Two Book Related Announcements!

First of all, I’m happy to announce that today’s Ravenous Romance release is I KISSED A GIRL, Volume II.  My alter ego Inara LaVey’s short story Queen of Swords is included, along with a story by Inara’s honey Kilt Kilpatrick.  In the words of our wonderful editor Regina Perry:  

 I Kissed a Girl, Volume II: A Virgin Lesbian Anthology

 

Our readers asked for it, and now I’m pleased to present Volume II of first-time lesbian encounters inspired by Katy Perry’s hit song. Seven returning authors continue to arouse, plus six new authors will not disappoint.

This diverse collection travels the globe and the ages. No two settings or circumstances are alike, proving that women from every walk of life and culture are curious and eager to explore their full sexuality. You will be titillated, tantalized and enamored as you journey to Australia, where two long-time friends discover more than friendship; fly to Hawaii, for a language lesson interrupted; stop in Costa Rica, for a massage in a tree house; travel north to Alaska, where strangers connect; across Canada, to discover how co-workers release tension; over the Atlantic to the United Kingdom, where a concert is more than guitars strumming; close your eyes to wander into a mythical kingdom, where women take charge; voyage to historical Italy, to discover things are not always what they seem; then jet back to the heat of Miami, and be entranced by a goddess; before exploring the rest of the USA to discover: two mothers considering new interests as toddlers sleep; a boyfriend’s ex, who has more to offer than contention; what goes on behind the scenes might be more engrossing than the theatre; and a ghost, full of surprises in a mountain inn.

Join me as we trot the globe and enjoy out-of-this-world experiences. Please come.

 My second announcement is the release of the book trailer for What Women Really Want in Bed,co-written by myself and Cynthia Gentry.

Check it out here!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivq-vAW4YNQ

 Thank you, Bay Area Pictures, for a stellar job!

 

Cynthia and Dana on Playboy Radio!

That’s right, tomorrow (Monday, May 17th) at 1pm PST, we will be talking about our newly released book WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT IN BED!  Got questions?  Call in!

Feel free to tell your friends and fans to call in to the show
1 (877) 205.9796

Show can be heard by SIRIUS and XM radio subscribers.
Playboy Radio SIRIUS and XM 99, between the hours of
11am and 3pm PST.

Visit www.playboyradio.com <http://www.playboyradio.com/> for more information.

Definitely under the category of WTF?!!!!

Received via email today:

 

Dear Cynthia & Dana,
Greetings from Religious Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Living Word
Publishing Ministry here in Nigeria . A member of the Christan books
sellers association of Nigeria ,(cban).We are highly committed to
printing and distributing of Christian and Motivational books in
Nigeria and some West African Countries.

After going through your web address, we came across your books with
great potentials and we wish to inform you that we are interested in
the books and therefore, officially solicit for your permission to
reprint and distribute in Nigeria . However, let us know your
condition[s] attach if any.
The books

1,What Men Really Want In Bed by Cynthia W. Gentry

2,What Women Really Want in Bed by Cynthia W. Gentry

Thanks for your anticipated cooperation. Expecting to here from you soon.

Yours faithfully,

Andrew Osunde
CEO.

Contact us at
Religious Broadcasting Inc.,
10 owseni street off mission Road,
Benin City , Edo State , Nigeria

 

Ahhhh…

I just finished up with my part of the rewrites for WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT IN BED, co-written with my dear friend and amazing writer Cynthia Gentry. I thought these rewrites were going to take much longer than they did…but the process wasn’t too bad at all.  I’ve also read Cindi’s rewrites so far and have to say they are fantastic.  But then, I expect no less from my talented pal.  I don’t think I’ve read anything by her, fiction or non-fiction, that isn’t engrossing and at a very professional level.  Plus she’s a wine lover too, so what’s not to like?

I also have finished my posts for Make Mine Mystery (up tomorrow, which is Sunday), Fatal Foodies (up Monday, which is the day after tomorrow), and The Book Wenches (up April 3rd, which is next Friday).   I’m ahead of the game instead of scrambling to get something up three hours after I should have posted.   It’s a good feeling…and an increasingly rare one these days.

Next up on my plate is assembling the posts for the Ravenous Romance Dirty Dozen Blog Book Tour, 14 stops of erotic romantic fun starting mid-April and wrapping up on May 2nd.  Deets to follow as I get this puppy scheduled!  I’m about halfway there and now I have an extra day (tomorrow) to make some headway!  Wheee!!!!

I also have a new blog to add to the list – this is the Ravenous Romance author blog.  Not the one on the RR website, but a new one here.

Aside from the writing, you ask?  Well, it was gorgeous here in San Francisco this morning, so I went for a two hour walk on the beach.  I wore a sundress and got color on my arms and shoulders, collected some prime pieces of beach glass, and then enjoyed the sight of the mist rolling back in to semi-shroud the shore and Outer Sunset District.  It’s sunny again now, but I’m sure the fog will be back.  I love this weather.

Now I’m going to have a glass of Brutocao 2005 Reserve D’aregenta Pinot Noir, watch Tom Cruise get sucked into the anus of an alien warship (War of the Worlds, if you must ask) and work on CHAMPAGNE, my next book for Ravenous Romance.  I feel…relaxed.  I like the feeling and hope I can keep it around for a while.

A Brief Respite

As you all know (‘all’ being you kind people who follow my adventures via my blog posts), I have been working on a non-fiction book, What Women Really Want in Bed, along with fellow author and childhood friend Cynthia Gentry.

The draft is due the end of President’s Day Weeked, so when I’m not at my day job, I’m working on my chapters for this book.  Okay, I took last night off ’cause it was my birthday and there was champagne to drink, friends to hang out with (they threw me a surprise party!) and presents to open (I’m up to date on The Walking Dead graphic novels!). But tonight it’s back to it.

I discovered this weekend that good zombie movies (as opposed to ones like Zombie Night or The Dead Live, which are so bad, they have their own drinking games now) are the perfect background for working on this project.  I’ve seen them all, so they don’t distract me too much and I can focus on the work.  However, they also provide a backdrop that prevents me from getting glazed or eye-strain from staring at quotes and my computer screen hours at a time.  I know, I know…I’m weird.  But hey, it works!

Tonight, however, instead of zombie movies, I turned on the TV and found Zorro, The Gay Blade on the Fox Movie Channel.  Truly George Hamilton’s finest hour…well, hour and a half or however long it runs.  “Remember, my people…there is no crime in being poor…only in dressing poorly!”

This movie cheers me up no matter how depressed I might be…perks me up when tired…and makes me giggle every time Zorro’s FAbulous brother Bunny shows up in one of his brightly colored Zorro outfits with matching fringe on his gold hat.

Okay…back to work!

Author Blog for Ravenous Romance Now Up!

Okay, I’m excited.  Just got my new Inara LaVey author blog page at Ravenous Romance and wrote my first post.  Actually I wrote it twice – my first one, a longer, funnier and infinitely more thought out post, died when the site timed out.  No composing online!  BAD Dana! 

Anyway, this gives me yet another blog to post for in addition to Make Mine Mystery, Fatal Foodies and my own author website blog.  So I’m gonna be a very busy writer.  I’ve got the deadline for my half of What Women Really Want in Bed (co-written with the lovely and talented Cynthia Gentry, who also has a great story up on Ravenous called Just Friends) coming up on President’s Day, so I’ll be running home from work every day and hitting the laptop.  Which is better than hitting the sauce, I suppose! 

Rather than being stressed about this, I’m revved up and excited.  Which is a very nice change from last year’s ‘oh my god, oh my god, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die!’ mentality.  2009 is going to be a great year for writing, even if it’s just satisfaction with my own productivity and creative output.  But hell, let’s go for some nice royalty checks too. 🙂

So please go over to Ravenous, check out my new author page blog and leave comments there! 

Whew!

Wednesday night I sent off three more ideas (short paragraphs on each) to an online publishing company I’ve currently got a four book contract with. And yes, I know that’s a badly constructed sentence. It’s Friday, it’s been a long week. I’m only human, people! This was the same night I took a break from doing anything I didn’t want to do and wallowed in old Dark Shadows movies. I didn’t feel like working on my book, but it was easy enough to scribble (is there a comparable word for ‘scribble’ when one is typing?) down some ideas, two of them based of off stuff I’d started writing years ago to stave off boredom at work (and oh, do I miss having a job that left enough down time for boredom to set in…), the other something that started percolating when I drove past the Madonna Inn on the drive back from Los Angeles.

For all my caterwauling about outlines and synopsises, I’m finding it easier to toss ideas down on paper (or computer screen). It took me a half hour tops to do these three paragraphs and about a minute to dash off an email to the two editors at Ravenous (two lovely women who I had the pleasure of meeting when they were out for the RWA Cence a couple weeks ago). I went to bed feeling pleased with myself – I’d catered to my inner child (I WON’T work tonight! I want an Oompa Loompa NOW, Daddy!) and satisfied my inner task master (I wanna see RESULTS, people!). Yay, me!

So today I checked my email when I got to work and there it was: an email from the editors saying they loved all three ideas and when could I deliver the finished books?

GAH!!!!

In that moment I realized I now had six 200 page novels to write, not to mention my co-writing project (What Women Really Want in Bed) with the lovely Cynthia Gentry (more on my history with Cynthia another post!) due February 1st (and if any ladies out there would like to take our survey, please let me know!). I had a mild freakout, but then realized once February 1st is past, I have a very reasonable writing schedule. Well, not VERY reasonable (three months per book), but definitely workable. Champagne is the most difficult to write for me because it’s in a genre I’ve never attempted beyond the original short story and that was written as a gift. So my initial GAH!!!! subsided to a workable *gulp!*

I’m actually really excited about this. I still have two other projects (including the sequel to Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon) I want to work on and a full time job. But I also have a creative fire lit inside me that I haven’t had in years. I think about writing all the time (when I’m not thinking about food, sex or exercise). Little sparks of ideas keep igniting…and I keep saying to myself ‘wow, that would make a GREAT book..’ And then I remind myself I have to finish the ones I’ve contracted for already. And THEN I scribble the ideas down anyway.

Yes, there will be lots of sex in the short novels. But no more than you’d find in a Laurel Hamilton Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel..actually, probably less since she’s been writing sex scenes that go on for THREE CHAPTERS, leaving those of us who love the first half dozen books in the series to ask ‘where’s the action, Laurel? More butt kicking, less butt…er…never mind.’ I probably won’t have my mom read most of these. But she knows I’m writing them and I like to think she’s proud of me for getting the work and has enough faith in my writing ability to know the finished products will be well written. Right, Mom?

Er…Mom?

I’ll get back to you on that.