RWA Conference Report

Glenelg, South Australia, before the Jetty

I went to the RWA Conference.

I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed myself. I did conference a little differently this time - I didn't stay in the venue but a short walk away, I got outside, I didn't have majorly late nights talking to everyone, and I didn't have high expectations. These changes worked for me!!!!

View from the Jetty - the conference hotel is on the right

Adelaide is my favourite city in Australia, and Glenelg is gorgeous. The Stamford Grand is functional elegance and a fantastic location for a conference. I enjoyed the venue and location a lot. Great food nearby. Lots of space around. Short walk to shops, tram, beach, fresh air, parks, other motels. Just a great spot to be.

My conference highlights were:

• Listening to Keri Arthur's talk. She's one of my favourite authors and Dad and I fight over who reads her new book first. Her talk was so honest, that it gave me a new look at the industry. She's a big name, NY Times best seller, and yet she has hassles. She struggles to know what's the right thing. She gets messed about. She has to stand up for what she believes is right, even when it costs financially. On the outside, her career looks like smooth sailing - it was refreshing to hear that no matter where or who you are, not everything is smooth sailing.
• Daniel DeLorne gave another honest, open talk about gay males. I really enjoyed his light humour, his openness, honestly and the refreshingly normal way he spoke about sex. There isn't a lot at conference targetted for the erotic author, so this was great!
• There was an Academic Conference stream and I LOVED IT! I loved being challenged to think about what we read and write. I loved the depth and breadth of the views expressed. This is the second academic conference held as part of RWA and I hope it continues. It makes the conference for me.
• Catching up with fellow Naughty Ninjas, Lily Malone and Sandra Antonelli. I was so lucky to be talking to Lily when Sue brought Lily's new book to give to her. It was Lily's first look and it was such a privilege to be there. And Sandra presented the work from her PhD at the Academic Conference, which is fab!

  

  Lily, her new book, with Sue Brockhoff from Harlequin Mira

  

  Lily and me

Sandra and me

Some of my personal 'funny' moments were -

• Running 'home' in the pouring rain, heels in hand, after the Harlequin Author Party. The ground was slippery (great excuse, hey?) and I felt all of 16 and sneaking home late :)
• Taking a great sunset shot under the jetty, all dressed up, thinking I wouldn't get wet - and of course I did! My boots filled with water, my good trousers were soaked to the knee. Luckily it was after my publisher meeting! I do need to grow up, but there's no fun in that :)

View under the jetty - at sensible low tide

View under the jetty - at high tide, when you might just get your feet wet (or your legs!)

I still have problems with my attendance at conference. I find so many people are all about themselves - that's all they want to talk about, how great they are. I find a lot of people have different views to me about the publishing business, and I struggle with that. There are entirely too many people and it's much too noisy!! (I'm such a hermit!). There's too many options - at one stage I wanted to be in 3 places at once. It's still expensive. And erotic authors are generally not catered for - but I suppose that can be said about a lot of sub-genres. It just gets on my goat when people talk to me and acknowledge one type of my writing, yet this side of me is 'just sex' - as if I don't craft a story with as much care and diligence.

But, all up, I'd go again. I'd do the more casual approach again too. So far, I'm tired but I'm not sick and out on my feet like in 2014. I might finally be working it out :)

Sunday Story - Krissy Daniels

With a book title of, How to Kill Your Boss, how could I not read that? Immediately a few of my past bosses came to mind - one in particular I used to fantasise about his end! LOL Thankfully not the way this book had it!

I stumbled across Krissy Daniels through my association with The Naughty Ninjas. Krissy won our April prize and I was to send her a book. We emailed and we ended up swapping all our books - I even got a sneak peek at Krissy's new book, Aglow, that's out 2 June - and it's awesome!!!

Preorder AGLOW - I think it's 99c, which is a total bargain!!!

I did an interview with Krissy for the Naughty Ninjas, which you can find here. I desperately wanted to know more about her writing and her plans for more books. so rather than stalk her and bombard her with questions, I did it in a totally legitimate way with an interview - sneaky, hey? (That's how we get to be Naughty Ninjas, you know :) ).

One thing I noticed when I gorged on Krissy's books, How To Kill Your Boss, Aflame and Aglow, was that she writes in both first person (How To Kill Your Boss) and third person (Aflame and Aglow). The choice between first person and third person is something I've struggled with for years. I LOVE first person. It sings to me...and Krissy's is no different. For me, How To Kill Your Boss, was magical. It was witty and funny and had so much spark and sass. Then I opened Aflame and I missed the first person voice...but let me tell you, I soon forgot to worry! The story ripped me away into that 'reader world'.


And maybe that's the key. First person brings you snappier, wittier, sassier writing. Third person tells more of a story, which weaves around all the characters. I'm not convinced yet...but I'll write in third when I have to. I read comments from so many people who say something like, "I hate first person" and it makes me so sad.  They're missing out on so much great reading!

But I digress... :)



Let me tell you a bit about Krissy's books.

They're romances and don't have cliffhanger endings.

How To Kill Your Boss is like a suspense-comedy. It has some really powerful angst in the story and the characters, so although I say comedy, it's a dark one. Someone's out to kill Tatum (heroine), and Franklin (hero) is to protect her...but it's nowhere near smooth sailing. There's action aplenty, not only as they try to have a relationship, but in the whole world around them. It's chaos, even when they try to escape it. Clever, witty, fun, as well as deep and angsty.

Aflame and Aglow for a series that's a romance with paranormal themes. Each book is focused on a different set of characters within the same world...and it's a lovely world - part real world, part something like an extended family utopia.

Isn't this sexy? :)

In Aflame, Grayce and Zander star. We meet Tyr (villain) and most of the other characters too. Grayce has been through horrific things but is such an amazing heroine who still cares for people after such horror has befallen her. Zander is this huge hunk who makes me all sloppy with his over-protective alpha-ism. He's fun too though, and soft-hearted.

In Aglow, Marcus and Camilla take centre stage. Oh, they're so much fun. Camilla is like Ms Purity...until she's not, and when she's not, Oh Boy! It's steaming hot! Marcus is even more over-protective alpha than Zander (and I'd thought Zander was hot!) and Camilla has him all worked up and tied in knots. And while they're trying to work out their relationship, bad stuff happens...all the time!

These books kept me up at night. So be careful!

Smoking hot heroes, wicked sex, smart dialogue and sexy sexy times - what more do you need of an evening? :)

Wildlife Wednesday - moth

I have another moth today. It was on a deck chair that was stacked up in the backyard. When I moved one to go soak up some sunshine, this stunning moth was hiding between the chairs. Beautiful isn't it?

We have a moth today because of the Naughty Ninjas. This is a bunch of writers who have wacky senses of humour and we seem to spur each other into silliness.

Anyway, over the past week, we've been talking about shifter erotic romance...because those are the things we talk about! But really, the conversation started from a Submission Call that captured Rhyll's attention. You can find the call here...but it was all about Strange Shifters.

So a few of us have been inspired by craziness and have been writing. You'll never guess what shifter type my story went to ... no, not a moth, but a butterfly!

Sometimes I do wonder about my mind. It's not quite right yet - the story, my mind is long gone crazy! - so it will take some tweaking to get the right vibe. But I think I need to thank my Wildlife Wednesday posts for giving me a range of animals to turn into shifters :)

If my shifter butterfly ever sees the light of day, you will be the first to hear :) Long live the moths and butterflies!

Phallic Friday - Tentacle Porn

I belong to the Naught Ninjas, you can see our group website here, and this week we had a FB Christmas Party full of wrongness. One thing that has caught the Ninjas imagination is squid/octopus. Apparently there's a lot of sea-animal porn online and it's captured Ninja attention, along with Sharknado.

So, in the wee hours after teh party, when I had too much wrongness in my head, I wrote this Tentacle Porn for the Ninjas. It's less than 1000 words, so I guess it's flash fiction.


Feel free to skip it...it's all sorts of wrongness!

Tentacle Porn especially for the Naughty Ninjas.

The globular head slithered between her thighs as the octopus was hurled into the boat by her fisherman husband. Bloody useless man! A whole boat and he lands the freaking thing in my lap.

Before she could jump, the damn animal nestled against her, tentacles clutching her thighs through her jeans. 

In seconds, the beaky-mouth closed over her crotch and intense suction rendered her speechless, incapable of moving.

Her fishing rod loosened in her grasp, and a tug on the line saw it fly over the side of the boat. Not good. But she couldn’t care, not with the octopus causing havoc with her cunt.

Stretching in the chair, she arched to give the creature room to move, and it did. Taking far more notice of her needs than her husband ever did, the octopus set a frantic pace on her, closing it’s mouth right over her clit and attaching as if permanently. The suction and heat were extraordinary.

Then the tentacles moved with little tugs against her body. Two slid upwards before finding their way beneath her shirt. Tiny pulls of the suckers on her stomach were excruciating and exciting. They went higher. To the undersides of her breasts and then over them, into her bra and, fuck, the suckers caught her nipples. Tight. Fucking hell. It was like the best lips in the world, squeezing on her tits.

The beak probed her crotch through her jeans before two more tentacles slithered beneath her shirt. These ones didn’t move upwards, they ducked into her jeans and slithered downwards. She groaned, loudly. She couldn’t help it. Her husband may hear but she didn’t care. He’d thrown the damn thing at her so it was his fault…and her pleasure. But over the rhythmic rock of waves on the hull, he never heard her, or maybe he had an ignored her moaning, that was more likely.

The tentacles slithered slowly, suctioning against her belly as they angled down. Then more tentacles moved, beneath her this time. She felt the little kisses as the suckers moved across her lower back. They moved higher, right along her spine, giving her long sucking kisses at the edge of each vertebrae. She hissed her pleasure. Wrapped by octopus was not something she’d ever thought of as sexy, well, actually she’d never thought of it at all, but dear God, this was the sexiest sex she’d ever had.

The tentacles going south at the front, slipped either side of her slit and kissed their way down her labia. She was soaked, from tentacle goodness and octopus-suction slobber. Her jeans were wet down her thighs, rubbing on her clit as the mouth-like beak sucked and pulsed. Then two tentacles slid into the back of her jeans.

Holy mother fucking squid-topus.

She was hardly sitting now. She was more sprawled across the chair with the backs of her thighs and the tops of her shoulders anchoring her. Her feet dug into the side of the boat. Tentacles slithered, kissed, sucked and pulsated against her. Nipples were caught up in suction pads that caught, held, squeezed and released. It was like sucking lips and pinching fingers all at once. Her labia were experiencing similar exquisite kisses, but the extra slickness meant these were sloppy, slippery and sliding along her lips. Sometimes they dipped into her slit and she almost died of pleasure. The tentacles on her back held her, like an embrace, but one that teased her skin with hickeys, as if a hundred pairs of lips suckled her flesh. And the rear. God. The tentacles at the rear were touching up her arse. Slipping against the tight hole, while at the same time suction squeezed around it. Was it trying to force her open, or just easing the opening? She didn’t know and it was so hot, she didn’t care.

She couldn’t focus on any point of contact. The tentacles and the octopus mouth were working furiously together keeping her riding the edge of an orgasm that was going to kill her. And if it didn’t, her husband would do that for losing the rod, or fucking a fish, or more precisely being mounted by a mollusc.

Mother fucking octopussssssss.

Tentacles all clasped at once. Squeezing her as they found her holes. A tentacle slid inside her arse as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Muscles stretched but not uncomfortably as it wriggled inside her. Another pulsed into her vagina not exactly filling it until, holy fuck, she was filled by it. Stuffed tight by suctioning tentacle that seemed to twist itself in knots as it filled her. She writhed as her body sang. Suction everywhere had her arching, writhing, squeezing, pulsing.

Tentacles pumped into and out of her. Faster and faster. Then the one in her cunt eased, before it got thicker. Fuck. So thick. How? Moving to send her insane. Two tentacles maybe? They pumped her. Cunt in, arse out. Arse in, cunt out. The suction on her clit matched with the anal probe. She couldn’t last any longer. Stars buzzed behind her eyes. Colours whirled.

Then the beak sucked her clit tight, sucking harder and harder, no rest, no break.

All the tentacles thrust into her together. And the ones on her back and breasts seemed to suck tighter, like they were trying to peel off her skin.

Every muscle in her body went rigid. A scream echoed in her brain, round and round and round, and finally her mouth opened and the scream was released into the air.

The tentacles were unrelenting. Thrusting continuously, never to be spent. Never to be flaccid. Never to shrink and flop from her.

She rode that orgasm as if her life depended on it. She rode it high into the clouds and beyond. The octopus was taking her beyond anything she’d felt before. And she was never going to stop. She rode that orgasm into the outer realms of space.

Her husband was jailed for murder. The jury were horrified at the number of puncture wounds he’d inflicted on his wife’s body. They weren’t fishermen, he claimed, and didn’t understand that an octopus could attack a human. They didn’t know that he’d stabbed his wife inadvertently when she screamed. All he was trying to do was to kill the octopus that was attacking his wife. It had already eaten her fishing rod, so he knew it was going to consume her. He was only protecting her.

Phallic Friday - Lust

The days are whipping by at the moment,as Friday has coming storming upon me, let me take the chance to introduce you to...

LUST OBJECTS

The Naughty Ninjas (a collaborative author blog of which I am a part)  have sourced some truly kooky things. You can find them here: http://www.naughtyninjas.net/the-daily-ninja/

There are normal things like t-shirts and underpants, but always with a twist - like the underpants come in a a little round tin, like lip balm! There's art - created while having sex, of course. And there are things that defy belief - like a pole dancer alarm clock!

So, treat yourself to a lust object. Even if you don't buy, they're certainly worth a look and a chuckle!!

And Rhyll 'the lady' Biest, one of my regular visitors and a Naughty Ninja, is the usual source of these objects and other strange phenomena!

Sunday Story - a new way to promo and stuff

I have to confess to loathing promo - of me, of my books, of anything really. I can sometimes tolerate doing a plug for others but compared to some people, I make a little bleat to their screaming cacophony. I don't do cacophonies anytime - oh, except cicadas! So I've struggled with promo.

www.naughtyninjas.net

But no more!

A revolution is coming!

On Valentine's Day (of course! It's the day for all things romance), I will be a part of a new way to promo - by having a laugh, by being funny or silly, by sharing humour or snark.

A shared blog, with social media links (like a Facebook page, and Twitter contests and things).

My biggest hope is that we'll generate some interest in ourselves, which may trickle down to a few people reading my stories.

But aside from the hope for readers, I want to enjoy social media. I want to be able to hang out with friends, laugh together, and pretend we live close enough to be cakking ourselves over lunch or coffee. I want to create a pseudo-world inside my computer screen :)

And the best thing is that you know most of the people - or you are most of the people! LOL

Two of my most frequent commenters will be with me in the craziness - Lily Malone and Rhyll Biest. So you know it's going to be fun.

Be ready for the big launch on Feb 14th!

Phallic Friday - merkins

Today's topic is the merkin - the pubic hair wig, originally used by prostitutes who had shaved their gentalia, or for prostitutes who wanted a point of difference and used a different colour pubic hair.

And for interest, my Wordsworth Dictionary of Sex tells me that from the 16th to 18th century the word was used to describe a woman's natural pubic hair, and to describe the female genitals themselves. Hmm... wonder how that changed.

I forget exactly how I came to know of the merkin, but it was definitely discussed in our office at work one day in the mid 1990s. Maybe it was through the TV show Sex, which was on at the time. It seemed to stimulate a lot of topics of conversation in our office. Our office sat at the bottom of stairs, as the last office before the doors outside, so you can imagine it was a hive of activity - and not all of it was work! Everyone stopped by to have a chat. I shared the office with two guys, one who was very chatty and one who could be when you got him warmed up. So it was a fun workplace - probably the best office I've ever had.

We had all manner of odd discussions. And I can't remember most of them, I just remember the hilarity of it. And the merkin was the brunt of many many many jokes.

Anyway, the merkin has resurfaced in my life. Not because I need one, but because I've joined with a bunch of Naughty writers who think they're Ninjas, and they've been talking about merkins. It's one of the jokes. And the other day one of them mentioned gold plated merkins as a prize for getting in our articles.

It stuck in my head - gold plated merkins - classic!

So, I went to the movies the other day with Mr E, and we had some time before the show (because we actually managed a sit down proper lunch in a cafe, not my favoured long lunch, but still an improve on the hastily scoffed pies he last treated me to). Spotlight is just across the road. I was thinking of gold plated merkins.

I was browsing the wool - which is often more synthetic than wool these days, which makes my skin crawl, but that's another rant. In the "wool" I found this gold stuff, and the gold and black. I got the giggles.

What do you reckon? Merkin material?

If you need some inspiration for merkins, just do a Google search for merkin images and be astounded by the variety!