Prodigal Slave is Coming Soon...

I am soooo excited!
Prodical Slave is coming!

Woot! Throwing confetti!

I know, I know...I'm overly anxious and it will be months before edits are done and cover art and...and...and...

I'm pacing the floor like a 1950's dad waiting outside the delivery room.

Thankfully, I am not the only one who is excited. My critique partner, Xandra Gregory, (who incidentally has Jolly Rogered coming out at LSB soon) is equally excited. She is the one who has prodded me over the years to finish the story with the red bustier...

And this morning I woke up to a wonderful email from a friend, Susan, who sent me a group of photos from Morgana Femme Couture's LiveJournal. The corset for todays post came from her collection:)

So here's an excerpt (Chapter One):

Prodigal Slave - Ch 1

Excerpt From Reaper

Many of you have already heard the news: My first paranormal is being released soon by Liquid Silver Books. I am very excited. I don't have art work yet but I've decided to share an excerpt...this scene follows the interrogation of Kendrah by Detective Jonathon Taylor in relation to her being at the scene of a homicide.

Excerpt begins here:

“I can leave?” Kendrah asks, pushing away from the table and standing.

“Yes.” Detective Taylor holds open the door for her. “That accent of yours? You’re from England?”

“Once,” she admits. “But that was a long time ago. A different life.”

“I’ve always been a sucker for a foreign accent, he admits, following her into the large room filled with the desks of lower ranking detectives. “You intrigue me Ms. Lake.”

She starts to walk away but he grabs her elbow and she faces him, her expression demanding an explanation. He stretches out her arm, looking down its length, rather looking at the tattooed sleeve covering her arm from shoulder to wrist. “This is unusual. When I first sat down with you, I thought, beautiful, vibrant, but once I took the time to take a closer look at the individual pieces that make the whole, it’s very disturbing.”

She licks her lips, self-consciously. She hasn’t stood so close to man she has no intent of crossing over for centuries. His scent surrounds her, cologne and coffee, but beneath that his scent, and she realizes she likes that scent entirely too much. It brings to mind other centuries, other men, love and lust and sex, want, desire, need, and pain.

She doesn’t want to remember the love lost and tries to jerk away but he only smiles, holding her wrist tight but not hurting her. “I can’t inquire about a tat? This one is truly a work of art. Can you explain the symbolism?”

She remains silent.

“I know a little bit about symbolism,” he admits. His finger traces the narrow band of trumpets circling above her bicep, each trumpet containing another figure, impressing him with its sheer level of artistic detail. He recites a verse from Revelations. “And the seven angels, which had the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound.” He touches the first trumpet depiction which within its shape holds a representation of earth. “See? This trumpet perfectly represents what happened when that trumpet sounded. The earth was assaulted by hail and fire.”

He touches the second trumpet, depicting the sea within, tarnished with red crests, reciting, “…and the sea became blood.”

Kendrah tries again to pull free her arm but he strokes the third and fourth trumpets sensually with his thumb, continuing to quote, not direct quotes, but understanding the verses enough that he paraphrases. “…and there fell a great star from heaven…the sun falling…and the moon and stars were darkened.” Lifting his gaze to hers, he asks, “I wonder what kind of a life a girl would have had to inspire the Biblical rendition of Armageddon on her arm. Some kind of messed up life, I’m guessing. ”

Thoughts On Multi-Genre

I just shared a lot of the following over at Sexpressions as a comment to today's Post by Rusty Wicks...who posted that he wasn't sure what he wanted to write about today...read the post here...to understand my comment...

But before I get to my comment, I want to explain why I commented the way I did...

I went to a Agent/Writer's Conference over the winter with Xandra Gregory and met with an agent, as did she, we pitched our books...and compared notes on the drive home because we were very "green" and car-pooled. She was understandably upset because the agent told her to pick a genre...she writes several...I have my own VERY STRONG opinion on what she writes best, but usually she's stubborn and insists on focusing on another genre...even though she beats her head against the desk more days than not. She is wonderful at that second genre as well. I'm not saying that it is less, she just seems to struggle more. But, then she has a third genre that she writes and although I don't see it very often...it is astounding...probably better even than the first...but because I rarely see it...I'll never know...

But here's the thing...like Rusty struggling to pick a starting point...and Xandra trying to market herself to an agent and what the agent was trying to tell her. It's easier to market an author once their target audience can be identified...the side benefit is that once a writer picks "their genre" they quickly rise to the occasion and their focus, no longer distracted by other choices, becomes fine-tuned, taking them to excellence...think Hamilton, King, Clancy...they have a target audience.

Not that authors don't write under several, they do...but usually they establish themselves as an author of "X" before they try to also market themselves as an author of "Y".

I know...long post...
Here's my comment that I posted on Sexpression's that led to this post...and please remember it is merely my opinion...

I understand the dilemma...I've had paranormal, vampire, time-travel, and bdsm all brewing at the same time...

then I met with a wonderful editor (St Martin's Press) and tried to pitch myself as a multi-genred author. I was told very kindly to decide who I am as a writer, and to focus on that. A year later I submitted Unholy Promises...and she loved it...she felt it would be a good fit with them...if I changed it to third person. Yikes, ever try to switch a first person, alternating pov to third? I did it. It took a year. I sat down and read it, then immediately trashed it and emailed a "thanks but..." letter. I wanted to market Unholy Promises in its original first person form. I walked away from a brilliant opportunity at St Martins because I believed enough in who I was as a writer to want my work to stand out for what it was, not what someone else wanted it to be.

So, what I'm saying is this...
She gave me the best advice in the world. Pick a genre, fine tune it, market it and most of all believe in it.

Now, when I sit down, I know my genre...and I know the genre that I am the very best at writing...and the stories pour out. Sure, every once in a while, my muse sends me a vampire but I tell her...go find Laurell K Hamilton...she's the vampire girl...I write BDSM Erotica...(sexpressions comment ends here)...

As an aside, the book I decided to not release through St. Martin's... Unholy Promises... will soon be released through Liquid Silver Books and I am very excited about that. You may have noticed the cover art from a previous post...but if not...here it is...just because I like looking at it;)