Inspirational Mondays - Friend or Foe

As promised here is an extract from Friend or Foe. I hope it inspires you to purchase it!

“Okay, lady, strip,” he said, waving the water pistol haphazardly in the air.

Laughing, she responded, “And if I don’t, you’re going to squirt me?”

“Come on, Gina. Get into the gist of it. This is what your characters do. Anyway, I’m not going to squirt this into you.”

That surprised her. He really did intend going the whole way. Is this what I want? She decided after a moment that she really did, so, giving him a grin, she started to fiddle with the belt of her bathrobe. “But, Mister, I’m so innocent.”

He gave a cry of disbelief. “Huh!”

She very nearly lost it at that moment but held her laughter in and undoing the belt, she let it drop. Grasping hold of the edges of her robe, she held it closed as if in fear. “Please, sir, I’ve never been naked in front of a man before.”

“Lady, if you don’t strip now, I’m going to rip it off you.”

Her bottom lip trembled. An excellent bit of play acting, she thought. He chortled at the sight and then pretended to frown fiercely. She edged the robe open slowly, letting the shoulders fall to her elbows, clutching it tightly at her breasts.

“And the rest.” He waved the silly pistol at her again.

“Don’t kill me, please!”

“I’ll give you five seconds. One… ”

She bit her lip but did nothing.

“Two… ”

The edges of her mouth were threatening to turn into a big grin.

“Three… ”

When he suddenly stood, she scampered back a step.

“Four… ”

Just before he said five, she dropped her robe and stood there, she hoped, like someone modeling in a sexy pose for an artist. Well, as much as one could while wearing silly slippers. He dropped the pistol and flung off his hat, moving toward her, determinedly taking hold of her shoulders to pull her to him as he dipped his head and kissed her hard, his tongue demanding entrance.

She relaxed her body into his as she ran her arms across his back. His kiss softened as his tongue tangled with hers. Finally he lifted his head.

Jen

Friday Funny

A husband and his wife who have been married 20 years were doing some yard work. The man was working hard cleaning the BBQ grill while his wife was bending over, weeding flowers from the flower bed. So the man says to his wife "Your rear end is almost as wide as this grill" She ignores the remark.

A little later, the husband takes his measuring tape and measures the grill, then he goes over to his wife while she is bending over, measures her rear end and gasps, "Geez, it really IS as wide as the grill!" She ignores this remark as well.

Later that night while in bed, her husband starts to feel frisky. The wife calmly responds, "If you think I'm gonna fire up the grill for one little wiener, you are sadly mistaken."

Have a nice weekend.

Jen

Wednesday writing - Friend or Foe

Friend or Foe is available for pre-order from around Thursday onwards for one week when it is released (3 May) via www.bookstrand.com/jennifer-denys

This is the last in the Friends & Acquaintances series and follows the adventures of Gina as she writes her first erotic romance on the quiet, but when a work colleague, who she is always at loggerheads with, finds out he teases her unmercifully. Gina, the queen of insults, gives as good as she gets but as she goes through the trials of getting her work published, Dan becomes more and more of a support – including helping her with certain scenes….

I will give you an extract next week.

Jen

Inspirational Mondays

It is often suggested to new writers that they stick to one particular genre if they want to become a best-selling author. However, as I have stated before, I would rather write whatever story comes to me whether it be contemporary, BDSM, paranormal, fantasy, or sci-fi (I am highly unlikely to write a mystery, cop, horror or cowboy story but I won’t say never!).

I was looking over my book collection over Easter and it struck me that many of them were either in a particular genre (probably because I love my sci-fi but it occurred to me that I wasn’t aware if authors like Anne McCaffrey ever wrote anything other than this genre) or even set in the same world (Marion Zimmer Bradley’s many Darkover books although I am aware that she did some fantasy ones too. Fantasy, of course, is not far removed from sci-fi but, did either of these writers write any thrillers for instance??

That was when it occurred to me how boring it could have been for them to continually write the same types of story about the same world – possibly through demand from us, the reader. On the other hand it is easy – once you have built your ‘world’ you have a frame on which to set your stories, possibly even writing about characters you have already introduced.

An author often uses a different pen name when writing in a different genre and it may be that I am unaware of the other works of these particular authors. I was amused by a postcard I bought at Foyle’s bookshop in London with a picture of Enid Blyton and a caption talking about a comment name by a reviewer that she should be careful of an up and coming writer - who happens to be herself under another pen name.

And that says it all – if you use a different pen name you may get a different readership and protect your original ones from losing interest in you – but do those original readers miss out on an author’s other works?

Jen

Wednesday writing

Several updates today:

Here is the cover for my latest book Friend or Foe due out for pre-orders later on next week from Bookstrand.com. It is the last in the ‘Friends & Acquaintances’ series. More info next week (or read the Friends & Acquaintances page on this blog).

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Had a lovely 4 star review from ‘Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews’ for Submissive Training. It is always great when a reviewer says ‘they can’t wait to read more’ of your books!

http://www.guiltypleasuresbookreviews.com/2012/04/alyns-review-submissive-in-training.html#more

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I am now on Facebook www.facebook.com/JenniferDenys

Jen

Friday funnies

One day, a mum was cleaning her son's room and in the closet she found a bondage-S&M magazine. This was highly upsetting for her.

She showed it to her husband.

He looked at it and handed it back to her without a word.

She finally asked him, "Well, what should we do about this?"

The dad looked at her and said, "Well whatever you do, don't spank him!"

Have a nice weekend

Jen

Wednesday writing - Twitter

Hi everyone

I am now on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/JenniferDenys The reason for joining Twitter is so I can inform my readers when I have a new book out (I am not one of those people who wishes to tell you every time I decide to go to the shops!). So if you want to be kept informed when I have a new book out do ‘follow’ me on Twitter - in particular, the three I have out in May and June.

Watch out too as I am soon to join up to Facebook.

Jen

Inspirational Mondays

I did an interesting analysis of the titles of Bookstrand’s top 100 bestsellers for the past six months a little while back to see if there was any pattern or frequency in the titles that might inspire readers to pick my books. Here are my (rough) findings – these were the titles that were not the name of the hero:

Cowboy x 6

Mate x 5

Two x 5

Wolf x 4

Love x 4

Under x 3

Their x 3

Desire x 2

Destiny x 2

Fang x 2

Fur X 2

Good x 2

Kitty/kitten x 2

Men x 2

Raw x 2

Siren x 2

Triple x 2

Who x 2

So by this reckoning if you called your book something like ‘The Good Siren Kitten Understands the Destiny of the Two Raw Cowboy Men Who want Love and Desire with Their Triple Furred and Fanged Wolf Mates’ you’ve got it made!!!!!!!  

Jen

Wednesday writing - character names

What’s in a name? How does a writer choose their character names, particularly the names of the male characters?

I know one writer who looks at the meaning of the name. Some people may choose to name their bad guys after people they don’t like – and vice versa.

For me it is the aesthetics – how does the name sound to me as a reader. I have given all my heroes names I would like my own ‘hero’ (if I had one) to have – hence, Sam, Nick, Ben, Curt, Matt, Dan etc – generally short names, although Dan started off as Daniel which I am fine with, but if I went out with anyone called Samuel I wouldn’t be able to keep it up and would have to shorten it to Sam!!!! I once went out with a George who had changed his name to that. I suspect the incredulity on my face throughout the date soured the relationship.

I ruminated in Friendly Seduction on character names, stating that names ending in the ‘ee’ or ‘s’ sound made them sound gentler than those ending in ‘n’ like Garin and Rayn who were two bounty hunters that I couldn’t possibly have called Jeremy and Miles. The names just don’t match the job.

Then there are the names which are just too old-fashioned for me to contemplate as my heroes so you won’t find me naming any of them Wilfred, Edgar or Arthur (although I might be persuaded go to with Will, Ed or Art if I am in a good mood).

And as for Donald – not even shortening it to Don or Donny would make me get an image of a duck out of my mind.

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Just in case you didn't read Monday's blog - I have added extra pages to the blog - one for each series and a gallery page. The 'series' pages are intended to draw together all the bits of information I tell you about my books in one place.

Jen

Inspirational Mondays - the rewards of mentoring someone else

Today’s blog is about offering help and inspiration to others. I became friends with fellow Siren author, Angela Wray, last Autumn. It sort of started about the time I was exclaiming to fellow authors how excited I was that my second story had been accepted and I got an email from Angela being delighted for me, particularly as her second one had been rejected.

Subsequently she rewrote it and re-submitted it but didn’t hear anything much back so I offered to look at it for her and pointed out that, whilst it was a very good story, there were some problems with the mechanics of the story which is why they probably hadn’t accepted it, like the perennial head-hopping issue, punctuation problems, and over-long paragraphs. Writing a good book is more than just coming up with the content – how it is written is just as important.

We worked together to eliminate these problems. From my point of view it was great helping someone else with their editing – so much easier than working on your own as you get so attached to it. It also made me realise how much I know – or have learnt – about the art of writing. It was also extremely rewarding mentoring someone else.

Anyhow, it all worked because she recently re-submitted it and got her acceptance email last week. I am so proud of her because I know how much hard work I made her do to put her manuscript to rights.

So do look out for ‘Collared: Ashton’ by Angela Wray which will be out sometime late June. It is a BDSM m/m/f story with terrific sex scenes in it (one thing I can learn from Angela is how to write sex scenes – she is much better at it than me!)

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The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed I have added extra pages to this blog. I am going to do a separate page for each series I bring out. This is intended to draw together the bits of detail I tell you about the books on this blog into one place - and I have also added a photo gallery! Enjoy.

Jen