A Super Hot Release Day

It's here, boys and girls!  The next story in the Superlovin' series is now available.  SUPER HOT is now available - and to celebrate the release, the previous book in the series, Super Bad, is FREE for a limited time for the Kindle.  Click on over and grab your copy, then check out Super Hot:

He’s on fire for her… literally. 
Superhero research scientist Dr. Eric Eisenmann always secretly wanted to be super himself, until he was abducted, experimented on, and woke up pyrokinetic—the least stable of all the super abilities. Suddenly he’s lighting everything around him on fire whenever his emotions get the better of him and desperate to turn his super powers off. Unfortunately, Eisenmann’s only hope for a cure lies with a woman who wants nothing to do with him—and fires up the very emotions he needs to keep in check.
 
As the only non-super daughter in a superhero dynasty, Tandy Nightwing has been poked and prodded for years in an attempt to find the cause behind her defect. Now that she’s finally found a way to be happy with her normalcy, the last thing she wants is to subject herself to another super scientist’s tests—but she can no more resist Eisenmann’s plea for help than she can resist the good doctor himself. 

Deep in his underground lab, Eisenmann tries to maintain rigid control of his feelings, but Tandy is his personal kryptonite, constantly testing his restraint. Powerless or not, she just might be the one woman brave enough to stand close to his fire—provided they both survive when their experiments unleash a passion that burns hotter than sin.

Happy reading, superhero lovers!

New Super Art!

In honor of Super Hot's release (and to keep myself busy so I'm not incessantly clicking refresh as I wait for it to go live), Super Bad is getting a face lift.  That's right, baby.  Shiny new art to amp up the romance factor.  What do you think, boys and girls?

Study Break

My Alma Mater:

Mozart. So There.

I've never quite known how to react when people call me prolific.  (Partially because I don't think I am, particularly.  I know lots of authors who produce way more books than I do, but whatevs.)

Some people say it like it's a compliment and I'm not sure how to respond, because it seems odd to say "Thank you" when someone essentially tells you that you work hard and "Yes, I know" seems kinda bratty. (As does arguing the point.)

Then there are other people who use "prolific" as a veiled insult.  As if they can't comment on the quality of your work due to the if-you-can't-say-something-nice rule, so they comment on the abundance of it.  Kind of like we were taught in eighth grade not to say something was bad or we didn't like it.  My PC social studies teacher made us all say "That's interesting."  So of course interesting became a huge insult in my middle school.

But the ones that make me nuts are the ones who imply that anyone who is prolific is also producing at sub-par quality.  "Cranking it out" or "churning out books" and therefore they can't be any good.  I don't know why great literature has to take a million years to produce.  I don't understand why some authors are almost celebrated for their lack of consistent production.  But then, I'm a genre writer, not a literary one, so the same rules don't apply.  We have deadlines.  And contracts that don't give us a decade to produce our next magnum opus.  We have to satisfy our readers on a regular basis.  That's our job.

So why this stigma against productivity?  Productivity is not the enemy of genius.  Look at Mozart!  That man produced genius at a fiendish rate.  Shakespeare wasn't taking three or four years between plays to ruminate on the perfect turn of phrase.  When did we start looking at artists who crank as a negative?

Someone told me recently about a study with art students where they were divided into two groups - one graded qualitatively and the other quantitatively.  Apparently, the artists who were asked to produce massive quantities of art also produced, on the whole, qualitatively superior work.  So more creativity sparks better creativity.  (And I've been dying to read this study in its entirety so if anyone knows where I can find a copy of it online, you will be my bestest friend for evah and evah.)

My theory is that the stigma ultimately stems out of jealousy.  As a defense against the Mozarts and Shakespeares of the world, some mere mortal looked at them and said, "Yeah, but they're just cranking it out.  I'm honing my art."  And the sentiment stuck. 

Me?  I wanna be Stephen King-prolific when I grow up.  So I'll keep on cranking.

Back to work...

Shiftery Goodness

For a couple years now, people have been asking me when I'm going to write another shifter story and I didn't have an answer.  It was always some indefinite point in the distant future.  For the last week or so, I haven't wanted to jinx it (because I'm wildly superstitious), so I've been keeping mum about this new project I've just started working through, but today I'm too excited not to share.  So here goes...

I'm writing another cat shifter story, boys and girls. 

More leonine goodness for your reading pleasure... just as soon as I finish it, submit it to the Awesome Editor, get it wedged into Samhain's busy scheduled, edited etc, and into your hot little hands.  So... it won't be next week, or anytime very soon, but I'll keep you posted.  For now, just be warned.  More shifters are coming.

The Romance Omission

I haven't had a rant in a while, so it appears to be time for a small temper tantrum.  You've been warned.

This morning, I tripped across this article in the Guardian, talking about how genre is getting more respect and is the distinction between genre & literary fiction a "flimsy irrelevance".  Brilliant!  Right?  To stop negating the quality of a book simply because it falls into a certain genre class is something I can get behind wholeheartedly. 

Except for one thing.  The entire article is VERY, VERY CAREFUL never to mention the romance genre or a single romance author. 

"[Y]ou'll still find China Miéville and Lauren Beukes in fantasy, Ken MacLeod and Iain M Banks in sci-fi, Sophie Hannah and Ruth Rendell in crime, Brian Evenson and Kathe Koja in horror. We critics can praise them to the high heavens, but it doesn't change where they end up in a bookshop."

Yes, the critics can praise those genres to the high heavens, but they can't be seen legitimizing romance.  God forbid!  It might negate their whole argument if they were to include us.

Perhaps I'm overreacting.  Perhaps the author of this piece has nothing against romance and our entire genre being ignored when quality is discussed was just a thoughtless oversight.  Still, I got a bit tetchy at the omission.

Nalini Singh.  Eloisa James.  Kristan Higgins.  Linnea Sinclair.  All of them brilliant.  When talking about genre quality, there are romances that should be part of the conversation.  Just sayin.

Risk and Reinvention

I'm over at the Ruby blog today, chatting about risk, reward, reinvention, and books that step outside my writing comfort zone.  Swing on over and say howdy!

Great Expectations

One of my cousins recently declared she is going to be a writer (or Madonna, she's still figuring it out).  I know I should be wildly supportive of anyone who wants to pursue their artistic dreams, but my first instinct was to say "It's really hard to make a living as a writer."  (And then I felt guilty for the impulse to rain on her parade.)

Being a big shot professional writer is kind of like growing up to be a professional baseball player - though the odds of making the major leagues may actually be better than making a workable living in writing fiction.  Thirty teams with 40-man rosters... as opposed to the "Big Six" publishers with only a handful of A-listers each?  I know there are indies striking it big now, but most of us are just scratching by (if that).  Even some people who've made best seller lists aren't rolling in it the way you might think.  Think I'm exaggerating?  Check out this article.

But see the thing is, none of that will matter if writing is your passion.  If it's that thing you can't imagine not doing.  Like Sinclair Lewis said:

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.

Truer words never spoken - but you notice he doesn't say anything about fame or fortune.  As a get rich quick scheme, writing is not so awesome.  As a lifelong passion for people with a thousand stories inside them screaming to get out?  Can't be beat.  Just sayin'.