Fern has lived half her life in fear of the Shadows, predatory creatures who move within the darkness and whose touch means death. When she discovers she has the legendary gift of fire-starting, she knows she may hold the key to their destruction.
But the unpredictable gift is curse as well as blessing. Fern must learn—and learn fast—how to use it. To do so she needs the help of Nik, the enigmatic magician who seems to understand her gift better than she does herself.
From the moment they meet, sparks fly—sometimes literally. Nik makes her lose her temper faster than anyone else can, but he understands her better than anyone else, too. Fern realises something she didn’t look for and didn’t expect—she’s falling in love with him.
But can Nik be trusted? Or is he hiding secrets of his own?
Buy it here! Go on, push the button. Do it. I dare ya!
I see a lot of angst about this question from authors. What’s my genre? How do I label/market myself to editors and agents? If I write cross-genre, who do I send my books to? Which audience do I market myself to? The questions go on and on. And they’re very valid questions!
In a lot of ways, I have it easy now that I have an agent. It’s up to her to decided who and how to market me to editors, so if I write crazy cross-genre, I get to offload that headache to her. Then the editors and their publishers decide how to market me to the public.
In the end, does it even matter how we label ourselves? If the publisher gets to be the one to make that call for their marketing stance, then does it matter what we say or think we are? One example I’ve found of this is Yasmine Galenorn’s Sisters of the Moon series. It’s Urban Fantasy and has been marketed as Paranormal Romance because they thought it would sell better that way. Ms. Galenorn must have been called on it by fans because she says this on her website:
While labeled paranormal romance on the spine, this is really an urban fantasy series. The publisher makes the determination on what genre to classify books in and therefore, the author really has nothing to do with that choice. I consider the series urban fantasy because the focus is on the action, the world story arc, and primarily, the sisters and their relationships to one another. While there is explicit sex, and relationships do play a significant part, those are not the main forces of the stories, and these are not HEA books.
Another example I have is of my critique partner R.G. Alexander’s Children of the Goddess series at Samhain. She wrote it as paranormal romance, and both she and the publisher have labeled and marketed it as such, but reviewers have called it Urban Fantasy Romance. I guess if people buy it and like it, that’s a good thing regardless of the label.
I was in the car this morning and I’m Still A Guy by Brad Paisley came on. By the end of the lyrics I was cracking up.
But it got me thinking.
First, I’ve dated one of those gets-his-eyebrows-waxed-and-is-more-fem-than-me guys (not that it’s hard to be more fem than me, despite the fact I write and read romance), but I learned really fast that I’m not interested in a girlie-man. Maybe some men can pull it off, but I don’t know that many of them can, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want one taking up permanent residence in my home and bed.
But, after hearing this song, I also thought about my heroes and the kind of guys I write. We tend to write men that walk the fruity dog and hold purses and write us love songs, but I think it’s important to remember that he is still a guy at the end of the day. We don’t want girlie-man heroes and we don’t want caveman heroes. Somewhere in between is good. A hot caveman we’re not going to kick out of bed, but a girlie-man annoys us after a while. However, I suppose it is a fantasy we’re writing…so maybe the caveman is reformable (the the rake in ye olde Regency romance), but I like to kick the caveman heroes I have in the head until they behave in a way that means if I met him on the street, I’d say yes if he asked me out. My heroines shouldn’t have lower standards than me, ya know? But…when all’s said and done, he’s still a guy.
Lyrics and a YouTube video with the song below. I don’t think there’s an official music video yet, but let me know if there is and I’ll switch out the videos!
Brad Paisley-I’m Still A Guy
When you see a deer you see Bambi
And I see antlers up on the wall
When you see a lake you think picnics
And I see a large mouth up under that log
You’re probably thinking that you’re gonna change me
In some ways well maybe you might
Scrub me down, dress me up aww but no matter what
Remember, I’m still a guy
When you see a priceless French painting
I see a drunk, naked girl
You think that ridin’ a wild bull sounds crazy
And I’d like to give it a whirl
Well love makes a man do some things he ain’t proud of
And in a weak moment I might walk your sissy dog, hold your purse at the mall
But remember, I’m still a guy
And I’ll pour out my heart
Hold your hand in the car
Write a love song that makes you cry
Then turn right around knock some jerk to the ground
‘Cause he copped a feel as you walked by
I can hear you now talkin’ to your friends
Saying, “Yeah girls he’s come a long way”
From draggin’ his knuckles and carryin’ a club
And buildin’ a fire in a cave
But when you say a backrub means only a backrub
Then you swat my hand when I try
Well now, what can I say at the end of the day
Honey, I’m still a guy
And I’ll pour out my heart
Hold your hand in the car
Write a love song that makes you cry
Then turn right around knock some jerk to the ground
‘Cause he copped a feel as you walked by
These days there’s dudes gettin’ facials
Manicured, waxed and botoxed
With deep spray-on tans and creamy lotiony hands
You can’t grip a tacklebox
Yeah with all of these men linin’ up to get neutered
It’s hip now to be feminized
I don’t highlight my hair
I’ve still got a pair
Yeah honey, I’m still a guy
Oh my eyebrows ain’t plucked
There’s a gun in my truck
Oh thank God, I’m still a guy
To get over the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, (and to celebrate my sales spree last week) I went and let someone stab me with needles!
I’ve been wanting a second hole in my ears. I have one hole in the lobe and the left tragus pierced, but that’s it. Nothing else. Not even a nose, bellybutton, or eyebrow. Or anything, ya know, else.
Anywho…on to the documentation of pain!
My fun piercer from Iris Piercing named Dustin. If you’re in Salt Lake City, they’re a great place even for wimps like me! He was very patient with the fact that I had to photograph the experience. And I think when I told him I was an erotica author, I freaked him out. I kind of doubt he’s had a lot of us in Utah–I was his first! (Not the first guy I’ve ever said that about, but that’s another story!) I told him he’d be featured on my blog, so if you see this, HI, DUSTIN!
A slightly blurry before picture. Note only two piercings.
And the after shot: tragus, first ring, second ring. I don’t know if you can see it, but the titanium varies around the ring from purple to teal. They colored the ring to my specifications while I stood and watched. It was pretty cool.
I have to say the first side hurt A LOT less than the second one. Dustin said it’s because the body hadn’t had time to fully register the pain, but when you get to the second one it’s ready to scream, “Oh, hell no, bitch! Are you crazy? Stabbing is bad!”
I don’t usually talk about the negatives of my live, especially not in a public forum like this one. Y’all don’t want to hear me whine, and that’s just not the kind of energy I want to put out in the world. I mean, really, my life is pretty awesome over all.
But.
Today was a craptastic day at work.
Totally. Craptastic.
The kind of day that makes you wish you could go postal on co-workers. Or just that you’d called in sick. I would have dearly loved to call the day a do-over and made all kinds of other choices. I’m just saying.
So, instead of getting specific in my bitch about librarian life, I wanted to explain how I deal with it as a writer. It is really hard to come home from a long day of work on any regular day and be creative and make my wordcount. It’s hard to the 12th power on days like today where things spiraled down the tubes.
So, how do I deal?
Well, the truth is, some days I just can’t. I do my best, but sometimes I only manage to haul my carcass into my apartment, collapse in bed, and call to vent to the Mad Madam M. No writing gets done. I have a policy most of the time to leave work at work, but days like today make that impossible sometimes. Normally, I force myself to push through, like I did today. Since I write out of order, when days like this happen, I tend to skip right to the black moment of my book, or a fight scene, or better yet, a death scene. A really gory one if the book calls for it. Basically, I write out the bad day, and pour all that awful, negative, ugly energy into something that will give me something to show for it when it’s all over.
So I’ve had this discussion a few times with Jennifer Bianco, and then it was weirdly echoed in a phone call I had the other day with Jennifer Leeland. Huh. Two Jennifers. I just realized that. Ah, well. Back to the topic!
With Jenn Bianco, it’s a lot about wanting to write dark and having dark ideas versus having a naturally chick lit voice. With Jen Leeland, it was writing erotic versus writing romantic suspense, because we were discussing this author we both know who thinks she writes dark and has claimed as she goes along she gets darker and grittier when Jen and I read her stuff and go, “Oh, honey. No, you really don’t. Stop trying so hard to be what you’re not because it ain’t working.”
Now, I believe that every writer has a range of tones they can write. Some people can write dark and comedy and pull both off with equal aplomb *cough* Gena Showalter *cough*. Some have a narrower “voice” range and stick to one genre or voice level (i.e. multiple genres but always dark or always light).
For me? I wish I wrote suspense better. I mean, I love it, and I think I can write suspensefully (i.e. the tone/voice/tension is there), but I can’t plot to save my life. I wish I could naturally plot, but it’s something I constantly struggle with. Sigh.
I guess the answer is we all have things we’re naturally good at, and the rest of the stuff we just get to struggle through and learn. Sometimes we learn it well enough no one can tell it’s not a natural skill, and sometimes not-so-much.
