Founded in November 2004, Romance Divas is an award winning, free writer's resource website and discussion forum dedicated to the romance and writing community. Our vision is to provide a fun place for writers to learn about the craft and business of writing in a supportive environment, where our members share in the personal and professional journey with other aspiring and published writers.
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Check out this month's SPOTLIGHT ON interview segment with REALMS OF FANTASY, a full-sized bimonthly color magazine, dedicated to publishing the best in fantasy fiction, nonfiction, and artwork
Thanks for visiting Romance Diva's blog! Here, you'll find interviews, news, contests, and notices concerning our website and forum. We'll also be dishin' the dirt and featuring general posts, writing tips, and everything in between. Thanks for stopping by!
♦ Dawn Halliday’s story WINTER HEAT will feature in A HIGHLANDER CHRISTMAS anthology with stories by Cindy Miles and Sophie Renwick–in bookstores November 3 from NAL Signet Eclipse.
♦ Eden Bradley’serotic vampire novella, THE SEEKING KISS, Book One in her Midnight Playground series, will be available from Samhain Publishing October 20th. Her erotic novel, THE BEAUTY OF SURRENDER, will be available and in bookstores October 27th from Bantam/Delta.
♦ Eden Bradley has contracted a new four-novella series with Samhain Publishing. The Celestial Seductions series will debut this December.
♦ Elise Logan and Emily Ryan-Davis contracted their contemporary novella, This Fire, to Liquid Silver Books for December release in their firefighter themed anthology.
♦ Ella Drake’s erotic paranormal short, SCENT OF CIN, available from Cobblestone Press Oct 2, 2009. Her debut novel, THE FORBIDDEN CHAMBER (historical paranormal), releases Oct 27th from Samhain Publishing.
♦ Gwen Hayes signed with agent Jessica Sinsheimer at the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency.
♦ Kim Knox’s SF erotic romance novella, SATIN SPAR, will be available 20 October 2009 from Samhain Publishing
♦ Marisa Chenery’s erotic novella, ROXIE’S PROTECTORS-ROAN’S FALL, the first book in her new werewolf series, will be released at Liquid Silver Books on October 19th.
♦ Mima will be signing Claimed at Authors After Dark Paranormal Weekend.
♦ Natasha Moore’s novella, Bound by Design, released from Samhain Publishing Sept 29th.
♦ Nell Dixon’s Blue Remembered Heels is released as large print format October 1st from Ulverscroft.
♦ R. F. Long will be holding the book launch for the print edition of The Scroll Thief at Octocon, Ireland’s premiere SFF convention, on 10th October at 5.30pm.
♦ R.G. Alexander’s 4th book in her Children of the Goddess series, MIDNIGHT FALLS, will be available at Samhain Publishing October 20th.
♦ R.G. Alexander sold thr first novella in her Wicked series, WICKED SEXY, to Samhain Publishing, for January 2010 release.
♦ Sela March has been offered a contract by Red Sage for her novella, “HARD HARVEST,” part of the “Three Kinds of Wicked” ménage à trois series.
♦ Stephanie Adkins paranormal erotic romance short story, The Wicked Flame, debuts this month from Cobblestone Press.
Maria Geraci was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised on Florida’s Space Coast. Her love of books started with the classic, Little Women (a book she read so often growing up, she could probably quote).She lives with her husband and their children in north Florida where she works part-time as a labor and delivery nurse by night and writes romance full time during the day (sleep is not an option). Her first book, Bunco Babes Tell All, a sexy, funny women’s fiction story debuted in May, 2009. The follow-up, Bunco Babes Gone Wild, comes out in November. Maria is currently working on a romantic comedy scheduled for an early 2011 release date. You can visit her website at www.mariageraci.com.
What inspired you to become a writer and how long did it take from the first draft to the first sale?
I’ll be honest, I really can’t say what inspired me, although I’ve always loved to read. One day, I dropped my husband off at the airport for a business trip and on the drive home, I decided to write a book and I’ve been writing ever since. Five years later, I sold my first book.
How many rejection letters did you get before you finally got the agent and/or the sale? Were you discouraged or what did you do to overcome them?
I don’t know how many rejection letters/emails I have, although I can honestly say that the majority of my rejections have come after getting an agent. I only queried a couple of editors on my own before I decided that I’d rather have an agent first. I was very lucky. I think I queried about 4 or 5 agents before landing my agent, Deidre Knight-although it took her about 6 months from the initial query to agree to rep me. The first manuscript she shopped for me was rejected by about 10 houses in NY, and the second manuscript (which eventually sold) was rejected by the first 7 or 8 publishers who read it. Recently, my editor rejected the first synopsis I sent her on my option book. I did sell her the book, but I had to come up with a totally different concept. So, even after being published, rejection is something you have to deal with.
Realizing that rejection isn’t personal is key to survival in this business. Whether it’s being turned down by an agent, or an editor, or even a bad review, you have to shrug it off, learn from it, and move on. Having a good support group is critical, I think, to helping you overcome the downside of writing. I know for me, without my friends, I’d be lost!
What is the most difficult part of writing and how do you get over “writer’s block” or something like it?
For me, the writing is the easy part. Occasionally, I have writer’s block, but I work through it and somehow the muse finds me again. The difficult part of being a writer is the lack of control you have over your finished product. From the cover, to the title, to even the way your book is packaged and sold, is totally up to the publisher. You have some input, but the end decision is mostly out of your hands (at least at this stage of my career). Maybe once I start hitting some lists, then I’ll have more input!
Are you a plotter or a panster? Do you have any daily ritual or writing routine to get you going?
I’m a combination of both. In a perfect world, I would be a pantser and sit at the computer and just let the story unfold naturally. But that would mean taking a lot of wrong turns, and since I write under deadline, I have to have some semblance of a plot, otherwise, I’d go around in circles until I found my way. My only routine to get me going is plugging in the coffee pot!
If you were an ice cream flavor, what would it be called and why?
Chocolate Crunch Delight.
The delight is because I’m generally a pretty happy, upbeat person. The crunch is for my occasional “bite.” And the chocolate is just because!
What are you currently working on and what should be look out for in the future?
Right now, I’m writing another light women’s fiction story for Berkley, titled The Boyfriend of the Month Club (my editor really loves the title, so I’m hoping I get to keep it!) It’s due to my editor in January and will probably come out early 2011.
Any last words or tips for aspiring writers to help them get started?
If you hope to make a living from your writing then always remember, this is a business, so treat it like you would any professional endeavor. Work hard, don’t burn any bridges, and always follow the Golden Rule!
Hello, Divas! Thanks for having me today. I don’t usually write book reviews, but I just read Jackie Barbosa’s debut novel, Behind the Red Door, and it was so wonderful that I want to tell everyone about it.
The book is made up of three novellas, each involving a house of ill repute called the Red Door. Before I continue, I have a few confessions to make.
1. I love sexy Regencies.
2. I adore novellas, especially when I’m busy
3. I’m often in the mood for erotic romance, because I really like sex scenes. I like early, frequent sex scenes. What can I say? I’m naughty.
Behind the Red Door was right up my alley, because it incorporated all of the above elements without skimping on quality writing or emotional impact. Each story was excellent, which is rare in this format, from my experience.
In the first story, the hero is a dissolute rake and secret scholar. The heroine is a recently jilted young lady who is also a bit of a bluestocking. She doesn’t consider the hero a good match for marriage because of his scandalous ways. Although she desires him physically, she’s also intellectually infatuated with his “friend,” the brilliant poetry translator she’s never seen. Oh, the calamity.
Like the next two stories, this one has familiar themes, done well. A unique point—the hero has had male lovers in the past. I find sexual fluidity in women very appealing, in men not so much. This is a matter of personal taste, however, and I think the author addresses the issue in a positive way.
The sex is explicit, and the hero talks dirty (mmm!), but there is a real tenderness between the characters. He realizes that he wants a committed relationship before she does, which is a detail I always enjoy.
The second story also worked well for me. A war hero with PTSD enters the Red Door with an odd request—a good night’s sleep. He can’t stave off the nightmares when he’s alone, so he hires a prostitute to lie beside him. She fancies him, of course. In the morning, she wakes him in the best possible way. He returns the favor, what a gent.
Again, we have steamy erotic encounters, and a marriage-minded hero who decides what he wants in record time. My main problem was with the heroine’s profession. She likes sex better than scrubbing pots, and has no negative feelings about her job. Maybe some readers would find that refreshing, but I thought it unrealistic. The story took an unexpected turn in the second half, and continued to hold my interest. Nicely done.
The third story is the most explicit. I liked it the best! Lady Jane is in love with her betrothed, a seductive scoundrel who he sees her only as a friend. Desperate to win his heart, she visits the Red Door, intent on learning how to please him in the bedroom. Jane’s unsuspecting fiancé is there to relieve a hankering—for Jane. But he doesn’t go through with it. Before he leaves, the madam invites him to give lessons to a disguised Jane. He readily accepts. She won’t allow him to take her virginity, so they do everything else. And I do mean everything!
Behind the Red Door has three very sexy, very enjoyable stories. If you like well-written erotic romance, I highly recommend it.
ABOUT JILL:
Jill Sorenson writes romantic suspense for Silhouette and Bantam Dell. Her latest release, Set the Dark on Fire, is in stores now.
The upgrades were implemented successfully, the re-skinning of the forum is finally complete, and with a new board there’s going to be a few little glitches that we’ll correct as we stumble upon them. There may be times when the forum is out but that could be due to database updates as fixes are being made on our end and our service provider’s end.
I’m certain our members are pleased to have their beloved chat room back. It’s starting off better than expected.
This week, Romance Divas is upgrading their forum to the latest version. During this process there have been many kinks that we are trying to iron out. We are currently working on implementing the Chatroom to the new system as well as fixing issues with the new content.
Please be aware that the chatroom is addressed and that we are working as quickly as possible so our members will have full access again. There will be moments of outages while we update the database.
Please stay tuned for further updates and details.
Romance Divas started out with book reviews and we felt that it’s time to bring them back! However, this time we’re changing the way we’re doing things!
Please stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks…
In other news:
We’re always happy to see our members move on to exciting personal projects. Mel Berthier and Bria Quinlan created EXCERPT MONDAY which is an excellent way to for published and unpublished authors to provide excerpts to the online community. It’s a great way for readers to discover new voices and some not so new. If you are interested in learning more, visit their online home: http://excerptmonday.wordpress.com
Congrats on your growing success ladies! Keep up the good work!
Looks like we’re currently having an outage on the RD forums.
I’ve opened a ticket with our hosting provider, Invision Power (the same guys that developed the forum software). I’ll keep updating folks on Twitter with the #RomanceDivas hash-tag. You don’t need to have a Twitter account to keep updated, but it’s a good way to chat with others while we wait for the site to get fixed.
Hopefully they get it back up and running soon. Not the first time it’s crashed during NGTCC, so we may just have more traffic on the forums than usual.
on Oct 20th, 2009 
