Which Cover Do You Like Better?

These are works in progress, so I know that the photoshopping is not perfect, but before the images are refined and the layers locked, I should like to know what is good, and what needs work.

I intend to put Insufficient Mating Material out as an e-book, and my own personal taste does not matter.
I need a look that will stand out and intrigue.

I'd like to give a shout out to Judy and Marianne of Goddessfish.com who are helping me, and also to Kim McDougall of Blazing Trailers, who has shared her expert opinions most generously.





Thanks for any constructive comments.

Rowena Cherry

Good twin, bad twin

I'm stuck.
It's guy trouble. 
Would you mind if I brainstorm a little?

Working my problem through in public might help clear my mind, though it hasn't worked in a .doc

I've put my heroine between a rock and a hard place before, in Mating Net. I like the idea of look-alike hunks as the personification of the rock (the solid, worthy twin) and the hard place (the bad, dangerous, sexually ready twin).

Now we come to a story that I will probably NOT be permitted to call "Family Fork"! (It is another chess term, but it sounds grossly unhygienic in these days of H1N1 when we're being urged not to share.)

Devoron and Deverill are identical twins, and while they may not be inseparable, they do most things together. In my first alien romance, Forced Mate, they were banished from Earth after they both simultaneously showed signs of being rut-raged over Djinni-vera. Before any harm was done, 'Rhett intervened, and with his characteristic, elegantly brutal efficiency, put their lights out.

In Insufficient Mating Material, Devoron begins acting a little bit strangely, mostly off stage.

In Knight's Fork, suspicions surface that Devoron has a mild but chronic case of the rut-rage, and his behavior is like a juvenile delinquent elephant in musth. Happily for my gentler reader, most of his misbehavior is off stage.

While Devoron is hurling insults and picking (and losing) sword fights, no one is watching Deverill, whom the reader would be pardoned for taking as the good twin. Thus, Deverill has the opportunity to be presented with a cure for the "rut-rage".

Devoron is otherwise occupied. Deverill has to be the one that gets the "cure". I do need a "cure". Under the rules of the rut-rage that I set up in Forced Mate, Devoron and Deverill both ought to be fixated on Djinni. Still. Even eight years after they identified her as their scent love.

Yet, surly Devoron is the one who appears to have the frustrated hots for an undiscovered scent love back on Earth. (He has been to Earth recently.)

It is possible for males to be permanently fixated on their scent love and ready to fight to the death for mating rights, yet aware that another female is in heat. I've established that. I've also hinted that there must be a cure, but what it is has not occurred to any POV character so far.

At the end of Knight's Fork both Devoron and Deverill could be in the vicinity of Earth. They're not both supposed to be there, one of them is supposed to be on the Shadow Asgaard, and the other is on the Nirvanah. One of them is saddled with an inconvenient assignment.

So, which twin is going to locate (presumably by her scent) the new heroine? The cured-of-Djinni twin? Or the twin-in-musth who smelled her first, but who shouldn't be cured-of-Djinni ?

Does the good twin abduct Demetra by force? Or does the bad twin?
Which presents the greater danger to the heroine?

Which twin (good one or bad one) ought to come roaring to the rescue like an avenging .... djinn, furious that his brother has abducted his scent love.

(The ambiguity with the masculine possessive pronoun was deliberate.)

Maybe they should both be bad?

By the way, this is envisaged as a LoveSpell.  It's not "Justine".

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Mating Net is now available as a Kindle (for $2 )

http://www.amazon.com/Mating-Net/dp/B002MQYO98/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253970411&sr=1-5

Pioneering use of social media?

What do you think of single purpose videos? I've made one to ask for votes in a social networking contest (where Twittering for votes is allowed). Does this do a good job? Does it make you want to support me with your vote?



Goddessfish.com did it for me, and it cost me $40

You've seen the title, cover, and blurb. That's all you're asked to vote on.

Thank you for voting here:
http://www.wakeupcelebrityauthor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=14:general-fiction&id=22:insufficient-mating-material


Post script.
While I was uploading on YouTube, I came across a fascinating video with a catchy rap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCyvw4w_yk&feature=email

Report piracy and you might win $1,000,000 (but only if it is movie, game, or music!)

1-800-388-PIR8
www.siia.net/piracy/report

A Crabwise approach to marketing sfr

I was intending to talk about membership of SFWA and SFF.net with particular reference to the Nebula and Norton awards.

However, the rules have just changed with effect for books released in 2009.

This passage in the new rules caught my attention: "The SFWA Board of Directors, at their discretion, may create additional awards in special categories, to be voted on by the Active members in good standing. These additional awards will not be Nebula Awards."

Wouldn't it be superb if the Active members in good standing decided that it was time for SFWA to create a category for sfr?


My default topic is how some authors are sidling up to a potential target audience without mentioning their books. Some authors report great success. I don't vouch for it.

On Facebook, you can play any of the games created by zynga. If I were to start PiratesRule again, I think I'd take the name of one of my characters. Instead of playing as "Bloody Nora!" which is an old English expletive and in the spirit of the game, I'd play as "god-Emperor Djohn-Kronos", for instance.

I still could do this if it seemed worth the time and effort to start another game. My fashionista Princess Martia-Djulia would be a natural player for "Fashion Wars" I assume.

On Facebook, you can set up "product" pages for your books, and "celebrity" pages for yourselves, and for about $15 a day, you can advertise your pages with an image and a factual statement such as: "Do you know about (your tba name) ?"


The above crafty comments would apply to any genre.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

PS
I'm thrilled to learn that Insufficient Material is a finalist in the Anne Bonney "Most Humorous" category.

A puzzler

"Are you a plotter or a pantser?"

If you are a published author, how many times have you been asked that? If you are a reader, do you care whether or not an author is methodical and well organized? If you are a writer who is seeking publication, do you try to change your ways if you see a pattern and all your favorite authors are proud plotters? (Or proud pantsers?)

Or... is the question really code for something else? Does the interviewer really want to know if you write plot-driven, or character-driven stories?

According (I think) to Orson Scott Card, there are four types of stories: event (or plot) focused; character centered; idea based; or about milieu.

No one has ever asked if I write Idea, or Milieu. Among speculative fiction writers, I'd think some of us (but not me) might be more interested in an idea, or in world-building. In my opinion, Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie) was a Milieu story.

I've digressed from the confines of being "plotter" or "pantser".

This year --I've been honored with a few interview requests-- I've seen a third option both asked, and discussed on writers' loops: that of puzzler.

Given that I'm asked the question, I like to give a thoughtful, unique, and interesting answer. Maybe I don't always succeed, but a monosyllabic response must miss the point of doing an interview, mustn't it?

Until yesterday, I often compared my own writing approach to solving a jigsaw puzzle in which the corners and outline were always in place first, but some of the pieces (including outside pieces) were identical in color and shape on at least two sides so I might not notice they started out in the wrong place until the work was almost completed.

Yesterday I attempted a chess analogy. It actually doesn't work as well as a jigsaw puzzle, unless I think of my editor --or someone else-- as an opponent in the process, which of course, I don't.

I write chess-titled Romances. I have done since 1993. It's ironic that other authors have chess covers, isn't it?

I write character-driven stories, usually centered on the hero. Plot... or a series of thrilling events... isn't my primary interest.

Comparing the beginning of a work to having a chess board before me is interesting (to me). Of course, my editor would never tolerate a cast of thirty-two: 16 good-guys and 16 baddies.

Well, I don't need the sidling Bishops, and I don't need a full complement of pawns on either side, either. Moreover, I can cut down on the Rooks (or castles) and if I think of them as the spaceships and palaces (or milieu, not characters), I'm almost down to a manageable cast.

You might (or might not!) be interested to know why I didn't have time to send Christmas cards last year. My editor needed me to write out a "Castle", an entire spaceship on which a climactic scene took place, and also two "Knights" from Knight's Fork.

She was right, of course.

Each character has its strengths, powers, and limitations. They can only move as far, and in the directions dictated by who/what they are, and what is in their way.

There are rules. Every move has consequences. There's a time limit. There are space constraints. Pawns can be transformed into more powerful pieces.

My fanciful little chess analogy ought to fail on account of the color contrast. In politics, not everyone acts as his party expects. However, I collect chess sets. I have a Cretan set, where Black is Gold and White is Silver. Once the men (chessmen) are rubbed a few times, it's hard to tell which side they're on.

With that happy thought, I'll wish you a safe and happy Labor Day.

Rowena

By the way, I heard this week that Insufficient Mating Material won the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival's Romance category.

Insufficient Mating Material

Plot, character, or something else?

Have you heard it said that all speculative romances, science fiction romances, or alien romances are either plot driven or character driven? Sometimes, I think there is, or should be, a third category: "sex-driven"!

However, if "sex-driven" were to be officially as important as plot and character, I'd also want to include action-driven, idea-driven, world- driven... and life (and literature) would get complicated. Some will say "action" is "plot".

I always start with the character in every sense of the word "character". Personality, morals, virtues, flaws. Everything that happens to my hero --and to my heroine-- happens because of a decision they made, because of who they are and "where they come from".

Does that mean that a character-driven book is like a snowball? Or a comet? Mine don't move that fast, and there are a lot of layers of accumulated dirt rolled up in it, if that is the case, not to mention the other debris, grit, and star road-kill.

Research is like the shark's fin in the surf. You don't need to see the body of it to know whether or not it's there. I love Research, and I do way too much of it, and I have trouble burying it, and sometimes it reveals insuperable difficulties. If my heroine is trapped with an immensely attractive and eligible hunk on a desert island, she might want to look and smell good. This could be a challenge.

Here's a glimpse into my mind.

Take unsightly body hair. It's a Romance. It's a Fantasy. (It's Insufficient Mating Material!) Does she have to have that problem? Can it be ignored? Yes.... but... well, that depends. Let's look into this, because it could be a rich source of comedy or conflict.

What do people do? There's threading. It's a bit like using tweezers, but done with fast moving twisted thread. Hence the name. I could thread my legs, but not my armpits. We can rule out solvents, creams, bleaches, chemical reactions. What is wax made of? Could one raid a wild beehive for the beeswax? Would it work? Would it be worth trying? Would mud do just as well? I think I heard that the Egyptians used mud. I also read somewhere that they used crocodile dung as a contraceptive sponge. (No! Not in a Romance, pause to roll on the floor at the thought of my editor's face.)

OK. Off to some beach to try the proverbial "razor" shell for myself. Maybe it would have been quicker, less painful, and altogether less scabby if I've visited snopes.

Are there people whom nature blessed with naturally smooth legs? Yes. OK. We will gloss over what is going on in her armpits, and bless her legs. Next...?

Broken jaws are quite a challenge. I talked to a lot of nay sayers who said I couldn't possibly write a Romantic hero with a broken jaw because of all the problems, and what it would do to his appearance (short term) and the dire problem if he were to break it a second time.

Cool. The hero has a strong motivation not to be a gentleman if the heroine has a penchant for slapping faces at the drop of a slur.

Wicked. The heroine is expecting a long haired, tanned, muscular, gorgeous hunk to swagger up the aisle on her royal shotgun wedding day. How will she react when some bald, starved, pale, weedy guy limps towards her? He looks like he's been starved and torturing into marrying her!

So, she refuses to marry him. Duh! That doesn't make them any less embarrassing and inconvenient. Royal "face" has been lost all round. So they have to be marooned somewhere until they go with the flow. Shall we give them all the mod cons? I think not. No buried cache of smugglers' rum. No fully loaded airplane full of supplies. Life is not a picnic!

Shoot them down in the sea. Wet her one and only dress. Make it shrink so she can't get out of it without help. Have it rain to keep her dress wet. Do like Mythbusters and the story of the shrinking jeans. Get in a cold bath in a tight dress, and discover the difficulties of undressing afterwards.

And then, there's the "Survivorman" stuff of day-to-day living... (If you have very good eyes, you can see that Survivorman, Les Stroud gave me the cover quote on Insufficient Mating Material). And that's not all by a long shot.

I haven't begun (in this particular blog) to get serious about the twin paradox, collapsing wormholes, unstable systems, scram jets, and governmental red tape.

Research can snowball, and I haven't even scratched the surface.

Rowena Cherry
Insufficient Mating Material

Alien Romance -- and a question of sub-genre

Do labels help or muddy the waters?
Do labels matter?

To some authors, labels, subgenres and categories matter very much, especially at this time of year with so many contests and polls taking place.

Should aliens, faeries, genie and dragonslayers (or dragon lovers) be split off from the demons, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters and other denizens of the paranormal?

Where should the psychics be? Did it make more sense when the genre was FFandP for everyone? Or, should we have newer, narrower labels.. for instance to keep the fairies out of the space ships? I'm not suggesting, just asking.

Labels don't fit my idea of what I write! Judging by the vigorous discussion taking place on the paranormalromance yahoo group --which I did not start-- a number of writers feel strongly that they don't fit in.

I thought it was interesting enough to blog about.

Linnea's zombies are alien, aren't they? Cool. Margaret's vampires are of alien origin. My aliens have extra senses, and they use the Tarot (and runes, and playing cards) and they think about sex a lot.

Some of us stretch our legs, metaphorically speaking, as we straddle genres.

Sometimes, within a series, different books veer over different imaginary lines of demarcation, at least, I think mine do.






With Insufficient Mating Material, the space ships aren't very important (IMHO) but they are there. The survival skills that Djetth (Jeth) and Princess Marsh need when they are shot down and marooned on a desert island are the same techniques that "Survivorman" Les Stroud might use. In fact, Survivorman was my consultant for the facts in the book... and he gave me the cover quote!


So, I'm quite contented for Insufficient Mating Material to be called almost anything. I'm even comfortable with "Fantasy" though the only "dragon" is a title, and the Djinncraft is supposed to be almost as explicable as any of the physics in Star Trek. It is a sexy book... but IMHO it's not Erotica because the hero and heroine (stuck on their desert island) are entirely monogamous once they get around to it, and there is a happy ending.

As long as a label seems helpful to the person recommending a book to someone else, I no longer fret about it. I'm not so cool when a critic denounces my book for being Erotica, when it isn't ... but my feelings are only slightly hurt with it being called Space Porn.


Best wishes

Rowena Cherry
Chess-inspired ("mating") titles. Gods from outer space. Sexy SFR. Poking fun, (pun intended). Shameless word-play.

"Racy, wildly entertaining futuristic romance,"~ Writers Write


LASR Award nomineehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
http://www.longandshortreviews.com/poll.htm


CAPA Award nominee

http://www.theromancestudio.com/capa.php


Mating Net in Trailer Awards
http://thenewcoveytrailerawards.blogspot.com


First Chapter Sampler (Susan Grant, Nina Bangs, Joy Nash, Rowena Cherry, Deborah Macgillivray, Jade Lee, Colby Hodge, Catherine Spangler, Kathleen Nance, Robin T Popp)

http://www.rowenacherry.com/downloads/FFP_Authors_Sampler.pdf

Monsters (and alien romance)

Good morning, alien romancers!

I'm wrestling with a monster list of revisions to be done this month on KNIGHT'S FORK which is the next love story in the god-Princes of Tigron series (informally dubbed by some, The "Mating" books).


Of Men and Monsters

One editorial request I did not receive was to make my villain more monstrous. In fact, I am to give him more scenes (because he is urbane, witty, funny) but simplify why he wants the heroine dead.

Writing monsters of the villainous kind is tricky. It has to be done, I suppose. Even though few bad guys see themselves as the villains in their own life stories, many wiser persons than I would tell you that the hero seems more heroic if the villain is evil.

Personally, I like shades of grey, and I enjoy an ambiguous, dark relationship with an attractive villain. I must be twisted. Am I the only one who saw the first Darth Vader breathing heavily and striding through the ruins of a rebel stronghold, and wondered what he'd be like in bed?

Of course, that was before I knew that everything below his waist had been chopped off. I suppose it is not a spoiler to say that.


I think I've mentioned in a previous post that my personal taste is for the generic Bond movie villain. That is, someone very powerful in the worldly sense, well groomed, well educated, fiendishly clever, exquisitely polite.

Sigh. They can't always be "exquisitely polite". In fact, a bit of bad language adds a certain "shock and awe" especially when it's obvious that the villain has deliberately chosen to offend both the reader and the hero.


Here be Dragons and other Monsters

Dragons, dinosaurs, trifids, architeuthis (which you can find by googling phonetically for "archetoothus", I've just discovered), The Kraken, Alien, the Blob and others are monsters because they are big and scary, and it's their nature to eat a conveniently slow moving food source (us).

Since I am a contrarian, I once amused myself by writing the story of Polyphemus's encounter with Ulysses (The Odyssey) from the Cyclops' point of view. Mostly, stories aren't told with excursions into the minds of Monsters.

For those interested, here are a few resources being discussed elsewhere on the net:


THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VAMPIRES, WEREWOLVES, AND OTHER MONSTERS, by Rosemary Ellen Guiley.


http://paranormalromance.org/Paraphernalia.htm
The new Paraphernalia feature, “If There Be Dragons” is now online featuring dragon themed romance.


http://marilynnbyerly.com

Marilynn Byerly will be teaching a course on worldbuilding for paranormal romance in
February for the RWA Outreach chapter. Topics include building a better monster and how to give your own a unique touch.


Charlee Boyett-Compo has a huge list of monsters at
http://www.windlegends.org/WritersResearchPages.html

Look under Creatures, Spirits, and Monsters. There is also an occult
dictionary, supernatural glossary, ghosts, dragons, and fairies.


Happy New Year!

Rowena Cherry

Chess-inspired ("mating") titles. Gods from outer space. Sexy SFR. Poking fun, (pun intended). Shameless word-play.


INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL
Award-Winning Finalist in the Fiction and Literature: Romance category of the National Best Books 2007 Awards

Winner of the Spring N.O.R. Awards, Best Fantasy/Sci-Fi Romance:
Second Place winner, Fall N.O.R. Awards

CAPA Award nominee
LASR Award nominee

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday.htm


http://www.rowenacherry.com/downloads/FFP_Authors_Sampler.pdf

A different view of flowers

alien romance appeal to me because I love to take an anarchic view of human romantic traditions... as do many of the other authors on this blog.

Have we talked about Flowers?
Why do Anglo-American males give cut flowers (and chocolates) to females?

For us, flowers are an all-purpose "I'm sorry", "I want to have sex with you", "I love you", "I remembered your special day" token.

But what happens if you are on a space ship, and the only flowers come from the farm, and the extravagant giving of them means that the food crop has been depleted? Is the gorgeous alien female going to be flattered or appalled?

Here's an excerpt from KNIGHT'S FORK (the next in the series after FORCED MATE and INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL)

In the thoroughly romantic tradition of abduction romances, the hero (Rhett) has imprisoned the heroine in his bedroom while furious with her .... usually either for rejecting his advances or else for making advances when it is not her place to be sexually aggressive.

Now, after thinking things through, he has returned to make peace (and sometimes babies). As usual, they begin by talking at cross purposes. She apologizes for whatever is uppermost on her mind, he expresses condolences for whatever he thinks is her problem.



“I should be more careful,” ’Rhett’s harsh whisper interrupted her guilty pleasure.
Electra looked up and her irrational heart leapt to welcome him.

He’d come back!

Glad, nervous, guilt-stricken and afraid all at once, she stared across the length of the suite at him. One of his hands was bent behind his back. He glared as if he’d never seen her before. A peculiar odor had wafted into the suite with him. His ambiguously reddish aura warned of rampant sensuality. Probably. One could rule out any foolish notion of ’Rhett being violently in love. The only other strong possibility was that he was in a state of noble indignation.

No doubt he was furious to find her prying into the Empress Helispeta’s papers.
Caught spying, there were few diplomatic options.

Wait and see, and if challenged say

Oh, is this private? I just picked it up

. Or, denial

I was not doing whatever you thought you saw me doing.

Or, apologize right away.

“I’m sorry…” she began.

“So am I!” he said.

With an expression of shame, he brought his hidden hand into sight and she saw the damage.

He held a fistful of broken-off legume flowers. They were as delicate, as colorful, and as inedible as insect wings. Impulsively, she moved toward him.

“Oh, what a shame! What happened?” she blurted out, before it occurred to her that perhaps in some rage he’d deliberately destroyed her future rations. Had the growing tips not been severed from the body of the plants, in time there would have been enough temper-suppressing legume fruits to provide three healthy side-dishes at least.

“We should put them in water,” he said remorsefully.

Electra shook her head. “It’s too late. They can’t recover. They’re flowering. They won’t have the energy to take root. But never mind. I should take liquids,” she said reluctantly. “If I remain in a state of near fasting, I shall be less…” she hesitated, “…inconvenient.”

He gave her an enigmatic half smile.

“How, Your Majesty, could you possibly be less inconvenient?” His husky voice deepened. He sounded almost playful if not sexually playful. She marveled at his self control, so far.

When had he started calling her “Your Majesty”? Perhaps it was only her imagination, but it seemed that he’d addressed her –correctly—as “Princess,” which was the higher title, until he’d discovered that she was in his power and sexually available to him.
Would he call her “Your Majesty” while he held her face between his beautifully symmetrical hands and (mildly sexual content...censored)

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I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that my newsletter is up on my website, also that I am part of a Halloween scavenger hunt contest

I'm also "doing" mermaids and manatees on Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio from 9pm to 11pm on November the first in honor of the Defenders of Wildlife Manatee Awareness Month.

On Oct 31st, I'll be interviewing Ghost Hunter Jeff Dwyer, and also C. L. Shore
Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio from 9pm to 11pm
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Happy Halloween, everyone!

Romances With Wolves (werewolves)

Alien romance it isn't, strictly speaking, although Liddy Midnight's ROGUES (co-authored with Cricket Starr) is an alien romance and a futuristic, if not a sfr. (I love it when three genres successfully merge in one great read!)

Tonight, Sunday 14th October, from 9pm Eastern until 11pm, Cathy Clamp, Liddy Midnight, Joy Nash, Sephera Giron, and Conrad V Suhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifcatre will be chatting with Rowena Cherry about werewolf romance.

I'd love any extra suggestions from the alien romance crowd for topics to slip into the internet radio discussion tonight. Absolutely, I ought to be polishing Knight's Fork (the follow-up to Forced Mate and Insufficient Mating Material) but this is the start of Wolf Awareness Week.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry