The HEA Cafe

Author Archive

I have to say that it was quite exciting to be doing a book signing. Mr Kate added to my nerves considerably by a) deciding to vacuum the lawn or something 15 minutes before we were supposed to be there and b)by telling me I’d got the wrong day just as we pulled off the freeway. I didn’t laugh. He was lucky to survive.

Barnes & Noble even had a big poster at the from of the store with my name and the cover of “Roping the Wind” on it! Apparently, she had to down pedal the “Simply Sexual” one to avoid complaints from Saturday shoppers with kids, and I totally understood that. Debra, the B&N community relations manager loves romance novels and thank god for people like her-she was thrilled to see me, got me water and ice and even had a pen ready in case I’d forgotten to bring one!

So here I am, looking pensive as shoppers mill around me. I was strategically placed between the cafe and the new arrivals tables so I felt a little like a fish in a bowl, or one of those Victorian ladies waiting patiently at the side of the dance floor while being ignored by all the men.

And yes, people really do ask strange questions. My favorite was, “Did you write this?” Um, yes, otherwise why would I be sitting here? Of course, I didn’t say that, I just smiled graciously and admitted it. I REALLY DID get asked where the bathroom was as well!!

Look! Real people in a line, for me! Okay, so I know some of them, but hey, they came out to support me and buy my books so I love them all.

Because of what I write, I expected a few oddballs as well, and yes, they turned up to say hi, every time Mr Kate wandered off to read Motor magazines. I ‘think’ they just wanted to see what an erotic romance writer looked like and I ‘think’ I probably disappointed them seeing as I wasn’t dressed in black leather or brandishing a whip!

So,it was fun and Mr Kate took loads of photos, I felt famous for at least 5 minutes and that was quite enough for me Back to the writing cave!

After I’d written four complete historical romances and failed to get any of them published, despite good contest results,  personal rejection letters and a great deal of encouragement from my then agent, I began to feel a bit frustrated. I knew that my writing was okay, but I couldn’t control the state of the market, which was cooling on historicals, the sub-genre I loved to write.
I wanted to be published so badly that my first instinct was to chase the market. I was certain I could write something with a vampire or a werewolf in it. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? Yes, it could. I wasn’t interested enough to make the story great and I also realized that by the time I wrote the book the market might have changed again. It also occurred to me that if it did get published I might get stuck writing books I wasn’t passionate about and that was not good. So should I stick to my guns, continue to write the books I was passionate about and wait around a few years for the market to come around again? That option didn’t exactly inspire me either.

Determined to find a way out of this dilemma, I tried to look at the problem from another angle. What did I do well in my historicals that could translate into another sub-genre? I asked my agent, my critique partners and anyone who had ever read a single sentence of my work. The answers I received where all pretty similar. The main one being that my books were HOT! That was a good start. So I looked around at the other sub-genres and contemplated where I might be able to use that ability. I discounted inspirational, mysteries and suspense, vampires and shapeshifters were also out and realized there were a few left I could try.

The next step was the big one. I gave myself permission to take a year to write some different sub-genres and see what happened. I decided to write a futuristic/science fiction novel, a contemporary hot novel aimed at Blaze and a historical erotic romance. I also gave myself permission to push myself out of my comfort zone, to forget my mother and that people might end up reading all this crazy stuff and just write it as it wanted to be written. I also figured that even if I didn’t sell any of these books they would all teach me something.

That was four years ago. I sold the short erotic historical to Ellora’s Cave. The contemporary erotic to Virgin ‘Cheek’ and the futuristic/science fiction thing is currently being shopped by my new agent. Okay, this might sound a bit too good to be true, but by challenging myself, looking for my strengths and manipulating them to find a different market, I ended up being able to write my scorching historicals for Aphrodisia after all.

But the first step on that path was taking a chance and trying to meld my abilities with the current market. The second was selling a 27,000 word erotic historical written in first person to Ellora’s Cave. That gave me a publishing credit and the rest followed on from there.

So, here’s my advice, for what it’s worth If you are frustrated and defeated by the current state of the romance market and don’t want to chase trends, look inward, find your writerly strengths and see what you can do with them. You might be surprised. I certainly was

I’m plagiarizing myself by copying this post from The Spiced Tea Party blog, but I’m really interested in this topic, so I thought I’d put it out there for all of you as well! I have 3,000 words left to write on my current wip and I’m already destined not to finish it today…motherly love overcame writerly objectives. I had to take my 5 yr old daughter to the ‘Build a Bear workshop’ because she finally gave up the chewed remains of her last binky…
My writing group met last night. We’ve been meeting for about 5 years now and know each other pretty well. We’re an odd group, I write erotic romance, then we have literary fiction, fantasy, and inspirational mystery/suspense. So far we’ve all gotten along well. Apart from that one occasion when I almost burst into tears and left because someone kept picking on my hero

Last night we discussed that age old chestnut, ‘write what you know’ -did it mean you had to write about your life and only the things you had experienced or did it mean something more profound? Perhaps it meant write about what you believe in? We all had to stop and think about that.

For our inspirational writer it was easier, because for her, the faith element is not only what she ‘knows’ but what she strives to achieve in her life. I can totally respect that. For our literary gal, again she writes thinly veiled memoir so she really writes what she knows in the more expected sense. The fantasy writer weighed in with the thought that she always explores the journeys of women who are weak and how they become strong.

As for me…well, obviously I don’t write what I do. I’m a happily married women thank you very much . I don’t need to seek the sexual thrills my characters crave and I still don’t know how the hell I ended up with quite this erotic an imagination! So this is my take on the ‘write what you know’ thing. I write about human relationships because I am totally fascinated by how people relate to each other, the grays of sexual identity, the way people speak, or don’t speak, the way they touch, or don’t touch, the intricate dance of a courtship or a sexual relationship. 

I’ve always admired authors who write fabulous dialogue-Dorothy Dunnett is one of those writers whom I love to read because her characters are so often at cross purposes and the flaws in their communications just exacerbate the problems. I want to write as well as that when I grow up and I certainly force my characters to talk to each other. The other thing I strive to achieve is honesty between my characters about what they crave or desire or need to be happy-and ultimately, that’s what we all want really, isn’t it? Someone to love us for ourselves. 

So am I writing what I know or simply expressing my view of the world of sexual intimacy? I’m not sure, I’m certainly not trying to preach a way of life or a belief that everyone is sexually blurred. Is it even necessary for a writer to know why she writes the way she does? I’m not sure I have the answer to that one either! How about any of you? 

Hi, I’m Kate Pearce and I’m late.  I could list a million reasons why I’m late but I’m sure I have better things to tell you about. I write erotic romance for Ellora’s Cave, Virgin ‘Cheek’ and Kensington Aphrodisia, so at the moment my writing schedule meanders between Regency rakes. interglalactic vikings and cowboys.
People often ask me how I keep everyone straight but it’s not that difficult. All the characters have such distinct personalities that I rarely mix them up. I have been known to transpose the odd name now and again, but generally they all stay in their own books. Sometimes I wish I was one of those organized writers who keep spreadsheets and character profiles as I have an annoying habit of getting half way through a book and forgetting a minor character’s name…then I have to go back and re-read which wastes time.  When I’m rich and famous I’m planning on employing an assistant whose job it is to take care of all these annoying details for me! (or perhaps bribing one of my teenage sons)
One of the interesting things about being a published author is that the journey for my characters doesn’t end under my bed or in the filing cabinet, sometimes it ends in a printed book. I’ve also found that books are like boomerangs. You constantly send them out… and they keep coming back.

Firstly, your pristine manuscript pages arrive covered in red ink, often smelling of smoke and potentially concealing a few coffee rings or cookie crumbs within their crumpled folds. These are called ‘copy edits’ and often make an author cry. And don’t think you can lose these pages…for a print publisher they are the only marked up copy of changes…if you lose them, someone will have to go through the whole lot again and I suspect you, the author, would not be very popular.

Then you get another pile of paper which looks like a book before someone has cut the pages out and stuck them together with a cover. This stage is called the ‘galleys’. And although the publisher ‘says’ you can make changes, its kind of implied that if you do too many, you might not be very popular. I also think they say this because usually at this point you, the author, have read the flipping manuscript about 80 times and, if you are anything like me, you hate loathe and despise it, wonder how on earth you ever wrote such drivel and contemplate changing your name and moving to Australia. But that might just be me…

Eventually there are also things called ARC’s , advanced reading copies, but I believe you have to be very fancy like Claire Delacroix to always get these. (Sometimes I get them, sometimes not). One thing I can tell you is that a lot of authors get very annoyed when ARC’s get sold on eBay before the book even comes out. Personally, I’m still at the stage where I go and check out everyone  on eBay who offers my book for sale because I’m still impressed that anyone bought it in the first place, but I’m sure that will change.

Finally a box appears on your doorstep and there, in all its glory, is your book. For me it’s always an amazing moment. the fact that something I made up in my head now has a physical form. It’s at this point that I always lick the cover…gross but true. Somehow tasting the book makes it real. And as for the ugly rumor that I also lick my proposals, this isn’t true-those I kiss before I put them in the envelope-no licking involved, I promise.

And the boomerang effect continues with the whole review cycle. In some ways the book has a whole life of its own after you write ‘the end’. And then, of course, while all this is going on, you still have to be writing another book and then another so that you end up juggling a whole series of processes. Isn’t writing fun?

I was hoping to have the cover of ‘Simply Sexual’ to show you this month but I haven’t received it yet, instead here is “Roping the Wind” which I love, especially as the people on the front actually look a lot like my characters!

It’s a good job I like editing so the boomerang effect doesn’t bother me too much!

Which part of the writing process do you love/hate the most?

See you next month!

Kate

“Roping the Wind” Virgin ‘Cheek’ UK Dec/US/Feb 08

“Simply Sexual” Kensington Aphrodisia Feb 08

Hi everyone! Here’s my shameless self-promotion for my upcoming Ellora’s Cave ebook, “Antonia’s Bargain” which is due out on January 10th. It’s Regency-set erotic romance. Here’s the blurb:

Since the suicide of his first wife, Lord Gideon Harcourt has avoided sexual encounters with women in favor of less emotionally draining liaisons with men. When he unmasks ‘Anthony’ Maxwell and finds he is, in fact, Antonia, he is still sexually intrigued enough to want to bed her.

A reluctant heiress, Antonia knows she has to marry but she intends to do it on her own terms–her wealth in return for a husband-free bed. Gideon offers to help her infiltrate the world of the ton dressed as a man so she can see her potential suitors in their natural habitat. In return, she agrees to allow him to teach her every trick in his sexual repertoire as long as he doesn’t take her virginity.

Her fear of marriage and pregnancy is a puzzling barrier that Gideon, despite his exceptional skills, finds difficult to penetrate. As they become more scandalously intimate, he has to decide whether to help Antonia face her fears or walk away from the only woman he believes he could ever love.

You can buy this book at: http://www.ellorascave.com