In the Flesh Reading Tonight!

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Stop by and say hello! And have a cupcake!

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES

March 19th at 8:00 PM AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE

302 BROOME STREET, NYC

(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue http://www.happyendinglounge.com/)

Admission: Free, 21+

Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676

March brings an eclectic mix of true sex stories, erotic romance, hotel sex, a graphic novelist and a former Jehovah’s Witness! Featuring Paula Derrow, editor of the anthology Behind the Bedroom Door, along with contributors Anna Marrian and Pari Chang, graphic novelist Koren Shadmi, author of the fabulously titled In The Flesh, memoirist and former Jehovah’s Witness Kyria Abrahams (I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed), first-time novelist Victoria Janssen (The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom and Their Lover) and Tess Danesi and Rachel Kramer Bussel reading from Rachel’s latest anthology Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories. The Do Not Disturb book trailer will also be shown.

Mobile Libris will be selling copies of the authors’ books. Free candy and cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city’s best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words.

Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Kyria Abrahams is the author of the memoir I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales From a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. She is a 34-year-old standup comedian, spoken-word poet, and web producer. She lives in Queens, New York.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, most recently Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006. She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.

Pari Chang is a former litiagator whose personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, Self, Glamour, and The Bark. She lives in Manhattan with her family.

Tess Danesi is writer of erotic fiction with a D/s twist, who also blogs about her varied experiences and often tumultuous life at Urban Gypsy (http://www.nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com/) as well as a sex toy reviewer for Edenfantasys.com. Tess was a winner of Babeland’s erotica contest and has been published in Time Out New York. Paula Derrow is the editor of Behind the Bedroom Door. She has worked for more than twenty years at a variety of magazines and other media, including Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, and Lifetime Television. She is the articles director at Self magazine and teaches writing workshops for MediaBistro.com. She lives in New York City.

Victoria Janssen’s first erotic novel, The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom and Their Lover, is a December 2008 release from Harlequin SPICE. Her second, The Moonlight Mistress, is a December 2009 SPICE release. She enjoys playing with genre tropes. Frequent themes in her stories include role reversal and empowering women, usually through unconventional means. Under her pseudonym, Elspeth Potter, she’s sold more than thirty short stories to various anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica, Best Lesbian Romance, Periphery, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. She’s also sold to Fishnet Magazine. Her latest publication, a one hundred word story titled “Unlimited Minutes,” appears in Alison Tyler’s Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex; and Never Have the Same Sex Twice: A Guide For Couples.

Anna Marrian has written essays, articles and reviews for Newsweek, The Observer, the Village Voice, Jane, Glamour, the New York Post, and Modern Bride. She is the reciepient of a Hertog Fellowship, teaches creative writing at Hunter College, and is currently at work on a memoir.

Koren Shadmi was born in Israel, where he has worked since his early teens as an illustrator and cartoonist for various magazines. At seventeen, his graphic novel was published in Israel, followed by another book collecting his work from children’s magazines. He then proceeded to serve as a graphic designer and illustrator in the Israel Defense Forces. Upon completion of his service Shadmi relocated to New York to study in the School of Visual Arts, where he acquired his bachelor’s degree. His graphic work has appeared in numerous international anthologies, and his books Cours intérieures and Dissymétries have recently been published in France. His illustration work has appeared in publications such as Spin, BusinessWeek, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Progressive, San Francisco Chronicle, and many others.

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Zero Drafting

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

It’s amazing how many words one can put down when one is trying not to care about them.

It’s impossible for me not to care at all–on a computer, I am constantly making small changes in word choice or in small additions or deletions that I might not even consciously notice. But the goal with “zero drafting” is to get the words down as fast as possible by focusing on the story rather than the crafting of the prose. The psychological aspect is that calling it “zero” instead of “first” helps me to ignore my inner editor.

Of course,”story” and “prose” are inextricable in a way I’m not sure I can explain; it’s just something I feel is true. But at the same time, “story” can be pared down to mean simply “things that happen” and “characters they happen to.” For zero drafting, I write scenes that I think ought to have happened to my characters, in order to see if their behavior in those scenes seems consistent and interesting. I think of zero draft as “figuring stuff out on the page.”

The important bit is that all of this zero draft is subject to change. If it doesn’t work, out it goes, no harm, no foul. Some things might linger in the manuscript for a really long time, only to be cut when I’m almost done. That doesn’t matter. Those words will have served their “figuring out” purpose.

I normally cut thousands of words, possibly as many as fifty thousand, over the course of writing a novel of maybe 100,000 words. So I might as well not stress too much over wordcount while I’m figuring things out.

At the same time, attaining large wordcounts every day while drafting gives me a sense of accomplishment that’s hard to beat. Part of this is “figuring out” seems to take more words than refined, edited prose. I’m stopping action scenes in the middle and writing down infodumps, made up on the spot, for my own information. I’m describing things that might be peripheral to the scene going on, because I realized I know what something ought to look like and I don’t want to forget about it. And I’m writing scenes that I might not need to show in the final product; they might be backstory, or irrelevant except to my backbrain.

It feels wasteful. But if I don’t struggle through the zero draft, the story won’t get written at all. You can’t revise what you haven’t written.

Realted Posts: How To Write A Novel (in 72 Easy Steps!).

Pithy Writing Advice.

Posted in writing craft, writing process | 3 Comments

the life of St. Patrick

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Sometimes, historical research leaves me seeing novels everywhere.

This is what I could find on St. Patrick, who was born in 387 C.E..

Patrick’s birth name was Maewyn Succat and he took the name Patricus when he became a priest.

At age 16, he was captured by Irish raiders and made a slave; he served as a shepherd in Ireland for six years, where he learned to speak Irish. He also became a devout Christian while a slave, and had a dream that told him to leave Ireland aboard a ship. He escaped, found a ship, and returned home to Britain, where he became a priest and studied in a French monastery. He was later sent back to Ireland to covert the inhabitants to Christianity. He died on March 17th, though the year is not confirmed (I found several sources that gave different dates).

Doesn’t this sound a bit like the plot to a romance novel? Except that there’s no heroine. Perhaps a spunky Irish lass who is defending her lands from the interlopers….

Posted in holiday | 3 Comments

Caring About Your Characters – Or Not

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Do you have to care about your characters and their story to write it? Do you have to invent characters you like before writing?

Some people say yes. I say no, at least not at the beginning of the process.

True, it’s more fun if you care. The best fun out there. But fun isn’t the only enjoyable aspect of writing. There’s also challenge. And there’s a lot of challenge in starting to write a story where everything is up in the air, where you know nothing about your characters.

When I care about characters, I usually mean that I like them, and/or want to see them conquer their enemies, achieve self-actualization, whatever their story goal might be. If I wouldn’t necessarily want some of them to be my everyday buddies, they would be interesting people to meet at a party and then back away from, slowly. Care can also mean I want to see them lose their evilly-gotten gains, be insulted, or simply get killed gruesomely in the course of the story.

Trying to find reasons to care about a character, now there’s a challenge. What could Blank Slate possibly do that would make me love him? Or, alternatively, make me want to stick an icepick in his ear? And why would he do that? And how will he go about showing it to the reader? And who will get in his way?

See, instant story. Because I didn’t have a character I automatically felt something for.

Related post: Learning Who Your Characters Are.

Posted in writing craft, writing process | 2 Comments

In the Flesh Reading, 3/19/09

Posted on March 15, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Stop by and say hello! And have a cupcake!

IN THE FLESH EROTIC READING SERIES
March 19th at 8:00 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey or F/V to 2nd Avenue, http://www.happyendinglounge.com/)
Admission: Free, 21+
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com/

March brings an eclectic mix of true sex stories, erotic romance, hotel sex, a graphic novelist and a former Jehovah’s Witness! Featuring Paula Derrow, editor of the anthology Behind the Bedroom Door, along with contributors Anna Marrian and Pari Chang, graphic novelist Koren Shadmi, author of the fabulously titled In The Flesh, memoirist and former Jehovah’s Witness Kyria Abrahams (I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed), first-time novelist Victoria Janssen (The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom and Their Lover) and Tess Danesi and Rachel Kramer Bussel reading from Rachel’s latest anthology Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories. The Do Not Disturb book trailer will also be shown.

Mobile Libris will be selling copies of the authors’ books.

Free candy and cupcakes will be served.

In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city’s best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne Portnoy, Sofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, Zane and many others. The series has gotten press attention from the New York Times’s UrbanEye, Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York Magazine, New York Observer, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth.

Kyria Abrahams is the author of the memoir I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales From a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. She is a 34-year-old standup comedian, spoken-word poet, and web producer. She lives in Queens, New York.kyriaabrahams.blogspot.com

Rachel Kramer Bussel is an author, editor, blogger and reading series host. She is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations and a former sex columnist for The Village Voice. She’s edited numerous anthologies, most recently Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Best Sex Writing 2009, Tasting Him, Tasting Her, and Spanked. Her writing been published in publications such as Clean Sheets, Cosmopolitan, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Tango, The Village Voice, and Time Out New York, and in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006.
She has hosted In The Flesh since October 2005.
rachelkramerbussel.com

Pari Chang is a former litiagator whose personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, Self, Glamour, and The Bark. She lives in Manhattan with her family.

Tess Danesi is writer of erotic fiction with a D/s twist, who also blogs about her varied experiences and often tumultuous life at Urban Gypsy (http://www.nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com/) as well as a sex toy reviewer for Edenfantasys.com. Tess was a winner of Babeland’s erotica contest and has been published in Time Out New York.

Paula Derrow is the editor of Behind the Bedroom Door. She has worked for more than twenty years at a variety of magazines and other media, including Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, and Lifetime Television. She is the articles director at Self magazine and teaches writing workshops for MediaBistro.com. She lives in New York City.

Victoria Janssen’s first erotic novel, The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom and Their Lover, is a December 2008 release from Harlequin SPICE. Her second, The Moonlight Mistress, is a December 2009 SPICE release. She enjoys playing with genre tropes. Frequent themes in her stories include role reversal and empowering women, usually through unconventional means. Under her pseudonym, Elspeth Potter, she’s sold more than thirty short stories to various anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica, Best Lesbian Romance, Periphery, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. She’s also sold to Fishnet Magazine. Her latest publication, a one hundred word story titled “Unlimited Minutes,” appears in Alison Tyler’s Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex; and Never Have the Same Sex Twice: A Guide For Couples.
http://www.victoriajanssen.com/

Anna Marrian has written essays, articles and reviews for Newsweek, The Observer, the Village Voice, Jane, Glamour, the New York Post, and Modern Bride. She is the reciepient of a Hertog Fellowship, teaches creative writing at Hunter College, and is currently at work on a memoir.

Koren Shadmi was born in Israel, where he has worked since his early teens as an illustrator and cartoonist for various magazines. At seventeen, his graphic novel was published in Israel, followed by another book collecting his work from children’s magazines. He then proceeded to serve as a graphic designer and illustrator in the Israel Defense Forces. Upon completion of his service Shadmi relocated to New York to study in the School of Visual Arts, where he acquired his bachelor’s degree. His graphic work has appeared in numerous international anthologies, and his books Cours intérieures and Dissymétries have recently been published in France. His illustration work has appeared in publications such as Spin, BusinessWeek, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Progressive, San Francisco Chronicle, and many others.
http://www.korenshadmi.com/

Posted in promo, the duchess | Comments Off on In the Flesh Reading, 3/19/09

Siegfried Sassoon, "Fight to a Finish"

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

Explanatory note: So, why all the World War One poetry, you ask? Because I love it, and my love for this poetry is one of the reasons I became so interested in researching that particular historical period, and I want to share. Moonlight Mistress is set during World War One.

Fight to a Finish

The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers who’d refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
‘Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest.’ (So they thought.)

Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob,
Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel,
At last the boys had found a cushy job.
. . . .

I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal;
And with my trusty bombers turned and went
To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.

–Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918

Posted in sassoon, wwi poetry | 2 Comments

Contemporary Romance is Alive and Well, Right?

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

I noted in passing the other day a passing comment on twitter, that a particular writer would “save the contemporary.”

Does the contemporary need saving? It doesn’t look like it to me.

From perusing bookstore shelves, I see contemporaries and historicals in about equal numbers. If you add in category romance, almost all of which is contemporary, the numbers go up quickly. Also, Nora Roberts and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, two of the largest selling romance writers, publish contemporaries.

Plus, it looks to me like contemporary even has its own subgenres, romantic suspense and contemporary humor, as well as combinations thereof, none of which appears to be in danger. Linda Howard or Meg Cabot, anyone?

What am I missing? Do categories not count? Do the subgenres like romantic suspense not count? Is the contemporary in “danger” because there are fewer authors but with larger sales? Or am I missing the point entirely?

Happy Friday!

Posted in category, reading, romance novels | Comments Off on Contemporary Romance is Alive and Well, Right?

cover for Moonlight Mistress!

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

It’s not work-safe due to a lot of bare skin, so I’m not posting it here, but I’ve received the cover for Moonlight Mistress.

Behold!

http://pics.livejournal.com/oracne/pic/0006wswy/g44

I am amused that I received this the same day I posted about the gorgeous cover for The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover.

Posted in moonlight mistress, promo | 2 Comments

no, I didn’t design my book cover.

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

No, I didn’t design the cover for The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover.

No, I didn’t pose for it, either.

No, I’ve never met the people photographed for the cover. Nor the photographer. Nor the art director. I did send the photographer and art director heartfelt fan letters, though, for the gorgeous work they produced.

Once my non-writing friends learned I had a novel coming out, I got more questions about the cover than anything else. I found myself explaining, over and over again, that not only did the author have very little to do with the cover, but sometimes the cover had very little to do with the book.

Covers might illustrate characters from the story, or events from the story, but then again they might not, because the primary purpose of a cover, aside from protecting the pages within, is to sell the book. Covers are marketing tools, just like the logo on Macintosh computers or uniquely-shaped perfume bottles.

My publisher is Harlequin, and they do collect information from their authors about the setting of their book and the physical appearance of the characters. However, there’s no guarantee any of those details will make it to the cover.
Cover decisions are ultimately made by people whose job it is to sell books, and I for one am happy to let them do so! They’re professionals, who are devoting their professional energy towards selling books for the benefit of my publisher and for the benefit of me. What’s not to like about that?

Isn’t it beautiful? Didn’t they do a great job?

Posted in business of writing | 2 Comments

Professional Writing and Spending Money

Posted on March 11, 2009 by Victoria Janssen

In reviewing money I spent last year on writing-related expenses, I once again have been pondering when this money is well-spent, and where my priorities are.

The best purchase I made was a netbook, basically a smaller-sized laptop computer. My laptop was several years old, and since I had no desktop computer and often wrote outside of my house, it was vital. I could have bought a new full-sized laptop, or even a desktop, but the netbook was the best option for me, because it was small. I carried it a few times when I would not have carried my old laptop, and gotten extra writing done as a result. I felt safer having a backup machine. Finally, the netbook supported the most important thing about writing professionally, which is the writing itself.

My original website [www.victoriajanssen.com] wasn’t much; it was up to date, and provided all the relevant information, but I did not initially pay for a designer, or for any fabulous graphics or gadgets. I’m still pondering whether a more elaborate web design should be in my future. I think I will reconsider that question, if I sell another book; until then, I think the site does what I meant it to, that is, serve as a source of information for interested readers, even if they’re bringing up the page on their phone. If I pay more money and get a fancier website, it will then require more of my time; I’ll have to provide more content for it, and think about said content. Those things will eat into time which I spend on writing. So it’s a lower priority.

After travel to conferences, which I consider very important for networking and maintaining my sanity as a writer, my other largest expense is books. Books…well, books are a luxury. I could get more books for free, or from libraries, but I love books, and having them makes me happy. Also, sometimes having the relevant reference to hand means I don’t have to trudge outside in the snow and take the bus to the library. I consider my book habit justified; in my budget, it replaces such things as a car and its associated costs, cable television, and high-speed internet. And if I don’t read, my writer’s brain is not fed; also, if I don’t read in my genre, I don’t know my genre. So once again, books come back to the writing, and I count it a justified cost.

How about you?

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