Eternal Obsession release is tomorrow! And Curse of the Marhime is available in print this month!!!

I am very excited about my newest release tomorrow, Friday, December 12th, Eternal Obsession which is my debut erotic story at The Wild Rose Press' Wilder side.

Also, Curse of the Marhime is available in print this month!

And more exciting news! It's party time! Catherine Bybee has invited me over to her blog for a visit. Please drop by and check us out at http://catherinebybee.blogspot.com/. I will give away a free download of Eternal Obsession to one lucky person who drops in and comments on Catherine's blog during my visit. I will draw the winner on Sunday night.

Blurb:

Life is precious or so we are told. But what of love? How can one distinguish between immortal love and mortal life? Tia must discover which is more important, for her lover walks the night and has given her a choice only she can make. Will she consent to be 'turned' or will she watch her love and life walk away forever?

Andres maddened a witch long ago when he refused to return her attraction. He is now doomed to wander the night for all eternity, feeding upon the elixir of life and forever alone, that is until he finds Tia, but he will not sway his love's decision. She must consent to be his of her own accord or he will walk forever out of her life.

Is love and lust strong enough to bind them for all time or is eternal obsession all they will ever share?

Look forward to seeing you over at Catherine's blog! Don't forget that if you post a comment you are eligible to win a free download of Eternal Obsession.

Dayana~

Eternal Obsession set to release December 12, 2008

Eternal Obsession my first Scarlet Rose release at The Wild Rose Press is set to release on December 12th! I am excited to say the least. I want to thank Diana Carlile, SE and my editor at Scarlet, for making the edit process a fun and wonderful learning experience. She really knows her stuff. Being my first erotic release, I was nervous about the process. No worries there. She helped me to make this story the best it could be.

Life is precious or so we are told. But what of love? How can one distinguish between immortal love and mortal life?

Tia must discover which is more important, for her lover walks the night and has given her a choice only she can make. Will she agree to be 'turned' or will she watch her love and life walk away forever?

Cursed by a witch long ago, Andres is doomed to wander the night for all eternity, feeding upon the elixir of life and forever alone. Until he finds Tia. But he will not sway his love's decision. She must consent to be his of her own accord, or he will walk forever out of her life.

Is love and lust strong enough to bind them for all time or is eternal obsession all they will ever share?

D~

Please Welcome today's guest, Erotic Author, Cari Quinn!

To Be or Not To Be...Published

Thanks so much, Dayana, for allowing me to blog today. It's been a great month of posts so far and October still has two weeks left!

Most authors come to another author's blog to talk about their latest release, but I don't have a release yet. I'm still waiting for "The Call" or "The Email" or however that special moment should arrive. Not only that, I can't claim a whole slew of rejections to prove how hard I'm working to change that fact because I've yet to submit anywhere. That's right - two and a half years since I started "writing seriously" and I still haven't swallowed my nerve enough to submit.

I've entered two contests, though: the romance industry's biggie for the unpublished masses, the Golden Heart, and the Virginia Romance Writers' Fool For Love contest, which I won in the Short Contemporary category with my manuscript, Virgin Territory. Winning my first (and only) chapter contest was a terrific experience in a lot of ways. For not much money, I got two detailed critiques from published authors, then a third when my manuscript ended up needing a discrepancy judge because of the wide variance between my scores. I got some positive feedback, and some not so positive. But it taught me something any writer who has battled in the trenches knows. Writing ain't for the faint of heart. It's just not. If you can't stand the idea of your "baby" being dissected by strangers, it's going to hit you pretty hard to know not everyone will get your jokes, or think your hero's as wonderful as you know he is. It hit me hard after I got the judges' scores back. I even stopped writing for a few days. But I started again - hey, nothing can keep me from writing too long, because it's in my blood - and I'm still going.

Actually, I think that contest was the perfect microcosm of a book's reception by the public. Sometimes people get your voice and your characters. Your book resonates with them and they eagerly anticipate your next release. Someone else can read the same book and have an entirely different response. And that's okay. I heard a piece of advice once that a writer wants to have a voice that incites great love and yes, maybe even strong dislike, because that voice means you're different and being different is what will get you sold.

That's MY theory, anyhoo, and I'm sticking to it.

I'm still learning. Still struggling. Still enjoying writing the kind of stories I like to read. Still waiting for that moment when my Call or Email comes, so that I can start fretting about a whole new set of problems: contracts, actual deadlines, pleasing my editor, thrilling my fans...

Having fans. Whew. There's a heady thought.

Next week, I'll be submitting my baby to my dream publisher. Okay, one of my babies to one of my dream publishers (I have a lot of dreams!) But regardless of what happens, I'll have joined the ranks of those fearless enough to put their work out there, and I'm proud of that. I just started a new blog-cariquinn.blogspot-where I'll be posting book reviews and chronicling my journey to publication. Hope you'll stop by to say hi. I love to meet fellow writers and readers.

Before I go, I want to give a shout out to someone else who won a contest recently: The Wild Rose Press's bestselling author of the Scarlet rosette Seduced In Seoul, Helen Hardt. She took first place in the Colorado Romance Writers' Heart of the Rockies contest in the erotic category and second AND third place in the short contemporary category. Congratulations, Helen! She'll be blogging here on Monday, October 20th.

Thanks again for having me, Dayana. It's been a blast! And thank you to YOU for reading.

Cari Quinn
http://cariquinn.blogspot.com/

I'm on a roll this week:)

The muse seems to be with me this week. This is a good thing because I am a writer who has to be inspired to write. I have to be in the mood. I cannot in any way, shape, or form write on demand. It just doesn't happen.

I so admire writers who can put themselves on a goal schedule and write daily. That has never worked for me. Believe me I have tried. But that's how it is and I've accepted it. When an idea hits and the muse visits, I drop everything and go with it. And it has certainly paid off this week!

I dusted off a short vampire piece I'd done for a contest back in 2003 which did win and was published in a ezine back then thinking I'd use it for a free read submission as a precursor to my new release coming up in September, The Curse of the Marhime, at The Wild Rose Press. Thought it a good idea to further get my name visible.

After taking a careful look at the story, I thought I'd expand on it a bit and spice it up as well. I did, and I sent it in but it seemed I'd overheated it for the Black Rose line requirements which is the line that bought my novel. Okay, either I toned it down or I submit it to TWRP Scarlet line.

Hmmm...

Yep, I decided to submit it to Scarlet. The SE liked it and said she definitely would want it for the line but she wanted me to add at least another thousand words and some more heat. Since I subbed it as a possible free read, I had one question. Did she want it for a free read or a bona fide submission? She stated definitely a regular submission. Okay. I can do that. And I did. Added not a mere one thousand words, but over twenty three hundred words and a lot more heat. I resubmitted the piece and await the editor's thoughts.

Now I'd also dusted off another piece several months ago that I'd written for a contest and actually made second round with it but never got any further. This one I'd thought I would expand on as well but for a regular submission. The story was a very short piece and was one of those contests that you were given a specific line you had to use and write the story around it. It turned into a shape shifter piece when I was done so I thought hey why not give it more middle?

I began to revise the story some time ago but kept dropping it to the side. Just couldn't get the muse going and wasn't getting any good direction. I'd write a little then set it aside, and I'd pick it up once again only to set it aside. Well this has gone on for several weeks. But all of a sudden I'm inspired. I finished the vampire story so now I'm motivated to finish this one. I'd expanded the piece from maybe 1000 words to about 5000 words over the last several weeks but for some reason, today, I had a good flow going. Sat down with the story and added almost 4000 more words and finally finished it!

Yay!

I typed up a nice little pitch letter with a short synopsis and submitted it as well for consideration at TWRP, Scarlet line. We'll see.

Overall, I am very excited because from nothing came two submittable stories. Do you think maybe I should dust off one of those sequel novels now and honker down?

Hmmm...

Might be a good plan.

Wish me luck. Let's see if I can sell these stories now that I have finally finished them.

D~

My Erotic Adventure!

Wow! What an interesting day I have had. As I mentioned this morning I had a date today with WEAM, the World Erotic Art Museum located in the South Beach art deco district in Miami, FL.
Curiosity urged me to attend this field trip and boy, am I glad I went! It turned out to be a wonderfully educational surprise. Owner Naomi Wilzig is fascinating. She began her collection of erotic treasures and antiques about 18 years ago and now has 12,000 square feet of erotic art, history, and collectables. The place is totally amazing! There is nothing pornographic about this museum. Miss Naomi has traveled the world and collected pieces of sensual, sexual history from every corner and every century. Her tagline is "The Art of Love-Love in Art."

The collection includes: Biblical, mythological, antiquities, oriental, ethnographic, European, Victorian, Nouveau/Deco, saloon, pin-up. Folk, surrealism, gay, interracial, fetish, and contemporary.

Believe me when I tell you, I've never seen so many ways to depict the sensual side of human nature. I saw many truly beautiful pieces of art, true treasures. I saw things I had no idea in my wildest dreams that people do or fantasize about doing, but the truth is whether you participate or not in any or all of the depicted sexual acts, every part of this collection is interesting, phenominal, and displayed with an eye for detail.

Naomi heads the tour with tidbits of information about every room, every genre, every piece of her precious collection and the history involved. This is a must see! Anyone who writes sensual or erotic love scenes/stories would benefit from a visit to this world renown museum.

My chapter group, The Florida Romance Writers, Inc., sponsored this event. We enjoyed a wonderful tour then had an open panel with several of our pubbed authors who talked about writing everything from sweet romance to erotica. All in all, the day was a clear hit. I'd like give big kudos to the panel and a huge standing ovation to Miss Naomi. You have truly outdone yourself! Thank you for having us!

For more information about WEAM please visit the below website:
www.weam.com

An interesting if not unique field trip...

Good morning!

I'm off on a field trip of epic proportions today. We, at the Florida Romance Writers, Inc., South Florida Chapter of the National Romance Writers Association, are having an interesting event/meeting this morning. We are off to South Beach for a tour of--are you ready?--an erotica museum! This is going to be fun.

We will tour the museum, have a panel discuss on the art of the writing of love scenes from sweet to sensual to all out erotica, a book sale, and take lunch on South Beach in Miami. Doesn't get any better than that:) I will be back later with all the unsensored, graphic details to share, I promise!

Well, I'm off to get myself ready. Talk soon!

Dayana