Writing Shorts

When I started writing for keeps, I thought only of novels. After my first novel was accepted, I got an inkling that a short or two might be a nice way to start promoting my name waiting the year until the novel was released. The problem was, I always assumed I couldn't write short fiction - I am very long winded in my writing, by nature. It seems to me that plots and characters need time/pages for me to develop to my liking.

However, I managed to write one, and then did it a few more times (six short stories and one novella between Oct 2010 and Dec 2011). My shorts have been well received, with several reviewers noting they read like full novels (likely because I don't know exactly how to bend my brain away from novel construction, but they did mean it in a good way).

Last month, I did an interview, and the blogger asked me why I became a shorts writer, and if I ever planned on trying another novel. I was a bit taken aback, since I never intended the shorts to become my "image," but to bolster the novels. I explained I had written a couple more novels, but they take longer to release, so more shorts came out in the meantime.

Here's the issue - I have several shorts in various states of production (about five written in draft), but I don't know if I want to do them any more. Or, stories under novella length, at least. This will make my output look smaller, and it may appear as if I am not creating as much as I was, I know, since they take longer to write, edit, submit, and produce. I guess I'll just have to deal with having a skimpy bibliography.

On the upside, this will mean fewer releases, which means less promo work, and more time to write - so perhaps it will balance out?

I haven't adamantly set my mind against shorts forever, but I think I do want to get back to my first love - writing novels. I do love the shorts I have released, so it's not that I am dumping on them. It's just that I never pictured myself becoming a "short story writer," and it may be time to return to the original medium that drew me to professional fiction writing.

This is no big announcement of anything, really. Just a random thought about where I'm headed in 2012. I apologize for being so absent from the blog. I will be getting this thing back on track, with luck, in the coming months.

Feedback Needed: Him for the Holidays?

As my series for Rebel Ink Press starts to wind down, with three released and two more waiting in the wings, it's time to start thinking of them as a series, including promoting them as a group and coming up with a title for the paperback release in 2012. *squee*

This "series" isn't a series in the traditional sense - they don't have the same characters or the same setting. In some cases, their styles and subgenres are even different, though they are all short erotic-romances (or romantic-erotica). One is semi-paranormal, one is comedy, one is cowboy, a couple have May/December themes, and one is glam.

What connects them is that they all take place around a holiday, and all of them have mismatched couples, combining types of people who normally wouldn't have found each other - a cowboy and a city slicker, a jock and a virginal musician, a prof and a grad student, a bartender and a socialite, and a yuppie and a hippie-witch. All of them have heroes that I adore.

In thinking about titles, one of my rough attempts has kind of grown on me, which emphasizes the lovable heroes and the gift of finding love:

Him for the Holidays

So... What do you think? Catchy? Trite? Overdone? Predictable? Cute? Annoying?

I'm totally open to hearing your reactions, criticism, or other suggestions. I'd like to settle on one quite soon so I can start thinking of them as a group.

Thanks in advance!
AH

A Personal Project on the Horizon

Hanging out with self-published folks. I think that's what has done this. I don't know; the Kool-Aid looked innocent enough. I guess I should have guessed by smiles on their faces as they offered it... Actually, maybe it's just that SP people seem so full of energy. Or that they've convinced me it's an outlet for a story that isn't likely to find a home any place else.

Either way, I am thinking of doing a self-publishing project.

No, I am not going to start self-publishing my genre fiction, or the new comedy I am writing. Those will still go to nice, small but competent epublishers who are willing to take them and give me the editorial and cover support I still need as a new author.

But, I have had an idea in my head for some time, and this project - a special, personal one - might just go self-published. A few years ago, a tragedy happened in my family. I won't go into details here, in case I decide to keep it private, after all. But I've been working on the story of this tragedy for some time - knowing I would write about it some fashion some day.

I have been considering writing it as a gift for my mom and dad. A short; around 20k or so. I thought to write it, convert it to PDF and get it coil bound at Kinko's for them. It's not a commercial book. I plan for it to be well-written and complete, but I had no idea of selling it.

But now, seeing the features of modern self-publishing, including "Create Space," which makes printing it in paperback a lot easier, I am intrigued. And thinking about it. Certainly, it would be more of an exciting thing for my parents in "real paperback."

So, I don't know. If I figure my way around Amazon, and get a cover art/layout, buy an ISBN some place (if I can), and hire a personal developmental editor, line reader, and proofer. Learn about the formatting (yikes!)... Maybe. Just maybe.

I'm keeping it in mind, anyway.

Writing Resolutions for 2011

I'm fairly new to this game, only having received my first acceptance in July 2010. I have had three shorts released since then, and am anticipating my first full length (actually the first one accepted) release in May. I have been with three companies, and have learned quite a bit - but I still have a long way to go. Looking back at 2010, I can see some things I want to better or differently in 2011.

1. I really do want to produce a free read short story. Honest. But it is very hard, I admit, to get my hands on enough time to do something for free that will be worth using as a sample. This continues to be a hope, and will be moved up on the priorities list.

2. I want to improve my promotions and marketing quite a bit. I want to continue to make better trailers, sooner, and find more places to get them out there. I want to make/get good banners for all of my books, as I have found the one supplied by Decadent was very useful. I think I will have to start putting money into marketing, as that really is the only way to get your book out there. 2010 was an extremely lean year, but 2011 might be better.

3. I want to improve my website - and get a .com instead of a .webs.com - as soon as I can afford it.

4. I want to finish and edit my NaNo novel. I have full lengths planned for Jan-April, May-August and Sept-Dec, as well. This upcoming year, I am hoping see better sales. I have publishers in mind for my current projects, and in 2011 I hope to have three or four full lengths accepted by strong companies. I will keep you posted if/when they say yes!

5. Shorts. I have decided to stop doing shorts - well, not altogether, but to spend much less on shorts. Shorts don't pay much at all, are hard to get reviewed and are kind of hard to promote in a big way. But they still demand a lot of time for writing, editing, promoting, etc. So, I have decided to give up writing shorts, for the most part - I will finish those currently in production, and complete the five story holiday erotica plan I have in mind with one publisher, as they are terribly fun to write (and so I can see it in paperback, I hope), but I think that is all, unless any novella-length ideas really grab me. I need to spend my time on my full length works, which sort of got the short end of the writing stick this year.

So, those are the specific goals and hopes for 2011. As always, the main overarching goal is to work at it; is to improve, continue to be happy at what I am doing, and produce the best writing I can for an increasing readership.

All the best for 2011. I look forward to better and brighter things!

***

What are your resolutions for 2011?

Good for the Goose Trailer!

Here it is - the brand new trailer for my Christmas erotic-romance, Good for the Goose, which will be released by Wicked Night's erotica line, After Dark, this Friday.

Good for the Goose is a spicy story of a woman, Natasha, who thought she was living her dream - she had worked up to a respected teaching position at a university, had a stable, successful husband, and a solid life... Until her husband runs off with one of his students, and she is left wondering what the point was of being good all those years. Enter Raphael, a graduate student in her department from Spain, and one of the hottest, sweetest heroes I have ever written. Passionate, bold and intrigued by Natasha... And ready, willing and eager to show her what more there can be to life. Natasha learns that sometimes it's very nice to be naughty.

A passionate May-December romance that encompasses the romance and joy of Christmas and the caliente sizzle of a sexual reawakening tale, Good for the Goose shows how what is good for the gander can be very good for Natasha!

This title will be available at Amazon and ARE, among other sellers, as well as on the Wicked Nights website. For more information, please see the Wicked Nights website or their current catalog. You can also find a small excerpt on my erotica website, Anne Holly's Dark Side.

More details will come here on the release day, this Friday, so please join me!

And have a Wicked little Christmas. ;)

PROMO: Good for the Goose

Watch this blog next week for the release of my new holiday erotic-romance short, Good for the Goose, coming from Wicked Nights After Dark on November 19!

With luck, I will be releasing the trailer soon.

Update on What I'm Up To...

Or should that be "To What I am Up?"

Anyway, here's the skinny on what I'm doing these days:

• My NaNo novel is going well, and has already passed the 25k hump. The chemistry is heating up between Seth and Libby, and I am enjoying the story... Needs a bit more action, but I think that's coming.
• Edits on my Christmas short, Un-Scrooged, is coming along nicely, and should soon be going onto the line-editing round. At this point, it looks like it will come out the week of Dec 10 from Decadent Publishing.
• I'm looking forward to my next release, the Christmas erotic romance Good for the Goose from Wicked Nights, on Nov 19!
• I will be making a big push on getting book trailers out for my two upcoming shorts this week, I promise!
• I am also up to my eyeballs in freelance articles, real life stuff and other nuisances, but those are much less interesting. :)

Announcing a New Contract!

Well, it's official, so I can now share with you that my new Christmas romance novella, Un-Scrooged, has been contracted to Decadent Publishing. I am not sure of the release date as of yet, and I don't have a cover yet, but I am excited!

Decadent is a relatively new company, but looks very promising, and have treated be very well so far - I have filled out info for my cover, etc, and have been in contact with their PR person and their blog mavin, so it seems like they will be keeping me very busy! Excellent!

Check out Decadent here!

ETA: This story was later renamed Unwrapping Scrooge.

In Honour of Hallowe'en...

Treat yourself to something a little bit paranormal...

Visit my paranormal and erotica website to learn more and take a small taste!

Waking Kara is available to buy through Amazon Kindle.

The State of Things

I've been thinking about my WIPs schedule... I think I have decided to put the Valentine's Short I wanted to do this week on hold.

A major reason is that my schedule is kind of tight (that short at 7-12k, then a free short for my website at 2-4k, along with some academic stuff I have to, plus all my "real life" stuff, etc).

But most of all, I am feeling kind of tired of writing - since mid-Sept, I have produced a short paranormal erotic (9k), a short holiday romance (12k) and a short Xmas erotic (12k) - one of which is released, one soon be released and the other currently under consideration... I have also finished one short magazine article, and a rough draft of an academic chapter.

I feel like maybe my squid is out of ink for now and I might want to take a couple weeks off.

I am not the type to admit defeat, but I think I might on this one, and just reschedule things a bit. Three shorts and a full length this one term, I don't want to chuck in a super-short and a V'Day short and get all stale and lose the fun of writing. Not to mention ruin the quality!

The only thing that makes me hesitate on setting the Valentines short aside is that I was hoping to submit it for an anthology, and the deadline is looming. However, perhaps I could just publish it as a single short somewhere around January if I have to take a miss on the anthology.

The 2-4k free short is not a big burden, so I will do that, and I do want/need to do the academic piece... but I ask myself, why take on the Valentine's Day short right now? Do I need it? Perhaps I have been prolific enough for the time being. I don't have to throw it away entirely, but maybe save it until after my full length is written in November (poss for NaNoWriMo).

So, I think I might put it off until December, after WriMo, during the editing phase. My schedule now is finishing the academic chapter and the free read in October, do the full-length in November, and the V'Day short in December while I edit my NaNo project. I think that seems a bit more doable.

All I know is, if I over-reach too far, the writing might go blah... then what is the point?

Thanks for listening to me think out loud, folks.

new upcoming release!

Good for the Goose (my short Xmas romantic erotica) is done and will be released by Wicked Nights on Nov 19, 2010!

(Watch for the trailer/cover, coming soon!)

A Little Holiday Treat

Head to my erotica website to get your first taste of the holiday erotic short I wrote this week, Good for the Goose.

Deck those halls! ;)

(Must be over 18 to enter.)

I'm on Amazon!

You can now find Waking Kara on Amazon!

(Still waiting on Barnes and Noble.)

Trailer for Waking Kara! NEW!

Now for Something Brand New...

Here's a little taste of something I wrote this week! (Unedited and raw, so please forgive me.)

So, get into the Christmas spirit in October, and enjoy a small taste of my holiday short, tentatively entitled Un-Scrooged:

Can a free spirited Canadian grad student in England loosen up a misanthropic writer, and bring him home for Christmas?

That early autumn day in late September seemed to start a chain reaction in which Kale and Molly were flung into each other's path by some mercurial fate that scoffed at their mutual desire to avoid one another. Despite his efficacy at staying out of her way the whole first month she lived at the house, Kale now had no luck whatsoever. At the local shops, in the yard, in the front hall... she seemed to be everywhere now, which was not in keeping with his plans.

When Kale was in the middle of a book, he preferred to isolate himself from all outside influences. Otherwise, he found strange impulses creeping into his writing, such as the sweet natured character with long dark hair and warm hazel eyes that kept sneaking into the periphery of his latest work in progress, who he had to admit was Molly in disguise.

Once, the pair even literally ran into each other at the mailboxes, when she came barging into the small space as he turned to stride out. Neither had noticed each other until their torsos had collided. Instinctively, he brought his glove-clad hands up to her fleece-covered arms to steady her, and she noticed again the attractive scent of sandalwood. He detected the slight tinge of cinnamon on her breath as she puffed in surprize, and for a moment all thought fled from his brain as he stared into wide, hazel eyes, fringed with impossibly dark lashes. He couldn't remember the last time his mind was completely blank while working on a book, but at that moment, he would have been hard pressed to recall his own name.

"Steady on," he murmured, realizing he should say something.

"Hi," she breathed, simply, and, almost reluctantly, made to move past him.

Her flatmate Colby, in their infrequent discussions of the other inmates of the building, had dismissed Kale McKinnon as "weird and old," but right then Molly saw him as nothing like old or weird. True, he had some eccentric qualities, but at that moment, his oddities were more intriguing than anything else. And no one who felt so firm and vital could be considered old. Her heartbeat, at least, rapped out a tattoo that told her she was in the presence of vibrant maleness, a feeling to which she was not normally prone.

"Hi again," he said, softly, taking unfamiliar pleasure in her pretty blush.

Molly stood aside and let him pass, and watched as he exited the building. If she were more like Colby, she thought, she would say he had a "great butt," and smiled impishly at the thought. But, no - she was just Molly, and she didn't have those kinds of thoughts about men she barely knew.

Even though it was true.

ETA: This story was later renamed Unwrapping Scrooge.

In Lieu of an Excerpt...

I'm still working away on my WIP deadlines, so I have nothing to show-n-tell at the moment. In the upcoming weeks, though, I do hope to show you some brand new stuff, as well as some snippets from my upcoming releases!

In the meantime, mosey on over to Ashlynn Monroe's site, and check out her new free read, Griffin!

And don't forget that Ashlynn's new novel, Wild Hearts is available for purchase this Tuesday!

~*~

ETA: I am so taken by this idea of a "free read" that I have decided to do one, myself... But what? I have no clue, yet, though an idea surrounding a pet is starting to form... I'll post it when I have it folks, so look forward to a 2-4k short "free read" soon... or soonish.

Anne Holly's Dark Side!

I'm pleased to announce the grand opening of my new erotica/paranormal site, Anne Holly's Dark Side, a place where I can show off some of my more adult content in genres other than sensual contemporary.

Go check it out, and see a short excerpt from my newest paranormal erotic short story, "Waking Kara", soon to be released through Wild Horse Press's Liquid Heat series!

(Must be over 18!)

This will not be replacing my main website, which will continue to carry news and information on my contemporary romance works, which are more sensual than full-blown-erotic.

Enjoy!

Two New WIPs Added

I know... I am nuts.

I just dove into my holiday story (which I was slacking on), and now I just added two new WIPs to the pot.

One, I am hoping to get into an anthology somewhere for Valentine's Day. I won't share the plot yet, and it has no title right now, but I have an inkling of what it will be about, and it will likely be M/F contemporary sensual, and I hope it will be around 7,000 words.

The second is to be a short erotic holiday story, around 5,000 words.

I'll let you know how they progress.

Excerpt Sundays: A Small Taste of "Waking"

Just for fun, I thought I would switch gears and post a small snippet from the paranormal erotic I wrote this week - largely unedited, but I like it.

The story involves a rigidly structured estate assessor who finds a bit more than she bargained for in the back of an old cupboard... Enjoy!

His hair was a crowning glory, long and wild, with pitch black curls tangled together, as if he had just come from a fight or a session of wild sex. Or as if he had just fallen from the sky.

He seemed very real. And she wanted him.

"Are you a demon?" Suddenly, the realization that she should probably be scared for her life occurred to her.

His sudden smile was nearly a sneer as he drew his lovely, plump lips up over even, white teeth. "Some might call me that, yes," he answered. "But I am older than that mythology, I believe."

"What do you call yourself?"

"Myself," he shrugged with disinterest, smoothing a palm over her blanket-clad hip. "Mortals are so obsessed with labels and designations," he sighed. "It would be amusing if it didn't make for such dull thinking."

She sighed as his hand slid to cup her buttocks.

"Some have called me Eros. Others, Lucifer," again he shrugged. "I am both of those things, and neither. I am what you want me to be. I am whatever is needed by the woman I serve."

Current Progress

So, my paranormal erotic is over the length I had planned on, but it is done in draft. I hope to have it proofed for a couple obliging test-readers by Sunday night, so if you've volunteered, expect it coming your way soon. I plan to spend at least a week away from it, so no rush.

I also now have a derailed 5 page synopsis and overview (with outline) of the holiday story, which, at 10-15K, should be written in draft in about 2 weeks. *cross fingers*

Then I have a few dull academic things to finish up.

Then it is back to the full length, diligently, in November (finished by New Year's Eve).

So, there's the skinny. *whew*