#NaNoPrep2016: Under The Wire!

I have a title. I have a (tentative) blurb. I have a fake cover.

And it’s only October 29th.

Welcome to #NaNoPrep2016 where I’ve pulled together what I’m going to do for National Novel Writing Month at the last minute. Continue reading

NaNoWriMo 2015: NaNoPrep

2015 will be my 10th year doing NaNoWriMo and I’m revisiting some of my favorite characters I’ve created during the event, plus adding another hero and heroine into the mix. Back this year are Clara, Sam, Constance, and Pat from The General’s Wife: An American Revolutionary Tale. Joining them will be Clara’s brother – Oliver Hastings, the Viscount Thornton – and a family friend, Lady Eleanor Ormundsley. Continue reading

A Naked Guy in Zurich

Hi everyone! I’m over at the Naughty Literati blog today talking about the inspiration for my Naughty Escapes story. The post is copied below. Enjoy!

In my story “Window Display” in Naughty Escapes, the heroine, Laurie, an American Ph.D. student, trots off to Zurich to finish up her dissertation. Instead of the hoped-for peace and quiet, she finds distraction in a totally hot neighbor who doesn’t bother closing the curtains when he’s naked at home.

Many of my Naughty Literati co-authors chose rather exotic locations for their Naughty Vacation Getaway stories. Zurich is generally not considered an “exotic” or even “sexy” location in which to set a romance! Exotic or not, sexy or not, the story is based on a real-life event. Not my life, though. Inspiration came from an unlikely place. Continue reading

NaNoWriMo 2014: The Westerman Affair

[UPDATE: The Westerman Affair was published in 2017!]

This will be my ninth NaNoWriMo. I’m such a geek about the event that I went ahead and filled in all my novels since 2006 – which just shows how geeky I really am since I’ve kept all that NaNoWriMo documentation over the years. I’ve left the original covers I made for the event and not the covers as published (only two books remain unfinished, and therefore, unpublished). I really like that General’s Wife cover! It’s a detail from Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s amazing Baroque sculpture The Rape of Proserpina, 1621-22, in Rome’s Borghese Gallery. I also like that tag line I made for it: “Will she submit to the enemy?” I should totally use that when I redo the cover. Continue reading

Writing Process Blog Hop: How I Do It

I’ve been tagged in the Writing Process Blog Hop! I was tagged by my colleague Jasmine Haynes who writes erotica and erotic romance (and other books under other names). She has a new release from Berkley Heat, Teach Me a Lesson, the second book in her Let’s Misbehave series.
Jasmine writes very hot sex! There is a voyeur scene near the beginning of The Principal’s Office that is so absolutely scorching I had to look around to make sure no one was watching me as I read it!

Now on to the official Writing Process Blog Hop questions. Continue reading

Slow and steady…

I’m a really slow writer. Really slow. It’s a combination of: I can’t actually type very quickly, and I think too much. Thoughts pile up in my brain because I cannot type (or write) them down fast enough, and the thoughts at the bottom of that pile get compressed so much so I become, quite literally, at a loss for words. Continue reading

Character-Driven Sex

Whew! I just finished Book 2 of my Harwell Heirs series on Friday December 13th and sent it to my editor at Ellora’s Cave. While I was editing and polishing that manuscript (working title: Lord Petersham’s Contract), I wrote 50,000 words of Book 3 in the series (working title: Miss Danby’s Condition) for November’s National Novel Writing Month. This intensive period of writing solidified a belief I’ve had about writing erotica from day one: sex is driven by the characters and not by the author. Continue reading

NaNoWriMo: Winner!

Today I gave myself a pat on the back for “winning” National Novel Writing Month with my book Miss Danby’s Condition (book three in the Harwell Heirs series). Continue reading