M/M Romance with WWI Settings

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

Here are the stories I’ve found so far.

Josh Lanyon’s The Dark Farewell was my favorite of the three. Information page at Samhain. Grieving veteran David Flynn meets spiritual medium Julian Devereux while a serial killer ravages smalltown 1920s America. I wanted this one to be longer!

Less romance-y and more historical fiction/erotica is Lanyon’s Out of the Blue, also available in Kindle format. This one is set while the war is still going on, amid a group of pilots. Again, I wanted the story to be longer; I was intrigued by the characters and wanted to know what happened to the relationship once the war ended; did it continue, or fizzle? But perhaps Lanyon was more interested in relationships under high pressure.

In contrast, the novel-length Whistling in the Dark (Kindle) and print by Tamara Allen is much lighter in tone. It’s set post-war in New York City, with two young veterans. It’s got a lot of fun historical detail, particularly about early, early radio.

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Speculative Erotica Markets — Philcon 2010

Posted on November 23, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

Almost every year at Philcon, I moderate the panel on selling fantastic (science fiction and fantasy) erotica. It was interesting this year to note how the panel topics have shifted over time: print to electronic to self-electronic.

For several years, after I first began to publish erotica, just before the beginning of the twenty-first century, at science fiction conventions I would give talks or host discussion groups on selling science fiction/fantasy erotica. I would focus on short stories, in particular selling sf/f erotica to mainstream erotica markets, also discussing sex in science fiction/fantasy in general. Once I’d sold novels, I added in chat about print publication, and my experiences writing erotica for Harlequin.

For the last few years, another local author, Stephanie Burke, has also participated in the Philcon panels; she focuses on electronic publishing, mostly in erotic romance, and talks about how she broke into and continues to sell to those markets.

This year, for the first time I found myself discussing self-publishing at the panel, as well. It seems to be the year of it. I read an interesting article in the Novelists, Inc. newsletter about how cover quality can influence sales of Kindle/Smashwords/etc. books; if you’ve received back the rights to a novel from your print publisher, usually you will need to do a new cover. Some writers have seen significant sales increases simply from getting a new, better cover that looks good as a thumbnail. One of this year’s panelists was L.W. Perkins, a cover artist for numerous small presses and for electronic press Liquid Silver (please note her site is undergoing renovation at the moment; I gave the link for future reference).

I’ve been following reports from fellow writers who’ve experimented with electronically publishing novels or short stories they were unable to sell elsewhere, or that were out of print; sometimes they have significant sales. I’ve been following discussions of using free Kindle downloads to encourage sales of an author’s backlist.

Last year, I didn’t have any of that information. This year, discussion of these possibilities is becoming more and more mainstream.

Posted in business of writing, conferences, erotica | 2 Comments

Rachel Kramer Bussel interview

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

Please welcome my guest, Rachel Kramer Bussel! Rachel and I met almost a decade back, when we were both reading our stories from Best Lesbian Erotica at Bluestockings in New York City. She graciously consented to answer some questions I had about the process of editing and her latest anthology, Passion: Erotic Romance for Women.

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How do you choose a focus for an anthology? How did you choose the focus of Passion?

I try to look at what readers might want to read, what I’m interested in, and what would be fun to work on. I like having a theme but it’s tricky because you don’t want the stories to be too similar to each other, so a theme like passion and erotic romance is wide enough that there’s room for plenty of variety.

I’ve done a lot of kinky anthologies and wanted to try something a little sweeter and more romantic, though there is definitely kink in it. I was surprised to find that it was a challenge to write my own story, “Five Senses,” but it also brought me to a range of new authors who work in the erotic romance field, something I’m looking forward to continuing with 2011’s Obsessed anthology, and another erotic romance book to follow.

How does your original idea for an anthology translate into the call for submissions, and into the stories you eventually choose?

Sometimes it’s a more exact match than others, and that process has gotten refined over time. I put out very detailed calls in terms of what they should look like but regarding content try to leave plenty of room to allow authors to come up with whatever strikes their fancy.

To me the beauty of editing an anthology is that so much of it is based on the writers’ creativity; they always come up with a cool take on my original idea that I never could have foreseen. One great example of that in Passion is Jacqueline Applebee’s story “My Dark Knight.” I know nothing about Renaissance Fair type of play but I didn’t need to to appreciate her story, which also touches on the uncertainty of new relationships, especially where you really like someone and aren’t sure exactly how they feel about you. I look for stories that have a real-life nuance to them, where even if the plot is outlandish, there’s relatable emotion between the characters.

What’s the hardest part of choosing stories? The most fun?

The hardest part is rejecting stories. I hate that, and sometimes it makes me want to quit editing anthologies because it’s not fun at all, but I also know I’ll always be working on new anthologies so I can pass along those calls for submissions.

The most fun part is finding a story that just nails the theme perfectly and is so wonderful I want to read it to everyone I know. Those are the gems and make the very time-consuming process of reading submissions a joy.

How do you choose the order in which stories appear? What input does the publisher have into the final product?

I tend to select the first and last stories as ones that will, respectively, suck the reader in and leave the reader satisfied but maybe wanting a little more, and beyond that, I don’t have a highly scientific ordering process. I add stories as I go over a few months of editing, and at the end may move them around. I like to build up to the more intense stories, but a lot of it, for me, is actually pretty random.

Cleis Press rarely alters the order of the stories, though they do have final approval of manuscripts and sometimes stories get cut for space or if they aren’t quite a fit with the book. I appreciate this attention to detail and think it makes the books truly beautiful, inside and out. They find outstanding cover photographs and work hard to create quality, memorable books.

What was the first anthology you edited? How did that come about?

I co-edited the anthology Up All Night: True Lesbian Sex Stories, and was brought on board by co-editor Stacy Bias. She asked me to help and that book includes stories by Tristan Taormino and L. Elise Bland. That came out in 2004 and then soon after I started editing anthologies on my own, like Glamour Girls: Femme/Femme Erotica and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z.

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Thanks, Rachel! I’m looking forward to the anthology!

Posted in business of writing, erotica, guest, promo | 2 Comments

Siegfried Sassoon, "Elegy"

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

Elegy

To Robert Ross

Your dextrous wit will haunt us long
Wounding our grief with yesterday.
Your laughter is a broken song;
And death has found you, kind and gay.

We may forget those transient things
That made your charm and our delight:
But loyal love has deathless wings
That rise and triumph out of night.

So, in the days to come, your name
Shall be as music that ascends
When honour turns a heart from shame…
O heart of hearts! … O friend of friends!

–Siegfried Sassoon
Picture-Show, 1920

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Siegfried Sassoon, "The Dug-Out"

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Victoria Janssen


The Dug-Out

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow’d from the candle’s guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head…
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

St. Venant, July 1918

–Siegfried Sassoon
Picture-Show, 1920

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Sale, Philcon, NINC guest post

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Victoria Janssen


Three things today:

1. I sold a short erotic story, “Vanilla,” to Kristina Wright’s anthology Dream Lover: Paranormal Tales of Erotic Romance for Cleis Press. It’s already available for pre-order!

2. I am at Philcon this weekend, hanging out with a UK friend, an archivist who was one of my chief resources about male homosexuality during World War One for The Moonlight Mistress. If you’re there, feel free to say hi!

3. And I’m a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on “Reading for the Writer.” Please drop by and check it out!

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Ella Drake – A Space Western World

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

Please welcome my guest, Ella Drake!

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A Space Western world

When I started to write Silver Bound, a space western releasing Nov 22nd from Carina Press, the elements of world-building excited me. What’s not to love about creating a world for a book with the tagline: “A dangerous journey across the galaxy”? During the course of the story, we visit five shuttle craft, two planets, two space stations, and two large spacecraft. Yet, the hero is Guy, a sheriff from a small town on a technologically limited planet. To create that space western feel, I created a world for Guy to make him the quintessential cowboy in a white hat. Only, he doesn’t wear a hat and he can fly a shuttle craft. And, his hat wouldn’t really be white-white. He has his flaws.

But as I worked through the science elements–including a slave collar which used implanted nanobots to control the slave, how a memory wipe might work and how it might look visually on a medical screen, stuff like that–the home world had a more historical feel juxtaposed against the futuristic. A seemingly small addition to his character, a lasso, became an intriguing element. Guy knows how to use his lasso, which is a crucial part of who he is and what he might do in the story. He’s a rancher. To add flavor, to show his skill at his job, it makes sense that he might take down a cow or a calf with his lasso. Maybe take down a criminal. But since I have never used a lasso, didn’t know what it was like to throw one, I did some research.

It turns out, roping cattle is a controversial practice. Thought it’s rare, it can cause neck and other injuries in the roped animal. A scene that I’d originally intended to be Guy roping a calf to inoculate it, turned into a scene of chase with his robot dog. He couldn’t hurt the robot by catching it with his lasso, but he still has the expert skills of using the lasso. But was this enough? If concerns over safety of roping cattle, or even a human, is contested, couldn’t a futuristic story find a solution? In this case, I decided to give Guy a lasso made of special material that wouldn’t constrict too tightly.

Within this same scene, striking a balance between the anachronistic and futuristic led me to considering the scene: how to set up the ranch. What kind of robot dog would a rancher/sheriff want or need? And, how does my research balance with the need to create a scene, get the reader into the hero’s head and world, and set the stage as a future set story? Just because my research led me down a path about lassos and rodeos, does the reader need that information?

This is what I came up with, the introduction of our hero:

The rope left his fingers and flew with precision to its target. With a practiced yank, Guy tightened the lasso around his robo-shepherd’s legs. Max tumbled to the dry ground with a woof.

Guy strode forward to stroke Max’s soft, synthetically furred head and removed the lasso. “Good boy. You put up a good chase this time, but I took you down.”

The mottled-brown Max appeared to grin, tongue slurping along the cuts on his hands—the dog’s saliva carried first-aid anesthetic. Its tail thumped on the ground and sent dust flying in a cloud. Guy chuckled and signaled to Max with a wave and a low-key whistle. The knee-height robo-dog took off, leaving a rolling wave of air-thrown dirt in its wake as it circled Trident Ranch’s smallest corral.

And there we are. A balance of today and tomorrow. After hours of researching lassos, holding rope, feeling its texture, tying knots, and generally spending more time with the concept of roping than figuring out what powered the spacecraft in the story, I’m reduced to the few lines above. I think it was worth it.

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Thanks, Ella, for sharing some of your process!

Posted in guest, sf/f, western | 1 Comment

Philcon 2010 & "Hints of Mystery" at K.S. Manning’s Blog

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Victoria Janssen


Today, I’m visiting K.S. Manning’s Blog talking about “Hints of Mystery” in the plot of The Duke and The Pirate Queen.

Please stop by!

I’ll be at Philcon 2010 this weekend (November 19-21). Here’s my schedule:

Fri 7:00 PM in Plaza VII (1 hour)
Breaking into the fantastic erotica market
Victoria Janssen (moderator), Stephanie Burke, Jennifer Williams, Lynn Perkins
How to be part of this burgeoning market for strange and sexy tales.

Fri 10:00 PM in Executive Suite 623 (1 hour)
Victoria Janssen, Reading

Fri 11:59 PM in Crystal Ballroom Three (1 hour)
Eye of Argon reading
Oz Fontecchio (moderator), Keith R.A. DeCandido, Victoria Janssen, Gregory Frost, Hildy Silverman, Michael A. Ventrella
Science fiction professionals and members of the audience compete in a live reading contest of what may well be the genre’s worst story ever. Last year’s contest played to an audience that spilled half way down the hall and to peals of laughter. Come see what all the guffawing is about!

Sat 12:00 PM in Grand Ballroom A (1 hour)
Is steampunk a rejection of the present?
Victoria Janssen (moderator), Jeff Mach, Gil Cnaan, Philippa Ballantine, C.J. Henderson
What is the appeal of steampunk? What is the source of its enormous popularity?

Sat 3:00 PM in Plaza III (1 hour)
The avoidable cliches of steampunk
Jared Axelrod (moderator), Jeff Mach, Victoria Janssen, Bernie Mojzes
As this sub-genre has crystallized, what are the elements we see too much of?

Sat 9:00 PM in Plaza VI (Six) (1 hour)
The paranormal romance
L.A. Banks (moderator), Stephanie Burke, C.J. Henderson, Victoria Janssen, Gail Z. Martin
What is meant by the term paranormal romance, and what are the significant works in this field?

Sun 10:00 AM in Grand Ballroom A (1 hour)
Robots since Asimov
Ty Drago (moderator), Victoria Janssen, Neal Levin
There is more to robots than Asimov’s Three Laws. A discussion of recent science fiction about robotics and artificial intelligence.

Sun 1:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Three (1 hour)
Vampires thick as fleas
Victoria Janssen (moderator), L.A. Banks, Genevieve Iseult Eldredge, Michael A. Ventrella
Has this trend crested? Is it going to take over the field or has it become a ghetto unto itself?

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Glimmerings in the Fog

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

I was in the shower last week when I finally felt the merest flicker of enthusiasm for a new writing project.

I’ve been deliberately taking some time off from writing. I took a week off solely to read (though I did end up writing a little bit on a short story). Before taking the time off, I wrote two synopses which were fine, adequate, but though they might be salable, I decided I wanted to think of other possibilities. And I’ve been waiting for inspiration.

I haven’t had the leisure to wait for inspiration in several years, so it feels like something new, and a great luxury. It feels like something to be desired. So I was really glad that ideas for a future project began to appear, like matches being lit somewhere off in the fog. A bit here. A flicker at the corner of my eye. A hint of emotion when I think of a favorite novel or series.

I don’t have anything cohesive yet, except knowing that I want to write about an alien planet or possibly an alternate dimension of some kind, but not one that’s too alien. In my head, I’m assembling lists of Things I Like that might be useful for worldbuilding. And I’m poking at setups. Gently.

Be very quiet. I’m hunting rabbits.

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Stacey Kennedy on Wolves & Weres

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

The winner of the signed print copy of The Duke & The Pirate Queen, per Random.org, is Crystal Jordan. Congratulations, Crystal! I’ll email you to obtain your mailing address.

Now, please welcome my guest, Stacey Kennedy!

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What do we know about wolves? They live in a social hierarchy which is lead by an Alpha. They mate for life and will defend that mate to their death. They’re loving, yet deathly lethal when the situation calls them to be. Needless to say, it’s not a surprise that readers are taken by such a beautiful animal when portrayed as a werewolf.

When I created my werewolves in An Everlasting Bite, I followed many of the same rules wolves adhere too. Alphas lead over lower ranking wolves. Their hearts are destined to only one mate. They’re territorial and vicious when provoked. But of course, I changed a few rules too. My wolves are immortal and can shift to a human on command. Not that it hurts any, more just a shift in senses when the magic brings on the change.

As I created the characters, Briggs and Rynn, it really gave me a chance to step outside of myself. To imagine what turning into a werewolf would be like. How every sound would be crisper, how paws would feel when dug into the dirt, and how the wind would feel across your fur. The experience was quite a ride. I suppose by feeling so connected to the wolf while I wrote this story it made me want to understand them more. Through research, I discovered just how playful they are with their pack. And it was this character trait that inspired one of my favourite scenes in An Everlasting Bite. Below I’ve included an excerpt that shows you the sweeter side to a werewolf:

Briggs howled loudly to the moon. When he lowered his head, his eyes shone of rightness, protection, and happiness. But more than that, they showed playfulness. He nudged her side with his nose, nodded toward the forest.

She immediately caught his meaning. She jumped to her feet, returned the look of play and pounced forward. As she ran, she glanced back to see Briggs hitting the ground with his paws in anticipation and wagging his tail. She focused in front of her and ran as if her life depended on it.

His howl came loud, but far away. He let her have a head start, but as she rushed through the trees, she could hear him fast approaching.

She lunged faster, continued to run harder. Her paws barely touched the ground as her speed increased. Her ears twitched back and he began to close the distance. Briggs’ wolf was three times the size of her as a wolf. Needless to say, it didn’t take him long to catch up.

She had an advantage, though, her small size made her slightly quicker. She could weave through trees with impeccable speed while he had to go around them. He couldn’t catch her. He ran to her right, but she never looked back. She didn’t have to. His presence was there, and she could feel his playful banter coursing through her. For wolves, she suspected this was about as fun as it came, and she felt silly right along with him.

Suddenly, he moved faster–lengthened his stride.

Oh crap! He was only humoring her that she could out run him. Before she knew it, he was behind her and gave her backside a little nibble. She skidded to a halt and glanced behind her. He rested, head down and rump in the air, tail wagging.

The wolf within her knew exactly what to do. She lunged toward him. He jumped out of the way to rest in the same position and waited for her attack. Even in his wolf form, his eyes were so amused. He enjoyed this and so did she.

He growled, the sound rumbled through the air as he called her forward. She pounced again, but this time she ended up right on her butt as he maneuvered away from her.
Determined, she crouched down in the position he displayed–the declaration of an attack. She lunged forward. This time he let her. When she collided with him, they rolled around within the leaves and dirt, nibbling at each other.

After a final tumble, she jumped away. When she met his gaze, his eyes were smiling. She couldn’t deny how fun this was. As wolves, this was happiness. She’d needed this. Just silly fun. No danger, only them.

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Thank you, Victoria, for letting me stop by and share my werewolves with you! Now I ask all of you, what side do you like most to the wolf―the sweet side or their ferocious protective nature?

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Thanks, Stacey!

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