Category Archives: Writing
I need a cleaning service
A friend of mine is coming to town today and will be staying overnight at my place. As I have spent the last four months working on books, the housekeeping has fallen a bit by the wayside, which meant that the last five days have been spent cleaning all of the public rooms and the downstairs guest room. And when I say cleaning, I really mean rounding up dust rhinos, vacuuming up enough cat hair to make an additional two cats, wiping layers of dust off of every flat surface, giving the kitchen an in-depth cleaning and rendering the floor non-adhesive, and basically putting away a metric assload of shit that I’ve left to collect hither and yon. Oh, and I put my new toepiece on my cello finally — go me.
As I sit here, pondering every muscle on my body currently screaming at me and trying to convince my feet not to secede, I have decided something. I’ve spent five days sweating my ass off to make this place acceptable for guests when you know what? I could have been writing. I could have had Two to Tango pretty much 3/4 done, if not finished, and I damn well could have had the short story entry I’m doing done.
Which has led me to this decision. Come August, when we should have a major bill paid off and will have extra dosh in the house (please God), I am getting a biweekly cleaning service. Ramón will not be pleased about this at first, because he has never wanted a maid service in the past as he doesn’t like the idea of strangers being in our domicile (the fact that he often works from home and likes to work in a t-shirt and boxers has some bearing on this decision as well). But I have now spoken to female friends and relatives and learned that no man wants a maid service. As this is obviously a genetic quirk embedded in the Y chromosome, I feel that I can blithely ignore it and sign us up.
Of course, one part of me feels bad that I’m paying someone to clean my house for me. My Eastern European ancestors are probably rolling in their graves from shame that I don’t scrub the baseboards on a daily basis. But I’m taking something that Rachel Caine once told me to heart — if it gives you more time to write, it’s cost effective to hire someone to do whatever takes you away from writing. And as I’m actually starting to make money on my writing (not a lot, not yet anyway, but enough that I’ll have to pay quarterly taxes this year), I’d really rather pay Molly Maids to send over a couple of nice ladies every two weeks to give the public rooms a good once-over, and use the saved time to finish Iron Cross and get started on Breaker Zone.
So that’s my story and I’m — oops, there’s the doorbell. Off to be a hostess!
Works in Progress: Two to Tango
A little snippet from the SF caper novella TWO TO TANGO, starring an irreverent art thief and the grumpy but hot art conservator he accidentally kidnaps during a heist:
When everything started going blurry, Dmitri realized he’d stopped breathing and sucked in air. “That … how?”
Rory smirked. “I’m an art thief. You do the math.”
“No, you fool. How did it get smashed?”
“Oh, that.” Now Rory looked embarrassed. “Um, I hadn’t quite expected the previous owner’s last line of defense, and getting out of her compound meant jumping off a cliff into an ocean. The bowl didn’t quite survive the jump, unfortunately.” His eyes went vague with memory. “I have to admit, importing a black panther all the way from Earth was classy. Insane, but classy—“
Dmitri held up a hand. “Why are you showing me this? I mean, unless you genuinely want me to kill you for destroying a priceless artifact from an alien culture?” He shouted the last bit, fists clenching on the worktable surface.
The taller man shuffled a bit, toeing the deck. “Well, you’re an exoarchaeologist and a conservator, right? So I thought maybe you could put it back together again.”
Dmitri stared at Rory for a long moment, fighting down the urge to wrap his hands around the other man’s throat and squeeze. “Mr. McClellan, this bowl dates from the Third Sooloogo Dynasty,” he said, enunciating every syllable. “When the Saolao carved this, mankind was still poking sticks into termite hills and eating what they pulled out. You don’t just ‘put something like this back together.’”
So, Nic, why DO you write M/M romance?
I’m in a bit of a weird situation when it comes to writing same-gender erotic romance. While I count myself as primarily straight, my best friend of some thirty plus years is gay, I do a podcast with him and another friend that is considered part of a gay podcasting community, and a number of good friends are also GLBT. I understand that human sexuality is a spectrum and hetero/homo/bi/a are expected points spread along it. In other words, it’s all normal and good (and frankly I’m flattered when lesbians hit on me, especially the cute ones).
But still, primarily straight. And primarily straight women who write M/M erotic romance can run into problems from people accusing them of taking a M/F relationship dynamic and giving the “female” character a penis in order to cash in on the market for M/M romance. Worse, we get accused of fetishizing M/M sex and turning it into a masturbation tool for hetero women (much the same as “lesbian” porn, and I use that term loosely, is used by hetero men to get off). Unfortunately, both of these things do occur, the latter particularly in yaoi manga and anime. If it helps at all, M/M fetishization makes me just as uncomfortable as it does its detractors (gay and bi men are people, not sex toys. Same goes for lesbians and bi women), and badly written M/M erotic romance where the smaller/weaker/beta partner is obviously a woman in disguise drives me nuts. If you’re going to write sex scenes with two guys, they should be two guys, with all the characteristics of their gender. Also, why is the smaller partner always the beta/weaker/femme in disguise? Many of the guys I know on the shorter end of the scale are often quite dominant. But I digress.
The reason why I like writing M/M erotic romance is very simple — it’s more of what I like to look at. Oh, dear sweet mother of God, but I love men’s bodies — the way they’re shaped, the jut of a stubbly jaw, the curve of a bubble butt, the broadness of muscular shoulders. And yeah, I love penises — there, I’ve said it. I fell in love with them the moment I saw my first in-person erection and thought, “God, that’s a beautiful thing.” I know some women think that they look a bit odd, but I’m a proud aficionado of the phallus.
And when I write erotic romance, it’s got to be something that turns me on. Because of what I like, that’s usually the thought of two attractive men almost blind with need for each other, falling into bed or the nearest flat surface/wall/whatever as they get hard and writhe and moan and caress and lick and suck and happily fuck each other into ecstasy…er, excuse me for a moment. Need to cool off.
There, that’s better. Anyway, I like watching two attractive men who are genuinely into each other have sex. And “into each other” is important — I’ve seen my share of gay-for-pay porn with two guys who are obviously thinking of the paycheck instead of who they’re with, and frankly I’d rather watch paint dry. That being said, I am very aware of the tendency to fetishize this sort of sex, which is why I do my absolute best to stay as far away from that slant as possible. I want my characters to be as real as I can make them, not just literary blow-up dolls. Yes, they have smoking hot sex — I am writing erotic romance, after all. But they also have problems and bad habits, and have to struggle to get what they want, and are nowhere near perfect. I don’t know about you, but for me reading about perfect Ken dolls is boring as shit. I want my readers to get hooked into the story and cheering for my guys, so characterization is what I spend the bulk of my time working on when I write a story. As much as I enjoy writing the sex scenes, all that pyroclastic fucking is really just the cherry on the sundae.
By the way, all of this doesn’t mean I dislike MF erotic romance. I enjoy it very much, and plan on writing it in the near future (hell, the last book in the Olympic Cove series will be an MF book). But in the meantime, I’ll keep on writing what appeals to me both as a writer and a woman, and that usually means two hot guys happily humping away. Bless their hearts.
Go home, May, you’re drunk
I live in the clavicle of Texas, which means that as soon as May rolls around I prepare myself for the oncoming hell that is summer in Texas. My lawn guy (yes, I have a lawn guy — I’m busy and Ramón doesn’t do yardwork) was just mentioning to me yesterday that our city will be going to Stage 3 water restriction as of June 1st, as we stood outside in short sleeves and chatted in the 82°F sunny weather.
So will someone tell me why the temperature outside currently stands at 46°F, the trees are whipping back and forth like Willow Smith’s old hairstyle, and I’ve heard reports of snow? Apparently it’s actually snowing in Kansas City right now, which must come as quite the surprise to all the RT attendees (one woman tweeted that she’d packed a nice summer sundress, and had to go out to buy warmer clothes). Granted, I don’t mind cooler weather, especially if it keeps the triple digit days down to July/August, but this is ridiculous. Not to mention it’s seriously fucking with my budget, since by now the A/C should be on permanently and I’m keeping a nervous eye on the electric bill. Instead, I’m wearing thick socks and a shawl, the heat is on and I have to mentally adjust how much gets paid to the gas company and how much gets paid to the electric company. I’m old — I don’t like surprises. So sue me.
The good thing about the crappy weather is that I feel no need whatsoever to go outside, and indeed am stuck back into Behind the Iron Cross with a vengeance. The goal is to have it done and dusted by May 15, then let it sit for the rest of the month while I crack open Breaker Zone. The only problem with BZ is that I’m still kinda sorta working out the middle of the book — I know how it starts and ends, but hooking those two terminii up is my current mental cud chewing task while doing housework or crafting.
And then there’s Two to Tango, which is also calling for my attention, not to mention the alternate history mystery and the SF novels in my to do queue. There are times I really wish I didn’t have to sleep. Or had minions. Yeah, I could really do with some minions.
In other news, Storm Season continues to rise like a slow tide, which is heartening. I don’t have any “official” reviews yet, but it’s going over a treat at Goodreads, I have a nice 4-star review at Amazon, it’s slowly climbing the Paranormal/Horror bestseller chart at All Romance Ebooks, and it’s currently the highest-rated Evernight book in Bookstrand’s 30 Day Bestseller list for paranormal romance. Plus it’s selling steadily at Amazon, and I’m hoping that I’m close to 25 sales through Evernight’s website or have already cracked that. I figure as I build my backlist the sales will slowly increase and I’ll start developing a name for myself. Granted, that name will probably be, “Oh, that chick who does those weird SF/fantasy/suspense/erotic romance mashups,” but I’ll take what I can get.
And we have our winners!
Thanks to everyone who entered the Storm Season Release Day contest! Thanks to my random number generator, I’ve selected the three winners:
- Sheri V: Evernight Gift Certificate
- Jackie L: Amazon Gift Certificate
- Anna N: Nereid’s Band bracelet
The GCs have been sent, and the bracelet will go in the mail tomorrow. And if you were hoping to get the bracelet, fear not — I have it on good authority that Belaurient Arts will be making it available for sale Very Soon Now.
Congratulations to the winners, and thanks again to everyone who entered!
Twitter IS useful, after all!
So yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in a parking lot waiting for Ramón to come out of a computer parts store (he’s still working on the Fassbender-bot for my birthday, bless him). As I cooled my heels, I started idly paging through Twitter and came across the following tweet from one Mr. Misha Collins, known for his humorous tweets, numerous good deeds, and the brilliant cooking show Cooking Fast and Fresh with West! (and some show on the CW, I forget the name):
In spite of the old saying, I’m quite adept at tangoing alone. That said it is much easier with two. @team_barrowmantwitpic.com/cmordp
— Misha Collins (@mishacollins) April 28, 2013
And suddenly the Muse whacked me over the back of the head with a two-by-four, gleeful bitch that she is. I quickly responded that this was relevant to my interests, thanked them for inspiring a new book idea, and got down to outlining on my smartphone. As of today, I have the working title (Two to Tango), the plot (fast, fun SF caper novella — art thief inadvertently kidnaps cranky art conservator with a dark past during a heist, a ruthless police official implicates the conservator as the art thief’s inside man and sends them both on the run, and hijinks ensue!), and the first 2,245 words. With a good tail wind and some late nights, I should have this ready by mid-May for submission.
And they say Twitter is a useless time sink. Oh, and here’s the opening sequence for Two to Tango:
Sean McClellan loved this part of a heist.
He moved quickly through the darkened access hallway, his mimetic bodysuit taking on the colors and patterns of the scuffed grey wall. Body heat was diverted to sinks in the boot soles, rendering him essentially invisible to both standard and infrared cameras. His faceplate, a thin-film computer monitor, turned the shadowy hallway into a brightly lit corridor. The worn industrial carpet underneath deadened the sound of footsteps, not that there was anyone around to hear them. Not tonight.
Not unless they wanted to die, anyway.
He checked his heads up display, noting the time. Eighteen minutes before airtight bulkhead doors would slam down throughout the Novy Vladivostok Museum of Art and History and the atmosphere would be sucked out of the entire building, replaced with a sterilizing gas designed to kill artifact-destroying bacteria. The fact that the gas would also kill any humans still in the building guaranteed that it would be empty.
Which was perfect for him. The museum couldn’t have picked a better time to do their yearly sterilization sweep, the night before their newest exhibit went on display. He’d already done the tricky part: bribing underpaid planetary border agents for access, parking his cloaked ship directly over the building and using a custom worm app to open an hole in museum security that allowed him to enter from the roof. Now all he had to do was hack the electronic lock on the workroom, break into the safe where his target was stored, retrieve it, and get out before sterilization commenced.
Easy peasy.
Release Day: Storm Season (and yes, I’m running a contest!)
Happy Friday, you gorgeous people! Let’s kick off the weekend right by celebrating the release of my debut novel Storm Season, now available from Evernight Publishing, Amazon, All Romance Ebooks, Bookstrand, and other purveyors of fine erotic romance.
Ian West had his summer all planned out — go down to Florida, stay in his family’s beach cottage on Olympic Cove, and work on his science fiction novel. But his plans get thrown for a loop when gorgeous twin sea gods Bythos and Aphros show up in the cove and inform him he’s their fated consort. As if that wasn’t enough, something in the Gulf of Mexico is turning mermaids into legendary monsters and gods into demons. Now, Ian not only has to navigate the complicated waters of a ménage relationship with twin sea gods, he also has to stop an insane deity and save the whole damn planet. No pressure.
But wait, there’s more! I’m also running a contest with the following prizes:
• A Nereid’s Band, as featured in the book. The 7.25″ bracelet is made from hand-wound silver metal chain mail links and constructed in a Full Persian weave, with shimmering pale blue crystal rondelles and a leaping dolphin toggle. Bracelet courtesy of Belaurient Arts.
• A $20 Amazon gift certificate
• A $20 Evernight Publishing gift certificate
To win one of these prizes, simply leave your name and email address in the comments below before midnight CST on April 28, 2013, and answer the following question: Did you ever unexpectedly fall in love with someone, and if so, how did it happen? You MUST answer the question to be entered in the contest.
Thanks for reading, and good luck with the contest!
Onward, Forward, Upward on a Sunday
With Storm Season about to be released, it’s time to start the outlining process for Book Two in the Olympic Cove series, Breaker Zone. I’ve had the general romance outline of the story in my head for quite some time, now — Dr. Nick Gardiner, a friend of Ian’s from Chicago, shows up on the cottage doorstep after a traumatic experience sends him running for his life. After a shocking introduction to Ian’s new existence, Nick becomes the student of a contentious Chiron, and falls in love with Kieran and Liam, two mermen with a shared secret.
Apart from that, however, I didn’t really have details about how this new triad plays into the war with Storm Season‘s Big Baddie, nor did have details about Nick, Kieran and Liam apart from what they looked like and the fact that both Ki and Liam have kids (merfolk society is gender-indifferent, but requires its members to reproduce in order to keep up population numbers). After spending the last couple of days noodling, however, I now, have the theme of the book — losing and regaining trust (Storm Season‘s theme is personal responsibility, in case you’re interested, and the third book, Deep Current, has a theme of faith). With that in place, I’m moving forward on the plot outline, which looks to include quite a lot of suspense if my early plot points stay true. I also discovered that Nick used to play drums with a grunge band back in college, Ki is a brilliant hunter and loyal lover but not the sharpest shell in the sea, and Liam is more than a bit kinky (which appeals to Nick’s submissive side and will play nicely into certain scenes I’ve already mapped out).
So yeah, that’s my Sunday. How is yours shaping up?
A Compendium of Sunday Stuff™
Happy Sunday, and I hope that you’ve dealt with having an hour of your life sucked away for the summer (Daylight Savings Time — idiotic or just dumb?). To make up for that missing hour, here are the things going on in Cameronville this weekend:
- Evernight just published my blog post “Romance on the Go: Short and Sweet…on Purpose” over at their blog, so head on over and find out why “A Boon by Moonlight” and other RotG stories are the length they are.
- Speaking of “Boon,” it’s officially a category bestseller over at All Romance E-books, which is making me do happy dances. That being said, I’m not slacking off on the PR, and I need your help for that. If you bought “Boon,” please leave a review at Evernight, Amazon, ARe or Bookstrand, wherever you like. Remember, reviews are love!
- Storm Season is slowly but surely making its way up the production list over at Evernight. Personally, I cannot wait to see what they come up with for the cover.
- Behind the Iron Cross continues apace, although the Dallas Quilt Festival and a brand new niece convinced me to play hooky this weekend and work on a baby quilt. Don’t worry, though — I write in my head when I’m crafting. Plus I got some gorgeous ocean-themed fabric, and I may make a small wall hanging as a giveaway for Storm Season‘s release day.
- Have I mentioned recently how much I love having writers as friends? I’m currently beta reading the sequel to Cecilia Tan’s Slow Surrender (which is freaking fantastic — go get it if you haven’t gotten it already), and it’s amazing. I’m really looking forward to book 3 in her Struck by Lightning series.
- There’s nothing quite as nice as snuggling with three cats on your bed when it’s thundering outside. Just had to put that out there.
And we have three winners!
I opened up the random number generator and pulled out three numbers correlating to the comments in my Release Day post, and we have three winners!
Barefootlady – EP Gift Certificate
Brian Jackson – Amazon Gift Certificate
Jillian DeMarco – Willow Tree pendant
Jillian, if you can get me a reliable mailing address, I’ll get the pendant out in the mail to you today. BFL and Brian, your gift certificates will be emailed to you forthwith.
Thanks for playing!
Nicola Cameron Writes 