Writing Sexytimes and Other Important Pursuits

3_17 2This was from a few weeks ago – the full moon setting into a sunrise-pinkened bank of clouds. So beautiful.

Just a  reminder that my online workshop, Writing Sexytimes in Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Stories, will start on Monday, April 7! If you missed the description earlier, this is it:

Sex is a fundamental human experience and arguably the most powerful. The intimacy of sexual interaction can elevate the tension, emotion and visceral impact of most any story. But how do sex scenes best function in the speculative fiction genres?

This class will cover the basic of adding vivid, sensual and heart-pounding sexytimes to any story. In particular, students will explore examples of sex scenes that enhance the world-building and fantastic elements of any speculative fiction tale. Finally, writers will come away with tools for using sexytimes to enhance and build unique excitement in their worlds. Students will be able to submit short scenes to the instructor or the group for feedback

I’ve had a few questions from various people,, so I wanted to put some answers here, in case others were wondering. No, you don’t have to be an FFP or even an RWA member to take the class. Everyone is welcome. You need access to email and that’s about it. If you’re reading this, you probably have that part handled. 🙂

Also, you do not have to be very far in your writing career. I’m going to try to set this up to work for writers at all levels. We’ll spend a fair amount of time studying what others have done in the genre, so we’ll approach quite a bit from the reading perspective, too. If you’re not ready to share your work, that’s just fine! There will be exercises, but no grades. :mrgreen: So if you want to simply lurk, that’s cool. You can always work on exercises, etc., whenever you’re ready to.

You can register via this link.

I’m very excited to see how this works! It should be big fun. I have other workshops that I’ve put together, listed here. I’ll be doing the Walking that Consent Line Workshop in June and I just committed to doing the Sexual Tension – Getting Away from Wham, Bam, Thank you, Ma’am and Sex as a Tool for Character Transformation in 2015. 

Also, after some conversation on Twitter yesterday, I’m thinking of adding one on managing writing time. Let me know if you think you’d be interested in that.

 Happy Friday everyone!

~dances around with Rebecca Black hair~

Why Corporations Aren’t Good at Social Media

elephant butteA few weeks ago (time flies!), David and I drove to Tucson for my mom’s birthday. On the way back, we stopped at Elephant Butte Lake for a couple of nights. It’s a huge, man-made reservoir on the Rio Grande River in southern New Mexico. The landscape is often stark and desolate – and also full of amazing color and unearthly views.

We haven’t been doing much in the way of vacation lately – particularly time that’s not connected to work of some sort, like conventions – so this was a peaceful stop to make.  The inn we stayed at was a simple place and we ate mainly at the restaurant there. We spent some time gazing at the view and talking. This picture brings that feeling back for me.

So, many of you know I have a day job. The company I work for had about 150 employees when I started, lo these 17 years ago, and has now cracked 500. We’ve also gone to a shared technology system, with a newsfeed we’re all encouraged to post notices, too. Our internal version of social media. I’ve been trying to overcome my baseline grumpiness about the changes and become more active with this shared site.

Because I work from home (euphemistically referred to as a “satellite office”), I decided to post my cover for THE MARK OF THE TALA. After all, if I worked in one of the offices, I would have dragged my ARC in and passed it around like a newborn baby. Also, since this book is not erotica, I figured it was safe to share.

I didn’t want to take up a lot of the feed with information about my book though, so I just posted the cover and a note saying people could look on my website if they wanted to see more.

WELL.

Last night my supervisor emails me and lets me know that they took the post down. There’s no fall-out for me and the powers that be figure I showed only a “rare lack of judgment.” See, my website contains offensive material. Or, rather, provides access to it, which is against our Information Resource Policy.

(Doesn’t the Entire Internet provide this access???)

So, thus my wrist was slapped. Nobody is mad at me, but I feel oddly chagrined nonetheless. It’s been some time since I had any shadow of feeling that what I write is somehow unsavory. Yet, there it is. 

(Amusingly, I linked to my website instead of oh, say, Amazon because it seemed wrong to post anything reminiscent of a buy link. I suspect that would have passed muster, even though Amazon ALSO provides access to all those selfsame offensive materials as my website does.)

It’s interesting to me, however, in a broader perspective, to watch companies like mine try to cultivate the opportunities offered by social media while simultaneously attempting to enforce policies that control it. Social media is social, not corporate. It’s about people interacting, not soulless, sexless workers. What my company is trying to accomplish isn’t *really* about social media at all, but something dressed up to look like it. Kind of an Office Space-style version of Hawaiian Shirt Day, where we’re encouraged to relax – but not too much.

At any rate, consider me duly chastened. And more unwilling than before to post to the company newsfeed.

Fortunately, no one expects me to participate in Hawaiian Shirt Day.

Nestpitch!

Drafy Nest Pich Logo last stageThe submission window for NestPitch NOW OPEN, and will remain open for 24 hours 12-noon 1st April to 11.59am 2nd April (USA EST) There’s no cut off number. Everyone who submits during the window will make it into the contest.

All entries will receive a receipt.  If you don’t, check with Nik Vukoja on Twitter @nestpitch and/or @nik_vukoja

Send your entries to nestpitch @ outlook .com (no spaces)

For formatting instructions and rules go to this post go to: http://nestpitch.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/nestpitch-update-rules-conditions-whats-a-bilby-anyway/

NestPitch is a contest where participants email their 35-word pitches together with the first 300* words of their (finished) manuscript,(100-word for PBs).

The selected pitches will be featured on these blogs:

Brooke Powell  www.thecakenovelist.blogspot.com 

Kimberly P. Chase  http://kimberlypchase.blogspot.com.au/ 

Jeffe Kennedy  http://www.blog.jeffekennedy.com/category/blog/ 

Tina Moss  http://www.tinamoss.com/  

Amanda Foody  www.amandafoody.blogspot.com 

Dannie Morin http://dcmorin.blogspot.com.au/ 

Sharon M Johnston  http://downunderwonderings.blogspot.com.au/ 

Sharon Bayliss  http://sharonbayliss.blogspot.com.au/ 

Stacey Nash  http://www.staceynash.com/

Then agents, their identities hidden, will leave a request for pages, partials and/or fulls of the featured pitches.

 Entries must be embedded within email (no attachments) with following:

Name: YOUR NAME

Title: TITLE OF MANUSCRIPT

Genre: Category/Genre of Manuscript (i.e. NA Romance)

Word Count: (nearest 1000)

PITCH: 35-word (max) log-line

Answer to qu:

(question: in one sentence, max 15-words in the sentence: If my Main Character were an Easter Egg, what flavour would he be & why)

First 300-words of your manuscript. If the 300th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of the sentence.  For Picture-book submissions please only submit 100-words.  If the 100th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of the sentence.

Please ensure

(i)                 your manuscript has not been featured in another Pitch Competition in the past 12 months – that’s ANY pitch competition (not twitter pitches), from the period April 1st 2013 to 31st March 2014

(ii)               your manuscript IS NOT published.  This INCLUDES self-published.

 

Our Slush Bilbies & Nest Bloggers will read through the pitches and pick the top 72 pitches for the agent round; April 17th – 18th  

We try to get a good mix of various genres, but the writing comes first. Basically, if the submissions aren’t ready, it’s in your best interest that we pass, the last thing anyone wants is your manuscript to be old & tired from “doing the rounds” before its ready.