I’ve been to this rodeo more than a few times, and yes, it’s painful and hard on the soul. It is also the sort of thing that grown-ups do every day. Anyone deluded enough to think they are owed monetary success because they bled for their art is in for some hard, hard knocks and buckets full of tears. There will be many cries of “unfair” and much jealousy and hatred. And to be fair, all authors go through this every time they watch their books ride the waves of bestseller charts and the ego torture chamber known as Goodreads reviews. Even the most well-adjusted of us watch that horrible piece of shit book beat our baby to pieces and gnash our teeth and shout at our monitors demanding to know what brain-donors are shopping on amazon.com these days.

But holy Smart Bitch on a cracker, Batman, to write a post about how stupid readers are and worse to actually put it out there on the internet is so beyond the pale there’s a special hell for that kind of idiocy. Let me repeat: authors exist at the pleasure of readers. Without the people who buy and read my books, I am just another dizzy broad writing shit down. Readers aren’t just an author’s audience; they are her lifeblood. Yes, we make up characters and worlds, but readers are the magical, ephemeral beings who give their time and money to our work, who sing praises of our stories to their friends, who make this whole game possible. Readers are the holy ground where authors’ egotistical nonsense transforms into story. Readers are to be treasured and worshipped, and if an author has an urge to type a nasty review in reply to a reader or write a snarky post, she’d cause so much less harm to herself if she’d cut off her hand first.

Yes, it’s true, one can phone in a book in a popular genre and make more money than one can by bleeding out in a less popular one. However, “the market” is not some craven, slobbering beast created by men in smoky rooms twirling their mustaches. The market is made up of readers gathering without prompt or organization to purchase what authors write. The market is the reason writers are able to even dare to dream of getting paid for creating story. The market isn’t here to prop authors up so we can write what we want and tap our toes until our work gets the kind of attention we think it deserves. The market isn’t here to serve us. It’s here for us to serve.

Ms. Grey, what you’ve dished out for the market tonight might have come from your heart, but much like your urban fantasy series, it isn’t something anyone has a taste for. The market, your readers, and the internet have heard your scorn, and we won’t forget what you truly think of us anytime soon.

That isn’t just a promise. It’s reality. And yes, it’s going to follow you all the way to the bank.

 

Romantic Times Wrap-Up, Featuring Mitch Tedsoe Come to Life and Other Wackiness, Including PT Fuckery

To say that Romantic Times exhausted me is like saying water is wet. It was very, very fun, though, and worth every second of weariness I’m fighting this week. How to describe the convention? Not possible, but I’ll give you this picture to illustrate why a report won’t do it justice.

If you’re saying, “who’s that scummy dude with the hot chicks?” the scummy dude is me. Go ahead and do a double take, hubba-wa, whatever you need—people who have known me ten years or better didn’t recognize me even when they knew I was dressing in drag.

Heidi, why were you dressing in drag? Funny story…

This year Damon Suede and I spearheaded an event called Show Your Romance Pride, a reader party with a focus on subgenre. The hosts were to dress up as one of the assigned subgenres, and as the date of the event began to loom, I had no costume. I’ve had increasing issues with body pain, particularly in my legs (more on that in a bit), and that limited my costume options. It was Damon’s partner who suggested I dress as a trucker, since that’s one of my characters. I loved the idea, but of course I’m a completist so I thought I’d at least try out the drag.

My first thought was, this isn’t so bad, but I wondered if maybe I was trying to convince myself. I sent the pic to several people who all flipped out, and the clincher was when I went downstairs to show Anna and she flipped out because she thought someone was in the house. So, the drag worked at least a little, I decided. Figured why not, it’d be a fun thing to add.

Well, when I put the outfit on Thursday of RT, the universal reaction was that people didn’t know it was me. Marie said it was weird to get ready in the bathroom with me, even though she’d watched me Ace bandage my breasts and helped me tuck the hair under my hat. Damon knew what was coming, had seen the picture on the left during my trial run, and even with this he often looked around a room for me, dismissing the guy in the plaid shirt. Some people mistook me for a guy, straight up. Some people thought I was strange. I deliberately didn’t use public restrooms when I was in drag because I’d have gone to the women’s room and I didn’t want to give anyone a heart attack, because apparently I did that in the hotel LOBBY.

My favorite reaction came from Eleri Stone, who sat next to Damon at the signing and saw me stop by first as Mitch the trucker and then twenty minutes later in my femme gear, ready to head to Samhain’s party. She stared at me for several minutes, then finally gave up and said, “Weren’t you a man a few minutes ago?”

This should have been the end of the adventure, but a new friend, Adam Kunz, missed Mitch’s live debut, and when he needed cheering up Friday night I offered to put the drag back on for him. So back up to the room I went, coming down for a fancy paranormal party not as the elegantly dressed woman I’d planned but as dirty trucker once again. Damon was thrilled, because he’d missed the opportunity earlier to do what he craved: to take me into the bathroom and do a photo shoot at the urinal. Adam joined me.

 

They then took me to the dance, where I discovered to my surprise that EVERYONE wanted to dance with Mitch. I sold books Saturday to people who talked about my drag, and I’m still getting emails from readers and bloggers saying, “I ground against you a little while on Friday night! That was so fun!” And after everyone says how fun it was, they ask, “When will you do it again?” To which my standard reply has become, “You just wait.”

Though the number of photos of me as Mitch suggest otherwise, I actually did not spend most of the week in drag. I attended panels, parties, and got to do things like chat with Mary Balogh about where to publish her backlist and weep quietly in the audience as Jude Deveraux and Julie Garwood allowed us to be in the same room as their panel. I got my copy of A Knight in Shining Armor signed too, and got a picture with Ms. Deveraux, even though she did have her eyes closed. I don’t care. I met her. I went to Mecca.

Now, coming home has been more interesting. I still need to turn in Better Than Love to Saritza, but I need to finish the edits from betas first, and to do that I need to stay conscious. I also have to get really, really fucking serious about my physical therapy, because my therapist today gave me a look that sobered me to my toes. Basically if in a month my work–and not overdoing it like I did at RT–don’t do what he’s hoping, there might be something more serious wrong. I admit I’m a little scared, but I’m not freaking out until that’s actually happening. In the meantime, if you see me working too hard, yell at me. I’m not kidding. If I act like I’m in pain, make me sit down. You have my permission to yell. If I’m tired, make me rest.

In the meantime, please enjoy the following set of photos. If you’re my FB friend, you can search a trove of pics (if you’re not and want to be, go ahead, but read my standard disclaimer about kids, cats, and politics) or you can amuse yourself with what I have here.

Mary Calmes, me, Damon Suede, and Leigh

Damon, Sarah Wendell, and myself at the Romance Pride event

ZA Maxfield, Marie Sexton, Damon, and me at the Brutes to Suits panel

Tere Michaels and I in our jammies for Cinema Craptastique

How I thought I was dressing to go to the paranormal party

Drinks with Lori Witt and Kate McMurray

LOVE this pic of Leigh and I!

Dancing with Damon and hoping no one notices my knee and ankle are *this close* to collapse

Heidi Cullinan Cover Reveal! Introducing the upcoming... Love Lessons + Giveaway!

Reblogged from The Armchair Reader:

Love doesn’t come with a syllabus.

Kelly Davidson has waited what seems like forever to graduate high school and get out of his small-minded, small town. But when he arrives at Hope University, he quickly realizes finding his Prince Charming isn’t so easy. Everyone here is already out. In fact, Kelly could be the only virgin on campus.

Worst of all, he’s landed the charming, handsome, gay campus Casanova as a roommate, whose bed might as well be equipped with a revolving door.

Read more… 712 more words

New cover, and a giveaway! Head over to Cole's blog to see the pretty, pretty picture, and all the details.

Many Upcoming Things: Book Club Chat at SBTB, Bad Movies & Pride Parties at RT

It’s the home stretch before the Romantic Times convention, and everything’s crazy as usual. Finishing up edits on two books, prepping for con parties, having a book chat, ordering swag and updating my website—I’m really looking forward to May 6 when all I’m going to be doing is writing new books.

In the meantime, Mama’s got shit to promote.

• Thursday, April 25, 9:00-10:30PM EST is the Family Man book club chat at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Marie & I will be by starting at 10:00, and anyone and everyone is welcome to attend the chat. Please stop by, talk about the book, meet new people, and say hello!
• Tuesday, April 30, 8:30-11:00PM CST is the Cinema Crapastique movie event at Romantic Times book convention in Kansas City, and also over the entirety of Twitter at hashtag #RTmovieslam. Damon Suede roped me into this, and while in New York I got to preview The Covenent (the movie we’ll be watching) with him. It’s going to be something to witness, let me tell you. Not going to RT? As long as you have twitter, you can follow the fun. Read all about this event at the RT site and its own Facebook page.
• Wednesday, May 1, 5:00-6:00PM CST in Choutea A at Romantic Times book convention is the Brutes to Suits reader panel. I’ll be on this panel with Damon Suede, Marie Sexton, and ZA Maxfield, and I’m sure it’ll be a riot and then some. Full detials here.
• Thursday, May 2, 2:45-3:45PM CST in Gilham B at RT in Kansas City is the Show Your Romance Pride reader event. You can read all about it here, and I hope if you’re going to RT you’ll come to our party. I’ve seen Wendell’s dress, and I know all about Suede’s costume. I have one too, which I hope to hell I can pull off.
• Saturday, May 4 from 11:00AM-2:00PM is the RT Book Fair at the Sheraton Crown Center hotel in Kansas City, an event open to the public. I’ll be signing there, so if you’re at RT or even just in the neighborhood that day, please stop by and say hello.

Now I have to get back to packing and prepping and somehow in the middle of all that finish editing Better Than Love so Saritza can read it & sell it and you can get that much closer to reading it too. I hope to see you at RT!

Family Man is a Sizzling Book Club Pick at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

 Family Man is the April Sizzling Book Club pick at SBTB!

Read the full details here, including those for the chat on April 25 (Marie & I will be there). Haven’t bought Family Man but want into the act now? All Romance Ebooks has a coupon code for a pretty big discount, which you can also find out about on the above post.

Please do come to the chat if you can!

 

 

Better Than Love is a goddamned book

Friday around 10:30PM, I finished a “truck draft” (if I’d been hit by a truck, they still could have published the book, though it’d have been a bit rough) of Better Than Love, and yesterday at around 9:30 I got done with the book placenta, which is all the not very sexy but very important stuff like making sure I polished all the edges, ran a spell check, etc happened, plus another read through to give everything one more look-see, and then after I fought Scrivener and its insistence on fucking over the chapter headings NO MATTER WHAT I FUCKING DO, I sent that bitch out to the betas. Last few books I haven’t done betas, but this one gets a big fat beta round. Before RT I’ll send it to my agent, and then it will be on to Samhain where it will begin its long journey to your hands, should you chose to purchase it.

All I can say is that I feel like I’ve been through a goddamned war. Twice I tried to put this bitch to bed and failed. This round sure started out well, but I kept worrying it would fall apart, and there was white hot terror behind that, because this time it had to happen. There was of course the great overwrite scare where I nearly lost the fucking flogging scene. Sometimes writing this draft I felt like this was the best goddamn thing I’d ever written in my life. When I wrote the end, I bawled my goddamned head off, partly because of something I wrote, partly because I have no shit been riding this horse since 2010, and I am fucking worn out. Now it’s done, which, thank you Jesus.

Of course, now I”m in EON, End Of Novel syndrome, and this one is bad. I had nightmarish, grisly dreams about trying to save my family from zombie-like aliens, which once they found out I was hiding the dead slimy tentacled corpse of their baby, they were really gonna get pissed. I woke feeling like I’d been on a ten-day bender, and I wasn’t even out of bed before the darkness swamped my head and I began to worry, sure the book sucked, sure nothing worked, that it had all turned sour, and the betas wouldn’t tell me because it would be SO HORRIBLY BAD they’d lie because they couldn’t bear to tell me how awful. (I confessed a shorter version of that in text to Dan while he was at work and he, who is already 15% into it said NO NO NO and proceeded to hand me my ass.) In the end I got out of it by letting a potential WIP talk to me and let my brain stew on new story instead of trying to tear down the old one.

Naturally, the sweet, cute romance I had planned informed me one of the heroes is a sex addict. Apparently my muses are sadists, but I’m a masochist, because after I whined this wasn’t what I wanted, they lifted the veil a little higher, and I said, oh… But we’ll see. Nothing is real until I have 30,000 words, and even then things can still go wrong.

The good news is that I only have two days and then I’m going to be in New York until the 10th. I can’t imagine there’s a better way to spend EON than hanging out with Damon Suede plotting our world domination.

I wanted to let you know, though, that the book really happened, and right now I have a sextet of angels reading and telling me what’s good and what’s not, and basically we’re on the road now, bitches, and thank God.

Here’s some show and tell for fun.

This is the collage I worked from. It was on my desktop the whole time and is still there, making me miss them already whenever I look at it.

This is a screenshot of the music I listened to. There was a lot of music, and a fuckload of JLo. Anna never wants to hear the Love? album again, and frequently said, “What is up with all this Spanish music?”

Finally, if you want an excerpt: I posted this on FB awhile back, and maybe I linked to it here, I can’t remember. But here’s that.

And now I’m going to go watch Doctor Who, fold laundry, pack a suitcase, and in general not write this book anymore. As a parting gift I leave you with a song never referenced in the book, but one that has been in the soundtrack since the very beginning and one which, were this ever a movie, I’d ask them to strongly consider working into a montage sequence somehow. Thanks for riding along with me, for being patient, and for being excited about this story even when sometimes it got the better of me and I wasn’t anymore. Because your letters, support, and love kept me together too.