Inspirational Mondays - fan emails

I had my first fan email a couple of weeks ago – and then another one the week after! Both were commending me on ‘Submissive Training’ and were interestingly both from men. I say ‘interestingly’ because 95% of romance readers are said to be woman. However, I have never found a similar stat for erotic romances yet.

The first one said, ‘just a note to say how much I enjoyed reading this novel. It was refreshing in style and content. As a guy in a straight up happy vanilla lifestyle a great release!!’ I will certainly be reading more in the series.

The second one stated, ‘I have just finished reading your book 'Submissive Training' and wanted to say thank you for such a great and informative read! Although I have an interest in alternative pleasures, the SM side never appealed to me until I read your book. Thank you so much Jennifer, you may have opened up a new world for me! I am halfway through your ' Challenge' story, which is equally enjoyable-I can't wait to read your other books! Please keep them coming, you have a great talent for writing stimulating tales!

Thanks to both of you. It is incredibly rewarding for a writer to have their work praised this way. It feels like all the hard work is worth it!

Jen

Wednesday Writing

I am on holiday for two weeks from Friday (YEAH!!!). I will mostly be in front of the TV watching live Olympics coverage, but I promise to do some writing. This is what I am working on:

‘The Haunt of the Wolves’ – that may be the series title rather than the title of this book, which might be ‘Submissive Trials’ about a BDSM werewolf club! This one involves a rogue werewolf, three betas and a human woman. Started.

‘Alien abduction comedy’ – no, that isn’t the title but the premise! I am hooked on alien abduction stories of the type where an Earth girl is abducted to be mate to an alien, and had a laugh one day wondering what would happen if they happen to abduct ME – a loud Englishwoman going through the menopause (see blog from last week on that subject!) – so that is exactly what this story is about. The alien in question doesn’t find it so easy to subdue the woman he has taken. Started.

‘The Last Werewolf’ – a collaboration with Finnish writer, Susan Laine. This is an MMF story set in both England and Finland about an English girl who thinks she is the last werewolf. I have finished my bits, Susan has just a couple of chapters left.

The sequel to ‘Retraining the  Sub’ which will be ‘Retraining the Dom’ – and I haven’t started writing this one yet.

A ten years on-type story bringing together each of the main characters from all three ‘Friends & Acquaintances’ and ‘Doms & Acquaintances’ series, since they have cross-over characters, looking at their lives – none of which has turned out the way they intended at the end each book. This story has them recalling why they fell in love in the first place and bringing their lives back on track.  Yet to start.

Do keep reading my blog as I will post to it despite being on hols.

Jen

Inspirational Mondays - Amazon

‘Wife for Three’ is now available to buy on Amazon. I hope I can ‘inspire’ you to buy it if you haven’t already!

As you may know this is the first in a new series, a sci-fi set of stories set on a colony planet and all the problems that ensues, generally involving ménage relationships. The second book in this series, ‘Chasing Emily’ will be published in the Autumn.

My other two series are the ‘Friends & Acquaintances’ series – romantic comedies. And ‘Doms & Acquaintances’ series, set in the world of BDSM.

The latter has done extremely well on Amazon. One book in particular, ‘Submissive Training’ has been in the top ten on Amazon UK from late May, being number one bestseller for Siren Publishing for most of that time.

It will be interesting to note if the sci-fi series does as well. I have heard that ménage stories do well on Amazon. We will see!

Jen

Friday Funny

John just graduated from clinical psychology and opens his first office. After some successful advertising he is astounded to have nearly 300 people wanting to be in group therapy. John decides to rent a big hall and invite the entire group.

To break the ice, and to get the therapy started, John decides to ask a show of hands how often the attendees had sex. He first asks for a show of hands of all the people who had sex almost every night. A modest number of hands were raised.

He then asks,” How many had sex once a week?” This time a larger number of hands were raised.

John then asks, “How many had sex once or twice a month?” Again a few hands were raised.

After John polled his group several more times he noticed one guy sitting off to the side with this huge beaming grin on his face. John noticed that the guy never raised his hand, so he asked him how often he had sex. The guy said, “Once a year!”

John is dismayed and responds, “Why are you so happy getting sex only once a year?”

 The grinning guy replies, "Tonight’s the night!"

Have a nice weekend.

Jen

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Wednesday Writing - publishers

Exciting news! I have had a book accepted by a new publisher - Evernight Publishing. It isn't that I am unhappy with my current one, Siren Publishing - indeed I am doing my current sci-fi series, Duoterra, through them and the second in that series 'Chasing Emily' has just been accepted for release in October, which is terrific news.

But I wanted to know, firstly if another publisher was as interested in my work - the answer is yes! But more importantly to gain a wider readership. In this instance it is a new BDSM series. Siren has one of my series of three BDSM books so I thought I would try another publisher for my book called 'Retraining the Sub'. And I am pleased to say that Evernight accepted the other day.

This is intended to be a two parter with the second one called 'Retraining the Dom'.

Watch this space for more information on both new books.

Jen

Inspirational Mondays - the traumas of menopause

My inspiration today is my late mother (who died when I was 16). I am at that stage in my life where I am starting to go through the menopause. My body has had a couple of ‘trial runs’ at it and it was hell!!

How on earth my mother coped I have no idea. I was coming into my teenage years (I was born when she was 41), she ran a household (without many of today’s conveniences like a microwave, tumble dryer etc), was wife to my father, had a full-time job, did various crafts like crochet and tapestry, went to bingo – AND went through the menopause. Good God she must have been a superwoman.

Every time my body decides to have another ‘stab’ at it I suffer from complete lack of sleep due to the night sweats, despite sleeping in the nude with no covers. A friend is also going through it and we have both described it as ‘a sudden raging temperature’. You can be freezing cold one minute then in a furnace the next – and the furnace can then take a while before it finally gets back to normal temperature. This means I am exhausted the next day.

I did have a laugh when I did a google search for ‘menopause symptoms’ – one website included: peeing when you sneeze, flatulence, itchy skin, forgetfulness, irritability – one friend who had been through it asked me if I was suffering from the latter symptom. I told her she’d have to ask my friends and colleagues if I am more irritable than normal!!!

This is a friend who is in her early 60s and had her menopause 15 years previously. When I asked her ‘when does it end?’ she stated that she still had hot flushes. Can I slit my throat now?????????

Jen

Wednesday Writing - work in progress

I am in the closing stages of the sequel to 'Wife for Three'. It took me a while to get going on this one. I wanted it to be about an older woman for a change and had a different heroine to begin with - but then I found I just didn't like her!!

So decided instead to use Emily - the owner of the bar in Frontier from 'Wife for Three', who offered sex to the young men in the area since the laws were so restrictive. At the moment it is entitled 'Chasing Emily' (but that might yet change!) as Emily fights hard to avoid losing her independence, even down to fleeing from those who want her to settle down - and this involves two younger men who are determined not to let her go. She has turned out to be a very feisty lady - possibility the feistiest I have written yet!

I will be submitting it to my publisher this week so watch this space to find out if they accept it as the second story in the Duoterra Series.

Jen

Inspirational Mondays

When my first book was accepted by Siren Publishing they gave me access to their Authors’ Forum. This is a terrific network of fellow Siren writers who answer queries, suggest ideas and generally support each other. I have made some good friends through them and several follow me on Blog/Facebook/Twitter/Goodreads and so on.

In particular I am close to three of them and I call us The Four Musketeers. We all had a book out in June, all had birthdays in May and June (and two even on the same day!) and it has been great being cheerleader to the others, watching each other rise in bestseller lists, applauding great reviews (and commiserating on bad ones L).

I am now going to visit each of them this Autumn!  Susan Laine (with whom I am collaborating on a werewolf story) lives in Finland so I have a long weekend with her in September. Then I fly to the States in October to visit Angela Wray and then Tatum Throne. I imagine (and hope) we are going to have a great time talking about men and sex (as well as discuss writing, of course! And lots of sight seeing)

It took a while to facilitate diaries and flights but everything is booked and I am so excited – I just hope we like each other as much in the flesh as we do over email, after all one person’s habits can be very off-putting to another person! I am assured I don’t smell, but as I have very little sense of smell I have to rely on others to tell me!

These three are terrific people and I want to thank you all for being such good inspirational friends!

Can’t wait to meet you guys…………..

Jen

Friday funnies

A guy comes home from work, walks into his bedroom, and finds a stranger fucking his wife.

He says, "What the hell are you two doing?"

His wife turns to the stranger and says, "I told you he was stupid."

Have a nice weekend.

Jen

Wednesday writing - the beauty of the English language – that no-one outside England understands.

I have a small group of close author friends and we occasionally have a discussion/debate about usage of certain words in the England language - which no-one but myself seems to understand.

This came out of a comment from my editor (although English, I work for an American publisher) on my latest edits asking me to change the word ‘scarpered’ (as in ‘to run away quickly) as they stated that it was a term not widely used outside of British English. And it turned out my fellow author friends (European as well as American) had never heard of this either. *sigh* I feel like I am speaking a foreign language sometimes.

Other words some fellow authors haven’t heard of included ‘tutted’ as in 'to make a sound of disapproval', and ‘by dint of’ in other words ‘by means of’.

The other things I have had to consider since starting writing for an American publisher is to change the spelling of words, eg, colour to color, realise to realize, dived to dove. If I try to use 'whilst' they automatically change it to while.

Similarly, the need to change to American idioms, eg, take-away to take-out, lift to elevator, taxi to cab, knickers to panties. I haven’t had any of my characters referring to the bottom-most floor in a building but in England we would call that the ground floor – I believe I’d have to change that to first floor? One non-American author was told that the swear word ‘bloody’ was too English and to change it as her story was set in America.

I objected when they removed the dash in the word co-worker. Without it (coworker) I felt it read like cow worker – so I changed it to colleague! That's what I get for working for an American publisher.

Of course, even within my own country we have our regional words. I am a southern living in the north of the country and get confused when someone says they are having their dinner – when it is the middle of the day. To me that is lunch. Dinner is reserved for the evening meal – which to the northerners is tea!!

And so by dint of the fact that I have now finished, I scarper through the ground floor of my house to the kitchen (as I don’t need to take the lift) to tidy away the remains of the take-away having realised I failed to tidy up yesterday, before anyone (in particular a co-worker) starts tutting. Whilst I am there I put away the washing. (I dived to pick up some knickers, which had fallen to the floor, the colour of which are red). And then had some tea (and I don’t mean the evening meal!). All of this before the bloody taxi arrives to take me to work.

Jen

Inspirational Mondays - Author Interview

My second inspirational author is Susan Laine. I have had a lot to do with Susan since she and I are collaborating on a paranormal story (she tells you a little more about it below). Suffice to say we have learned a lot about each other through the process! Over to you Susan:

My vices include chocolate and gay porn, and I’m only moderately ashamed of the former. I live in Finland, I’m an anthropologist, and I’m a right-brained kinda gal who has a thing for cowboys. I’m a strange, unusual sex fiend-eccentric trapped in the body of a quiet, good, meek girl next door.

Tell us about your latest book

Mending Fences is my third cowboy story for Siren Publishing. It’s the story of Clayton, a rodeo cowboy who gets outed as gay in front of his fiancée, and as a result he loses control of his life. He becomes the unofficial spittoon of the small town of Snow Lake, and worst of all is that he believes he deserves the hangovers, the beatings, the general contemptuous behavior from everyone. Scene is set for Jesse, the town sheriff, who wants to show Clayton that he deserves better and to be happy—and that Jesse is the guy he can achieve those things with.

What makes a great hero?

A hero can be a man or a woman, but I suppose if we are talking about a man, there are certain qualities that give him heroic luster. He should be smart enough to know his own way in life and his own heart, kind enough to treat people well (even if they don’t extend the same courtesy to him) and rise up against injustice and evil, strong enough to face adversities without losing who he is or being deterred from loving who he wants to love, and innocent enough to believe in true love and happy ever after. Sexiness comes from within, a glow of self-confidence, so a six-pack is not a requirement J

Do you have anything in common with your characters?

Not really. They do their own thing. One or two personality traits we might share, but beyond that… I do tend to over-analyze things sometimes, so Jordan Waters from Sounds of Love did have that in common with me. But other than that, nope.  

What’s the strangest (bravest, funniest etc) thing you’ve ever done?

Other than becoming an erotic romance author? J Just kidding. Well, I don’t know about strange, but one funny thing happened to me on my very first trip to a foreign climate, Mallorca of all places. I was just a kid back then, and I was going to the hotel pool first thing in the morning. I swam all day, my sister and other patrons joined me, and I had a great morning. Then it was time for lunch, and everybody got out of the pool. My sister pointed at the pool as the waters calmed and said, “Hey, look, someone’s glasses are on the bottom!”. I slapped my face with my hand hard and yelled, “Shit, they’re mine!”. I’m not sure if I cursed, but something to that effect. So, listening to the chortles of my family and other hotel guests, I dived for my glasses (intact, thank goodness), and spent the rest of the day blushing so badly that people thought I’d gotten severe sunburn.

What are you currently working on, or what’s on the horizon?

I’m working on a collaboration piece with Jennifer Denys, the author of this blog, on a paranormal MMF story set in Finland, and we’re close to the finish line J I’m also working on two contemporary MM stories, one paranormal MM, and one MM cowboy story. One man in an erotic book? Great. Now add another, and it’s bliss!

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I read (all writers do) and I watch detective stories, scifi and fantasy on TV and DVD, but I only watch comedies and I only read romance. I hate chick flicks. Sorry, but I do, and won’t be caught dead watching one of those. Gimme action and stuff being blown up and earth crumbling away on a natural disaster or alien invasion, and I’m high as a kite! I like to walk in the woods (nature’s important to me), swim (at the lake near my cottage), slalom (though it’s been a couple of years), and doing the dishes (it’s soothing and gives me inspirations as my thoughts wander). Though I admit lately all these activities have taken a backseat as I’m firmly rooted in front of the computer ever since I became a published author.

How can you fans find you on the internet?

My website is at http://www.susan-laine-author.fi/ and my email is susan.laine@hotmail.com. I keep my links to all the other places where I can be found on the internet on my website, so check it out.

Thanks for having me here, Jen J

 

You are very welcome Susan. Next month's inspirational author is Tatumn Throne.