Enchanted Orb with Claire Boston

 

This month's Enchanted Orb post is with Claire Boston who shares the inspiration behind her writing life.

 

 

Mixing business with creativity


Most writers begin a story or a novel because they’ve had a great idea and want to get it down on paper. Each person has their own end goal: some just want to write a novel, some want to be published, and some want to make a living from their writing. I fall in to the latter category. I want to earn enough from my novels that I can write full time, so at some stage I needed to address the business side of writing.

There are some creatives who think business is a dirty word, but I’m not one of them. I see it as a means to my end goal. The truth is authors are their own small business. They need to track their expenses and their income and think about things such as promotion and marketing, and whether the contract they’ve been offered is right for them. In today’s market they also need to decide whether they want to go down the traditional publishing route, try self-publishing or do a hybrid of both.

For me I wanted the traditional publishing contract because I felt that would validate my writing – someone I didn’t know thought my novel was good enough to be published. But after I got that first contract I was already thinking about how I would get my second one, so I began to think with my business head on.

I emailed my publisher and asked them what they would like from me next. I pitched them several ideas that had been floating around my head for years and I suggested I could do a sequel to the first book. I figured if I wrote what they wanted, I’d have a better chance of getting that next contract. In the end they liked one of my story ideas, but they wanted me to make it a sequel to What Goes on Tour. That was perfect for me. It saved me the decision of which of my story ideas I should write next and also gave me the setting for the story.

By the time I finished writing what would become All that Sparkles, I knew I had to write two more stories in the series; George’s story and Piper’s story. When I sent through All that Sparkles for my publisher’s consideration I also pitched the rest of the series and the result was a three-book contract and The Texan Quartet series was born. Thinking about the business side of writing enabled me to get multiple contracts and take the next step towards being a full-time author. I can highly recommend mixing business with creativity.

Under the Covers is George’s story and book 3 of the series.

 

 

Blurb


What if the one time you didn't want love was when you truly needed it?


Forced to flee her abusive ex, alone with no support, Elle is determined to rebuild her life and protect her five-year-old son. Not one to take the easy road, she opens a bookshop café, but opening day almost ends in disaster. In the midst of this chaos, the last thing she needs is a man as charming as George Jones getting in her way.

George has always been a sucker for a damsel in distress, and Elle ticks all the boxes. But Elle's not interested in being rescued by anyone, especially not him. She knows her taste in men can't be trusted, but fighting George's charisma is harder than she expected. And George, who is not one to ignore an itch, has found there's something about Elle that's got under his skin.

When Elle's ex turns up to cause trouble, George must overcome his boyish flirtatiousness if he's to convince Elle to trust herself and let him into her life. But can Elle put her past behind her before it overwhelms her present?

About the Author
Claire Boston is the best-selling author of The Texan Quartet. In 2014 she was nominated for an Australian Romance Readers Award as Favourite New Romance Author.

Her debut contemporary romance novel, What Goes on Tour caught the attention of Momentum’s Joel Naoum when her first scene was read aloud at the Romance Writers’ of Australia (RWA) conference in 2013. This led to a four book contract for The Texan Quartet series.

Claire is proactive in organising social gatherings and educational opportunities for local authors. She is an active volunteer for RWA, as a mentor for aspiring authors and the reader judge coordinator.

When Claire’s not writing she can be found in the garden attempting to grow vegetables, or racing around a vintage motocross track. If she can convince anyone to play with her, she also enjoys cards and board games.

Claire lives in Western Australia, just south of Perth, with her husband, who loves even her most annoying quirks, and her grubby, but adorable Australian bulldog.


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Good News Day

Welcome to this week's good news

 

brought to you this week by Cassandra L Shaw

BOOK COVERS AND RELEASE DATES

 

Marie Dry has Alien Mine

out with Black Opal Books.

 

In a bleak future where government systems are breaking down and lawless bands of men terrorize the country, botanist Natalie Hanson fears for her life and hides in a cave in the Rocky Mountains. When she is captured by human raiders, a fierce alien appears and slays her attackers. Natalie is now held captive in her own cave by the sexy and striking alien commander, Zacar, who informs her that she will be his breeder. Natalie soon realizes that these aliens worship strength. So what will happen when Zacar finds out she has severe asthma?

 You can find Marie Dry:

website

Amazon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adina West is celebrating the digital release of the first episode of Covens Rising.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Covens Rising is the next title in her serialized Dark Child series.

 

Links to retailers here

 

 

 

 

 

Christina Phillips has Her Vengeful Scot,

 book 2 in Christina Phillips' Highland Warrior Chronicles, has a release date of 4th July 2014.

To avenge his sister’s honor, he must destroy the woman he wants most in the world…

Ordered to remain in Pictland, Cameron MacNeil fights the lust that consumes him whenever he encounters the aloof princess, Elise. Not only is she a cursed Pict, she belongs to the man he has vowed vengeance upon.

Despite her reputation, Elise has no interest in men until she meets Cameron. Lacking the famed Scots charm, his blunt ways enchant her and he ignites a passion she long thought dead. When she is freed from her difficult marriage, Elise places her trust in the tough Scot warrior who has stolen her heart.

Bound by blood oaths, the only way Cam can protect Elise from political schemes is to make her his bride. When Elise discovers the truth, she fears everything she knew about her husband was a lie. All she can do is trust her goddess was right and Cameron is her one true love.

Find Christina on her website

A Romantica® historical erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

 

 

 

CONTRACT NEWS

Jess Anastasi has signed 2 contracts with Entangled; one for my space opera series, with Atrophy the first book coming out, and the other contract for my military science fiction romance series of novellas, the first coming out is Escape Velocity, followed by Damage Control.

Cassandra L Shaw has signed a contract for a single title paranormal romance with a working title of Twin Flames, the first in the Katoom Series with Black Opal Books.

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Enchanted Orb... The Inspiration of Adina West

Adina West looks at the role of inspiration in a commercial world, as she shares the story behind Dark Child, her first novel, which is being released by Pan Macmillan’s Momentum as a serialized e-book starting 1^st February, 2013.

                                                            * * *

For me, when inspiration strikes, the characters always come first. Sometimes characters in a particular scenario. And then, I’m left with the question: how did they end up here? What events led them to this? When I get an idea, (and in common with most writers, I honestly have no idea where they come from) I jot down a few notes to remind me of the key elements. I have a special folder for these on my computer. Many of these jottings may never end up going anywhere, but writing them down means I can put them aside, so they’ll stop niggling at me.

Today though, I’d like to concentrate on the chain of events that inspired Dark Child, as it’s my first published book. The first book I followed through on, from initial idea to finished article. And perhaps it’s no surprise that there was something a little bit different about the inspiration for this book than all the other stories I’d started and abandoned.

The idea that ended up leading me to Dark Child was one I consciously went looking for. I’d been writing romance for years, with one particular project that I’d labored over for ages, had almost finished and then put aside in frustration. There was something wrong with it, but I wasn’t sure what. And besides, I’d written it just for myself. While it was a romance, it didn’t fall neatly into a particular romance sub-genre, and I knew that would make it harder to sell, but I told myself that as I wasn’t seeking publication it didn’t matter.

This time, though, I decided to try something completely different. Well, not completely different – I wanted to keep the romance, but write something with paranormal elements. My sister had introduced me to PNR authors like JR Ward and Nalini Singh. Twilight was also really big around that time. And I’d decided I really did want to write seriously. Write with a view to ultimately being published.

Write what you know, I remembered hearing. Write what you like to read. I loved reading paranormal, and without quite realizing it, I’d watched pretty much every vampire movie and TV series made in the last twenty years. I also knew paranormal was selling well, around the world. So I thought if I liked the genre anyway, it made sense to try something that was commercial. No more dilly-dallying around. Why not intentionally set out to write something that would have a good chance of getting published?

When you’re unpublished, it doesn’t seem so outlandish to aim for the moon. So why not plan to write a series from the outset? In for a penny, in for a pound, right? I bent my mind to thinking of a concept that could hold together a series of paranormal romance novels. A common character that travelled through all the books perhaps? I thought vaguely about a paranormal detective, solving crimes, one per book. I jotted down ideas, scenarios, and characters as they came to me. And without realizing it, I was building my world. In my notes, in the ways characters interacted, I’d already started to formulate my version of what a world with vampiric beings and shape shifters might look like.

Anyway, I wrote a scene, based around one of the many scenarios that I’d written down in summary form. Then I wrote a little bit more. It was about a human girl – an unusual human girl, who moved into an apartment building with a secret. An apartment building warded with magical runes, so she shouldn’t have been able to see it, let alone walk through the front door. I sent it off to my sister, my PNR ‘expert’ for comment. Was it a piece of god awful tripe, or did she think I had something worth pursuing?

Well, her first comment, funnily enough, was about the lack of a hero. A paranormal romance is, by definition, the story of how two people find love, find their ‘Happily ever after’. “If it’s going to be a paranormal romance,” my sister said, “we really should meet the hero near the beginning of the book. Where is he?”

 

“Oh,” I said, “I forgot to mention, this isn’t a paranormal romance novel.” (It wasn’t a detective novel either, though that had been my starting point. I kept the detective, but as a minor character.)

“Okay,” my sister said. I could hear the furrowed brow down the telephone line. “What is it then?”

The project had changed, in my mind, into something else. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure what. So much for my initial plan of writing something commercial, that would fall neatly into a known genre and be easy to sell. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending which way you look at it) that resolve had gone out the window as soon as my inspiration had been fired-up and I’d started embroidering the initial concept. I might as well admit now that I’m pretty much a seat-of-the-pants writer, and when you’re writing without an outline, or with only a very loose outline, it’s all too easy to find yourself going in a completely different direction from the one you’d envisaged. For better or worse.

Anyway, armed with my sister’s cautiously positive feedback, I put aside the few scenes I’d written, and let them percolate away in the back of my mind for a few months. Then I started to write again. I filled in what had come before that first scene I wrote. What had brought my heroine to this apartment building? Who was she? And I wrote about what happened next. The story of a unique young woman caught out in the wrong place, at very much the wrong time.

When I finally finished, I had the first book of what I thought could be a series, and it was a crazy mish mash of genres - closer to urban fantasy than anything else, but not quite fitting the mold. It had romance, and touches of epic fantasy, and suspense. It wasn’t YA, but it wasn’t purely adult either.

The important part, though, was that despite the fact that Dark Child ended up (despite my best intentions) being a cross-genre beast, it was my beast. My creation. A combination of all the elements I loved, in a somewhat unholy alliance. It was the product of letting inspiration run free. While the initial inspiration came from something I thought could have ‘commercial’ appeal, I ended with something that I’d poured my heart into. Something that I loved.

I think there must be a lesson in that.

Magic Thursday Winner!!

Peta is the winner of the five Hot Down Under titles! Peta please send me your email to mottrey @ yahoo dot com (no spaces) and I'll get the Momentum guys to foward those books onto you!
Congrats! =)

Magic Thursday: Hot Down Under Gals!

 

Hot Down Under

 

Take thirteen erotic romance writers, throw in a dash of crazy, add another erotic romance writer to the mix (Lexxie Couper mustn’t have read the fine print to our lunacy issues), a whole lot more crazy and a couple of shakes of single-mindedness and you have the Hot Down Under girls. Fourteen writers joining forces and making up a short story collection released November, December and January.

So how did it all come together you ask? Sorry, I always wanted to say that… *shuffles feet*

Cate Ellink and I mightn’t have been quite sober, when gabbling through the wonders of cyber-land about feasible ways to help fund an erotic writers retreat (besides the grant she organized with the wonderful RWA), she had a light bulb moment of writing and self-publishing an anthology.

Yep, we were swept away by the moment to say the least.

But great moments often need fine-tuning. Although that wave of excitement also swept through the erotic loop, there was much work to be done. Somewhere along the way the published authors: Tracey O’Hara, Beverley Oakey, Kylie Scott, Rhian Cahill, Kasey Channing, Shona Husk, Keziah Hill and Mel Teshco (moi) helped mentor the soon-to-be-published C.T Green, Marianne Theresa, Cate Ellink, Rhyll Biest and S E Gilchrist (not forgetting the fact we all critiqued each others work as well.)

And of course special thanks and a glass of bubbly goes to Jess Dee for helping to mentor and critique many of those stories as well =))

So…how the hell did one sort out the logistics of all the writers come pay day? And let’s not bring up the tax issues stuff of a group being self published. SHUDDER. I can only thank the stars Kylie Scott was on board with us and was more than happy to use her inside contacts at Momentum, the new digital line of Australia’s Pan Macmillan, where she was already contracted for her fabulous story, Flesh.

Anyhoo, one thing led to another more amazing thing and now here we all are, the new erotic Momentum gals rocking it hard! The first five short stories are already released but we’d love to come back in December and January to tell you about the rest!

In the meantime…here are those first five. Oh, and we'd also love to offer these first five stories to one commentator who'd love to reiterate our greatness *wink*

 

A Real Online Fantasy

Can an online fantasy ever become real?
When Condamine connects with Esquire in a chat room, neither expect their mutual pleasure and close friendship will become something far more intimate and real. But when the opportunity to meet Esquire in the flesh comes up will Condamine – Caitlyn, in real life – be bold enough to act out her deepest fantasies, or will she hide away from the world behind the comfortable glare of her computer screen?

 

 

 

The Final Wish

 Ishari is a djinn – the veritable genie in a bottle.
Her latest master, Caleb Salt, a hot young rock star, has one wish left. The curse of sexual need has nothing to do with the lust she feels for him, but he doesn’t seem to desire her in the same way.

Caleb has used his first two wishes to save his brother. Will he do the same with the last, or will he use it for himself? Either way, once he makes that wish, his erotically sensual genie will be lost to him forever and she’s something he’s just not ready to lose.

 
Beneath the Light of a Silver Moon

Kristen Treymore isn't living anymore – she's existing.
Trapped in marriage to Jack, an alcoholic who uses his fists to communicate, Kristen has given up her freedom in an attempt to protect his daughter.

When Conrad Doyle, childhood friend and the man whose heart she unwittingly broke, shows up on Kristen's doorstep and offers her a lifeline, she can't refuse.

What she never dreams possible is how much she still wants him—but is that enough to keep them together when terror still beats deep in her heart?

 
A Sporting Chance

In the outback town of Mount Tully, many a man's had to squeeze into a frock after backing the wrong derby cane toad on Australia Day.
But Mount Tully's surliest bartender, Jane Hood, has her steel-capped boots planted firmly on the ground, so there's no way she'd risk her independence to accept a saucy bet from the sexy but bossy pub owner, Luka Belov ... is there?

 

Room with a View

Natalie has watched as the zombie plague devastated civilisation.
Angus had been a miracle. Twenty-three years old and gorgeous he had appeared like Romeo from the pool area and thrown supplies up to her balcony. But now Angus is gone – he has abandoned her, which is probably for the best. She couldn't stand to watch him die too.

Stranded four floors up and fenced in on all sides by the infected, food and water supplies are running as low as Natalie's spirits. A lingering death from starvation seems inevitable.

But then she sees Angus striding for the pool gate with a sawn-off shotgun in his hands. Can he make it past the infected to reach her? And what will it mean if he does?