What Elves Eat
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What Elves Eat has been re-released and is available at the usual places (see book page for more information).
This took me a long time to publish mainly because I dithered so much as to whether it shouldn’t be thoroughly updated as I’ve never been completely happy with the first paragraph. Then I dithered about whether to change the title back to the working title of ‘Beautiful Elf’. I think I was trying to convince myself it was a good title before I came to my senses (yeah, bland). Finally I came to the conclusion that it was better to let the original work stand. I’m not a big fan of changing existing works. It is what it is, and I was a different person when I wrote it than I am now, so any changes I made would probably change the voice and muck it all up.
This is one of the stories I had the most fun writing as the premise is so outlandish. It’s quite simply about an elf in Hollywood falling in love with his double (mmm, ‘An Elf in Hollywood’ - title change anyone?). Elves were quite popular when I wrote it (2005) but don’t seem to be written about much in erotic romance at the moment. No doubt the wheel will turn again.
Now I need to write a story about sexy werewolves and another about brooding vampires and I will have fully covered the paranormal range and have all my erotic romance boxes ticked… (kidding!)
Escape! anthology out in digital
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The Escape! anthology is now available as an ebook. This anthology includes stories from 17 Changeling Press authors and includes my uber-short story Demon Ahoy! Escape! was originally released as a paperback and for the first time is available in all digital formats direct from Changeling Press.
Demon Ahoy! is one of my favourite stories. It started off as a light-hearted romp after I picked the title (I remember there being a lot of ‘Ahoy!’ titled romances around at the time and thought it would be cute to call it ‘Demon Ahoy!). The idea was basically that an elemental and demon couple (yeah, anything’s possible in paranormal romance!), find each other after a 500 year separation following an argument. I planned there to be lots of witticisms and basically just a shag-fest before they declared eternal love for each other – or until the next lover’s quarrel (An elemental and a demon? Volatile!). Remember, these stories were supposed to be short!
But somehow, the characters took it to a much more emotional level after I dug around into their motivations. It really became a love story (as opposed to the lust story I had planned). Strangely enough, I even cried a little as I wrote it, which is probably why I have a soft spot for this story. You just never know where the characters are going to lead you. That’s half the fun of writing them.
Anyhow, there’s lots of fun to be had in these super-short sexy romps. I’m lucky to be in the same anthology as some really great authors.
The Self Publishing Adventure
By · CommentsLike many other writers, I decided to self-publish a couple of stories whose rights has reverted back to me. I made this decision a couple of months ago and have been determined to learn everything myself, hence the delay. Part of me would have liked to have just pawned it off on someone else (that ideal assistant who is the figment of many an author’s imagination perhaps), but my control freakery got the better of me. So I’ve formatted and uploaded everything myself on Amazon and Smashwords, and I’ll be uploading to All Romance eBooks over the next week or so.
It’s been an eye-opening experience and really liberating. For once I felt that everything was under my control and I love having access to everything on various publisher dashboards. Even though it’s been only a few days since I published on Amazon, I’ve already fallen foul of New Self Publisher Syndrome (NSPS) – obsessively signing in every hour to check my sales! I was excited to get a few sales in the first day, but nothing to report since then. I’m trying to be terribly blase about it all when really I feel quite chuffed that I did it. Yes, I did it!
Which books have been released, I hear you ask? Ah, they’re sitting pretty on the top of my sidebar: Firesnake, Master Game and Siren’s Call. Click the piccy and go to the book page with linkies to Amazon and Smashwords. And all for 99cents!
New website, new start
By · CommentsI’ve been away from the writing game for a couple of years now. I was tempted to throw in the towel ‘forever’ but I’m kinda scared of forever – it’s much too final and anyway, I keep changing my mind. I’m not a ‘forever’ type of person. I’m the sort of person who prides herself in her ability to adapt and change. But I really thought I’d left writing behind and had moved on to other interests. I joined a couple of personal development groups and worked on myself and met interesting, off-beat people, and did all those things that people do when they’re trying to avoid doing what they’re meant to do. And being pretty miserable about it, too.
What it came down to was confronting the fact that nothing fulfills me as much as writing stories. Storytelling. Those voices have been quiet for a while now, but every now and then that storyteller will stick its head over the parapet, look at the endless vista and say: “Wow! You’ve got to go there.” A new idea will niggle away at my brain. The characters from the unfinished stories I discarded will start pulling at my sleeve, pleading to be acknowledged, their stories completed.
It’s a lie that writers can’t remember stories they put to one side – each one is as clear to me as they day I conceived it. Only now the hero and heroine have grown sulky from being ignored and sexually frustrated at being kept from each other. They’ve decided they’re not going to let me get any restful sleep until I submit to their demands. In short, they won’t leave me the hell alone.
So I’m back. It’s been a few months of indecision and procrastination while slowly, slowly updating this website, trying to keep my characters at bay and fooling myself that I’m in charge. Finally, I caved. They deserve their stories told. And, yes, I want them out of my head!
I’ll be easing my way back into the writing world by re-releasing some of the stories whose rights have reverted to me: Siren’s Call, Master Game, Firesnake, and What Elves Eat. I’ll be tweaking the website till I have it in a state I’m happy with. And finally, I’ll bite the bullet and start writing again. I have at least four stories in various stages of completion nagging at me and, God knows, I hate a nag!
That’s the plan. Now it’s down to the (wo)man in the plan. I hope you’ll join me for this new, exciting journey.