THURSDAY TEASER - Nicole Murphy

Not all of us are looking for that perfect man. Taylor Wilson certainly isn’t. Her job is everything to her. But this is a romance and that means Taylor’s world is about to be turned upside down.

The Right Connection is my self-published fantasy romance novella. It’s a story that’s been with me for a long time, and I’m really happy to finally give Taylor and Roden their moment in the sun.

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The Right Connection – blurb

Time after time, the missions to retrieve the stolen children have failed. This time, rules will be broken in a last-ditch attempt.

Taylor Wilson is a respected soldier in the Land Corps with a terrible past that has scarred her. When she’s offered the opportunity to work on the mission to save the children taken by the socolapede, Taylor’s ready to jump at the chance until she finds it means she has to connect with a man.

At first, Roden is everything she feared—brash, overbearing, uncompromising. But as she comes to learn of his honour and strength, Taylor not only loses the fight against connection, she loses her heart too.

Can she form a connection with Roden strong enough to save the children? And if they succeed, do the two of them have a future together?

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Excerpt

The room was plainly furnished, but not with anything professional—instead what sat before her was a steel table, with two padded chairs on a brown rug. Two servings of a hearty meal of meat and potato sat on the table—real food, not the Land Corps rations that was served in the cafeteria.

“All for us. Special, aren’t we?”

Taylor spun around and could barely see a figure standing in the shadows. Whoever it was, they had the advantage over her for they could see her clearly.

“Buttering us up. Nice.” The man moved from the shadows into the dancing light provided by the candles.

Taylor hoped her face remained expressionless. This must be Roden. He was huge; a head taller than any man Taylor had ever known and heavily muscled. There was not an ounce of fat on him, as evidenced by the leanness of his cheeks. His face with its pointed nose and grey eyes reminded her of a wolf; strong and unwavering in his confidence. His head was bare of hair and the skin of his scalp was criss-crossed with scars. Looking over his uncovered arms, she saw more scars. He had not survived his fights unscathed.

Taylor was suddenly aware that his success as a fighter owed as much to his physical intimidation as to his skills. She looked again into his eyes and saw the determination there, and also a certain aloofness. She was supposed to control this man? Better luck controlling the stars.

“What do you mean?”

A small crease appeared between Roden’s eyes. “The meal.” He gestured to the table and she turned to look at it. “Trying to get us on side early, so we won’t automatically reject each other.”

“What?” Not incredibly intelligent, but Taylor couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“As they’re seemingly so concerned about this, let’s get a few things straight right now.” As Roden spoke, he crossed his arms across his chest.

Taylor was flummoxed by his easy confidence. “What things?”

“About how this is going to work. Particularly as you’ve never connected with a man since the—let’s call it the incident, shall we?”

Taylor wasn’t sure what shocked her more—that he knew about it or that he called it what she did.

Roden took advantage of her speechlessness to continue. “I’m sure that means that you really don’t trust men when it comes to connections and you’re intending to control me like a puppet, while you keep yourself to yourself.”

How had he known what she was thinking?

Roden wasn’t finished talking. “Now I want to tell you how things will really be. I need you to complete the mission but you will never control me. Be prepared to work with me as a partner and we’ll get through this. Try to be my boss and I’ll do it by myself.”

Taylor blinked several times to assure herself that she really was awake and that she had in fact heard the words just spoken. “And how do you as a fighter plan to go ahead in a mission without a soldier?”

His next words had her wishing she had studied him as thoroughly as he had her. “I trained as a soldier, went to within a month of graduating. I may not be as good as you, but I can send my mind if I need to. I can get by without you. I can just do it better with you, which is why I agreed to this connection. So that’s the way it’s going to be, soldier. We’ll develop a close enough connection to do this, but it will be on my terms or it won’t happen at all.”

Without waiting for Taylor’s reply, he sat down and began to eat. Taylor stared at the back of his head. She could not believe a fighter had spoken to a soldier like that. She could not believe a fighter had gone within a month of graduation as a soldier. She could not believe she would not be the one in control of this connection.
She wondered what to do, how to handle the situation. Training had never taught them how to deal with a fighter that wasn’t open to connection. It just wasn’t thought possible.

Taylor marched around the table so she was looking at Roden, but did not sit down. “I don’t believe you.”

Buy from SMASHWORDS
Buy from AMAZON

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You can win a free copy of The Right Connection (your choice of electronic format) by commenting below. Best of luck!


Nicole Murphy has been a primary school teacher, bookstore owner, journalist and checkout chick. She grew up reading Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin; spent her twenties discovering Quick, Lindsey and Deveraux and lives her love of science fiction and fantasy through her involvement with the Conflux science fiction conventions. Her urban fantasy trilogy Dream of Asarlai is published in Australia/NZ by HarperVoyager. She’s just commenced a new venture, In fabula-divinos which is aimed at mentoring up-and-coming writers. She lives with her husband in Queanbeyan, NSW. Visit her website 

Where can you win a copy of Nicole's new book? You can win a free copy of The Right Connection (your choice of electronic format) by commenting below. Best of luck!

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Thanks so much for dropping by today Nicole! I love the sound of your new book..congratulations!

MONDAY MAGIC - AB Gayle - Familiar with a Twist

Familiar with a Twist.

Many thanks to Maggie for inviting me to her blog.

A while ago, Nell Dixon, did a guest spot here entitled “Write What You Don’t Know” as a twist on the old adage “Write what you Know. Nell made some very good points about how, with adequate research, we can write about any subject. Because, let’s face it, as readers, we want to be taken out of our everyday humdrum world and vicariously meet those hunky alpha males who are so scarce in real life or be transported to another time and place. We want to experience the unfamiliar, and for a while walk in someone else’s shoes like Daniel’s in my novella “Caught” who has been known to don red stilettos when the occasion demanded it.

But today I’m going to talk about writing what you do know, the mundane and the familiar, and seeing how it can be incorporated into a story by giving it a twist.

My latest release “Isolation” is a sci-fi/futuristic romance set in 2050. It tells the story of what happens when Earth makes first contact with aliens who invite a contingent to return with them to their home planet, Saa’ar. For the Australian doctor, Dana Sinclair, and the disabled war veteran Ethan O’Reilly and the other representatives from nearly every country in the world, this will be a one way journey.

Sounds totally improbable, right? Far out of the reach of the familiar.

But let’s add in something more familiar – at least for those of us who have teenage or older children who spend most of their time in their bedrooms either with social networking or in my case playing computer games.

Sure, some parents put their foot down and forbid this sort of behaviour, seeing it as anti-social, but as someone who has played her fair share of RPGs (role playing games), I would be a hypocrite to do so.

I actually think it is preferable to them sitting in front of television being fed Virtual Valium. At least this way they are actually interacting with other human beings. Interestingly, my daughter met her current partner through “Guild Wars”.

These multiple player online games are set up so that no matter where you are in the world you can form teams and chat to each other while playing. She assumed this guy she got on well with lived in Canada or America as he had an accent. He certainly didn’t sound like an Aussie. After a while of meeting up and playing together, she discovered he was actually an Aussie who had spent a number of years in Canada but now lived in a nearby suburb. It was months before they plucked up enough courage to see if their online friendship would survive meeting in person, but it did and they are still together after four years.

At her encouragement, I also had a go and although I didn’t use the microphone for voice contact, I did “chat” via the text box with fellow players in different parts of the world and found the whole process fascinating. By the way, any exponents of the game will be amused to see that I achieved the “impossible”: getting to maximum level during the tutorial. Lol. 

 

Facebook and other online social networking provides similar benefits. What to some people may seem a very closeted existence can actually be the opposite. It also allows those who have formerly been housebound to get “out” and meet people. I’ve met a few people online who have some disability or other health condition that precludes them from  meeting people in real life.

One aspect that intrigued me was that conversations within the game environment are not easily monitored. So whereas there is always this “Big Brother is Watching You” fear with telephones and emails, for the most part this is a “secure” communication channel.

This aspect inspired a crucial plot element in “Isolation”. The twist.

In my stories, I’ve also used more mundane things that I’ve experienced. For example, becoming hopelessly entangled when a loose thread in my T-shirt wound itself around the screw of my glasses triggered a short scene in my upcoming release with Dreamspinner Press, the contemporary m/m romance “Red+Blue”.

What real life aspects have you as writers incorporated in your books or for the readers out there, what in your life would you use if you ever took the plunge to become a writer? Or maybe there are other RPG addicts who are happy to come out of the closet.

A copy of “Isolation” is up for grabs for one lucky respondent.

Or you’re welcome to buy it from the publishers Total Ebound: http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1568

Visit www.abgayle.com for more information about Alison and her books. 

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Thanks so much for being my guest today AB! 

And folks...DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT for a chance to win a copy of ISOLATION by AB Gayle!

THURSDAY TEASER - Cari Silverwood

How the book was made -- Lust Plague -- #2 in the Steamwork Chronicles series.

Lust Plague is the first novel I’ve completed since I had my first book, CAPA nominated, Three Days of Dominance published back in June 2011. Iron Dominance and Rough Surrender were both written a bit earlier.

I decided Lust Plague would be as fun as I could make it. I used my pre-existing steampunk world from Iron Dominance with all the airships and wonderful weaponry and mechanical contraptions. I threw in a plot where a tear in reality allowed a foreign god to leak in and aimed at an ending with a sacrificial virgin and a stone beast for some strange and slightly ghastly action.

Oops.

Hmmm. *looks at pile of screwed up paper*

The gods idea totally messed up the story and made it just awful to write. Too much room to play in for me and it changed my steampunk setting in some icky cringeworthy way.

The ending with the big sacrifice where the hero saves the lady…wrong also. For the strong, independent and heroic woman I chose for this story, Kaysana, that ending just never let her DO anything. *toss more crumpled paper*

After this Zombies came into my head and wouldn’t leave. Not sure why. Maybe Amber Green gave me the idea as she was doing a lesbian zombie series with other authors. The subconscious is a funny thing. I can’t recall where the idea came from. But it stayed. It gnawed on my toes and maybe my brain until I gave in.

I promptly let them eat one of my old characters and he became a wolf called Cadrach with less speaking (OK none) and way more purpose. Now you can pat him if you make friends first. The zombies gave me a new ending and let me truly create a romance. I found out I like blowing away zombies in an over-the-top steampunk way. In the final pages of Lust Plague, take care where you step as there are a few smoking zombie corpses -- though the smoke does clear so Sten and Kaysana can sit down and sort out if they love each other.

So…I ended up with what is now a story I like. It’s fun, sexy and has loads of action. There’s dominance and submission with some bondage, though not as creatively unusual as in Iron Dominance -- after all Sten and Kaysana are dodging zombies. Running and shooting cramps anyone’s bondage style, even when you’re as unstoppable and laidback as Sten.

I call this my lust-laden zombie-killing extravaganza. Here’s a little peek at the story.

Snippet from Lust Plague

     The whirling above flickered dark, light, dark, light. Thunder accompanied her. An engine? Kaysana shut her eyes, drifted away to the throb of her body, as if every cell inside her pined for something indefinable.
     She surfaced again, blinked away grit, groaned. Something plucked at her wrists, then at her ankles.
     “You awake?” A gruff voice. Not one she recognized. More blinking turned the blurred mess in front of her into a man. Tall, bulky, arms like, like -- she blinked again -- darn, big. Where’d she seen a man like that before? Black shirt and leather coat and brown leather trousers with a craggy face that said he’d lived. Gold wolf stud earring. Sten. He’d rescued her.
     Her sex flared with an ache so strong she barely understood it. Wetness surged between her legs.     She saw herself impaled on him…curving back, breasts upthrust.
     What’s wrong with me?
     Fear surfaced. She shoved the visions, the feelings, away. No. Never ever did she let her body rule her mind. The law, she followed the law, always.
     Under her back, rope crisscrossed and something hard, maybe rocks, poked at her, though some sort of cloth was between her and the earth. The sky above was blue, cloudless. Blink again. Half a mile away, she spotted her airship.
     “I’m awake, yes,” she croaked.
     On her ship, she’d been screaming. Flashes came to her -- the bite of clamps on her nipples, men watching, avid, their mouths open as if they swallowed her cries of pleasure… She remembered the hot, near-orgasmic flood of desire. Why, though? What the hell happened? I can think. I’m still me. Zombie F? Can’t be.
     Her rescuer put his hand at her naked shoulder. Even that made her jump and suck in a breath.
     “I have to take this last one off. Might sting.” Above the clamp on her left nipple, Sten poised finger and thumb.
     The attached wire trailed across her breast. The pain bothered her little. His hand, though -- broad fingers, man’s fingers, what they might do to her. She imagined him touching her cleft, sliding in. Her pussy spasmed and she bit her lip. What the… This is so wrong.
     “Wait!” She struggled to get her arms under her, to get some distance between her and Sten.     “Don’t touch --”
     Understanding flared in his eyes, and for a millisecond, there was something else.
     “No? Why not? You need that off.” Before she could react, he’d sat next to her and hauled her over his leg to sit between his knees.
     “Because --” With his arm across her middle, he kept her there. Wriggling made him hold tighter. She seethed, wriggled again, subsided. Damn him. “Because --”
     Being enclosed like she was, by a man, a hard, muscular man, sent everything whirling. And, out of all the men it might have been…Sten. From the moment he stepped aboard ship, she’d watched him. Suddenly nothing in her head seemed to work right anymore. Her thoughts, her emotions, her tongue were weighed down and drowning in warm jelly.
     “Because you’re a frigging frankenstruct. Let go!” The words spewed out, and like a balloon accidentally released to the sky, she clutched at the tail end, knew the terrible error she’d made. She gulped. Why’d I say that? Awful, awful thing to say…
     Yet his only reaction was to rest his cheek against her hair and say quietly, “Oh? I thought as much. Leave this on and your nipple’s gonna fall off. How about while I do this, to distract yourself, you tell me what happened up there?”
     He put his hand back where it had been.
     Fascinated by the sight of his fingers so close to her breast, she licked her lips.
     “Wait.” Grabbing his wrist seemed as likely to work as telling an avalanche to stop, but she tried.
     As his fingers nudged the clamp, she gripped him tighter, realizing too late what her body would do.

Blurb for Lust Plague

Saving the world should be easier. When airship captain Kaysana meets Sten the last thing she wants to do is have mad rough sex with him while bound by ropes and clamps…but fate pencils in their appointment. The lust plague strikes. From her infected crew, zombies arise. 

With her ship gone, she must rely on Sten, a human clone, a man who has fought all his life to master himself. She despises his kind and detests Sten’s growing hold on her. Though he never takes no for an answer, surely it’s the plague that makes yes slip from her tongue like melted butter? Or should she blame her own traitorous heart?

Hordes of slavering zombies await them. Sten and Kaysana unlimber weapons, don goggles, and set a course for the origin of the plague. Yet victory will be hollow if they cannot also solve the puzzle of their hearts.

Lust Plague - released March 27th from Loose Id
Buylink: http://www.loose-id.com/Lust-Plague.aspx
Cari's website: http://www.carisilverwood.net/

Cari

http://thirtyoneflavors.weebly.com/
http://www.carisilverwood.net/
Scorched Souls, Bound Hearts

***

Holy Cr*p!  I'm fanning myself here!  Thanks so much for sharing that Cari! I'm off to find....something!

So folks - what are your thoughts? BDSM and Steampunk? Hot or what!

Put your toys away and leave a comment!

THURSDAY TEASER - Denise Rossetti

Please welcome the fabulous Denise Rossetti!  I've known Denise for years - I can't believe this is the first time she's been a guest on my blog!  Here is a little about her, plus a really yummy excerpt!

Bio:
When I was very small, I had an aunt who would tell me the most wonderful fairy tales - all original. I grew up, as little girls do, but the magic of story still dazzles and enthralls me. On the good days, I like to think of myself as Scheherazade's sister. On the bad days - not so much.

I remain an incurable romantic who loves happy endings, heart-pounding adventure and the eventual triumph of good over evil. All hail the guys in the white hats - unless the ones wearing black are more...um...interesting?

I live in a comfortable, messy old house in the Australian suburbs. I'm small, noisy and tend to wave my hands around a lot, which can be unfortunate if the tale I'm telling happens to have explosions in it.



Blurb - The Lone Warrior

Note: The Lone Warrior is #3 in the Four-Sided Pentacle series, but it can be read perfectly well as a stand-alone.

Sworn to vengeance. Blinded by love.

Walker, a warrior shaman, has dedicated his life to the annihilation of the demons who destroyed his desert tribe. Abandoned as a child, Mehcredi, the assassin, has no concept of human relationships, no reserve, no fears, and she boldly walks through Walker’s barriers as if they were mist.

Only one thing can bend a body of steel and melt a heart of ice.




Excerpt from The Lone Warrior

Caracole, Queendom of the Isles
Palimpsest

Death padded in pursuit, slipping through the double shadows without a sound. Like the worst nightmare Mehcredi could imagine, except this was all too horribly real. How much longer she could elude him, the man with the hunter’s face? Panting, she glanced over her shoulder at the dark figure pacing behind. As he drifted from one patch of shadow to the next, something pale gleamed where the light of the Sibling Moons tangled in his black hair. Feathers worked into a long braid, and . . . bones?

Were they finger bones?

The shock thrilled down her nerves, making her head swim and her vision blur, but her long legs carried her away at a swift, stumbling run, lurching down a narrow alley, deeper into the reeking slum the people of Caracole called the Melting Pot. Turning to fight never entered her head. Gods, she’d barely scraped through the First Circle tests as it was, and her first real commission for the Guild of Assassins had been an unqualified disaster. No, she wouldn’t have a chance.

She couldn’t hear his footfall, couldn’t detect any movement, but his presence behind her was a tangible force. Every cell in her body sensed him with the animal instinct of the hunted—his predatory focus, the grim relish with which he anticipated her death. From her left came the frantic click of claws on the cobbles, a soft whining noise. That damn dog! She might as well wave a flaming torch above her head and be done with it.

“Get lost,” she hissed, glancing around for something to throw. “Scat!” But the little animal only skittered aside, continuing to flank her.

Mehcredi twisted and doubled back. One hand pressed to the stitch in her side, she reeled around a corner and inevitably, there he stood, waiting—pitiless. He wasn’t a great deal taller than she was, but much broader. Lithe and strong and graceful, where she was long-boned and clumsy and doomed.

She opened her mouth to shriek, to plead, but long-fingered hands fastened around her throat. As he slowly increased the pressure, digging painfully into the soft flesh under her jaw, the man smiled, lips pulling back from white teeth. The expression gave him an eerie, chilling beauty. He could have been an avenging angel or a handsome demon. Either way, those elegant brutal hands were the sure instruments of her death.

Her fists flailed, punching. When that failed, she raked at his forearms with her nails, but he didn’t even flinch. Mehcredi knew she was strong, stronger than any woman she’d ever met, but it made no difference. Black spots formed in her vision, her lungs labored and cramped.

“No,” she tried to rasp. “No, please.”

From far off, as if down a long tunnel, came the sound of hysterical barking.

The man thrust his face into hers. “Now you pay,” he snarled as he sent her down into the dark. “Assassin.”

***  In this second part of the excerpt, Walker has decided Mehcredi will do penance for her crimes by working for him. He's a VERY scary guy! ***

Mehcredi snapped her fingers the way Walker had done and the dog came to her side as if the gesture were Magick. To her surprise, when she moved toward the outer doors, he trotted along. On impulse, she sank to her knees in the doorway and got a lick on the face and a blast of disgustingly hot doggy breath for her trouble.

“Ack!” She wiped her face with her sleeve. “Run away,” she hissed. “I don’t want you. Go!”

The dog retreated half a dozen steps. Reaching the shade of a ticklewhisker hedge, he sat and scratched behind one ear. Then he turned two full circles, cast a wary glance around the quiet garden and flopped down, boneless. He yawned, showing surprisingly white teeth.

Feeling strangely warmed, Mehcredi closed the doors and returned to Walker.

“Come.” He led her back into the dim hush of the sleeping house. The thick, sable tail of his hair fell past his trim waist. She’d never seen a man with hair so long.

“Why don’t you cut your hair? It must take an awful lot of looking after.”

One of those all-purpose masculine grunts.

Shoulder to shoulder, they climbed the stairs. “It’s pretty,” she persisted, “but did you know you’re going gray, just here—”

As they reached a landing, she raised her fingers to touch his temple, but he knocked her arm away. “Keep your hands to yourself, assassin!”

Unobtrusively, Mehcredi cradled her aching wrist. “Sorry,” she said, striving for dignity. “Where are the bones you wore last night? What sort are they? What are they for? You didn’t say.”

Walker came to a dead halt. When he turned, his face was expressionless, but Mehcredi found herself backing away nonetheless, until the stair rail pressed hard across the small of her back. Silent and remorseless, he followed until she could feel the warmth of his muscular body all along her front. Funny how she tended to think of him as cold, when his physical presence was hotter than anything she’d ever known.
Slowly, so she would know what was coming, Walker raised his hands and fitted them around her throat. His touch was gentle, caressing even, but she’d never felt more terrified, not even when she’d known he was going to kill her.

“Who I am, what I am, is none of your godsbedamned business,” he said softly. “You’re a cold-hearted bitch, a murderer for hire. Not a particularly good one, I grant you, but nonetheless—”

His touch was waking the bruises on her neck. They throbbed in time with her heart.

“You are not my servant, nor my student,” continued that quiet, inexorable voice. “And thanks be to Those Before, you are not my friend. Nor will you be, ever.”

He drew even closer, as close as a lover, exerting enough pressure to crack her spine over the stair rail. Absurdly luxuriant in that hard face, inky lashes brushed his high cheekbones. “You are my slave, as surely as if I bought you from a dealer in Trinitaria.” Callused fingertips drew idle patterns over her thundering pulse. “Slaves do not ask impertinent questions. Understand?”

She nodded as best she could.

His voice dropped to a sibilant whisper. “What are you, Mehcredi?”

“S-slave. Your slave.”

“Good. Do not forget it, even for an instant.” For the space of two heartbeats, he leaned even harder into her body. Then he withdrew without haste, leaving her braced against the rail, panting.

He’d already reached the third floor before she caught up with him. Despite his warning, new questions seethed in her brain. Who were Those Before? She’d never heard an oath like that.

She supposed she’d become inured to asking questions. When you found it difficult to decipher expressions, it was often the only way. Ask and be damned with a cuff around the head, a bloodied lip.

Don’t ask and be double damned.

Sister save her, she had enough problems at the moment. Mehcredi bit her tongue.

***

This fabulous book won the Best Erotic Romance 2011, Australian Romance Readers Association

Buy the book
Amazon - http://tinyurl.com/2fed6x5
Barnes & Noble - http://tinyurl.com/2coxet6
Australian Book Stores - http://www.deniserossetti.com/links.html#ozstores


Find Denise Rossetti -
Website - http://www.deniserossetti.com/
Twitter - @DeniseRossetti
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=715688521
Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/484480.Denise_Rossetti

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Please leave a comment and let Denise know how much you love her excerpt!

Feel free to ask any questions too!

And if you have time, click on the box at the right and give some Karma!

MONDAY MAGIC - Vonnie Hughes

Please welcome to Monday Magic fellow RWAustralia member, and Regency and Suspense author Vonnie Hughes!

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VOICE

As writers, we constantly hear about ‘voice.’  Your voice is the way you say things on paper, what you say, the way you present things to the reader.  It is you, your persona that shines through the words.  Many readers can tell who the author of a book is by the way the book reads e.g. J.D. Robb’s Eve responds to adversity in quite a different way from, say, a Gayle Wilson heroine.  Whereas Eve punches her way through problems, solving them by putting herself in the perpetrator’s shoes, Gayle Wilson’s Susan (from Wednesday’s Child) or Sarah (from Victim) are more covertly intellectual.  They have waited and agonized and wondered and eventually, when a clue is discovered, not necessarily by themselves, take action.  Eve is more likely to discover the clues herself and roar into action.

There are as many different ways to say something as there are writers, and as many ways to interpret the words as there are readers.  Remember that favorite saying of editors: You can take the same story, give it to ten writers, and get back ten totally different stories?  The education and socio-economic background of a writer influences the way they pose a question or solve a problem.  The geographical background of an author influences a writer mightily e.g. the voice of a writer from the Bronx who never made it to college, or even one who managed to get to college later on in life, will write very differently from an author with a double degree from Harvard.

And that is why a writer need never be afraid of someone stealing his/her ideas.  Every person perceives a scene or a person or an event in different ways, and those different ways are what make for the uniqueness of your voice.  We could all write Little Red Riding Hood at least thirty different ways, and if you multiplied that by authors willing to try the exercise, you’d have hundreds of different versions.

The voice is what appeals to particular readers.  It is why people say, “Oh, I couldn’t stand her.  She waffles on and on about scenery until I lose track of the story” or “He gets so deep into forensics I don’t understand it.”  On the other hand these same readers will enthuse “Loved it.  Loved the whole series.  Easy to understand but with just enough mystery to keep me interested.”  In other words: each to his own.

Occasionally a writer will try to change their voice to suit a particular publication. Sometimes it works; often it doesn’t.  You are not being true to yourself as a writer if you’re struggling to dance to someone else’s tune.  A writer I admire who changes her settings greatly yet stays true to her voice is Jayne Ann Krentz.  Futuristic, historical, contemporary, paranormal, whatever, you can tell a Jayne Ann Krentz (a.k.a. Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle) novel because of her quirky characters and her voice.  You can pick up any one of her books and say, “Oh, that’s JAK.”  And that is the root of her success, because her readers can switch genres but still be satisfied. For example, I would never have begun reading paranormals if it wasn’t that JAK was writing strongly in that genre. And I admired JAK’s voice so much and the way it translated to just about anywhere, that I began reading first her paranormals, and then other people’s.

The problem with trying to alter your voice to suit someone else is that every word must be agonized over, every phrase re-thought and it is very difficult not to become stilted.  Trying to fit into a particular publisher’s pigeon-hole can be draining, and in the end, pointless.  There are publishers (paper and e-publishers) out there who WILL like your voice, so why bother with those who don’t?  Sure, breaking into publishing is harder than finding the philosopher’s stone, but e-publishers are a lot more relaxed about people who write outside the square. They are open to cross-genre writers.  Once you have found your niche, why not stick with it for a while before you expand? You can build up a fan base in that style and genre. Then you will feel confident enough to carry your voice over to a different genre i.e. you could move from cozies to romantic suspense or from adventure to sci-fi.  Whatever you do, your voice will follow.  It’s part of you.  Understand it.  Respect it. Nurture it. 




You can find Vonnie at the following places:

http://www.vonniehughes.com
http://vonniehughes.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/VonnieJHughes



Vonnie has a Regency short story in the free Christmas read from Musa Publishing. Click HERE to find it


Musa is releasing a Regency novel called THE SECOND SON on December 16. This is rather unusual because it is a prequel to a book which is already out in hardback (With Robert Hale) called COMING HOME.

COMING HOME is also being released on 31 January 2012 as an e-book.

on 13 January The Wild Rose Press are releasing Vonnie's Romantic Suspense LETHAL REFUGE.
It is set in New Zealand and is about the fledgling witness protection scheme there.