Let slip the dogs of smut

This is me last night, recording a podcast across the unending void of Skype, for the Sexy Librarian 😊

Since I reluctantly paused in writing The Prison of the Angels (Book of the Watchers 3)  I have written 18 blog posts for the upcoming launch tour of Vol.2 : In Bonds of the Earth. My brain is like soup and I'm feeling quite ill this week, frankly, but luckily Sexy Librarian Rose buoyed me up with her enthusiasm!

The IBotE BLOGTOUR kicks off on Wednesday 22nd February at Simon Bestwick's place and runs until I'm clean out of people who will talk to me.

The Official Facebook Launch Party is on 1st March and EVERYONE is welcome to drop in - we will be having competitions and silly games and I'm sure as hell getting the cocktails out, because I'm planning to do a video reading of at least one excerpt!

So do please contact me if you'd like to host me in the blog tour:

janine dot ashbless at gmail dot com

Meanwhile I will go back to my glass of wine ... 😉

"I will free them all."

When Milja Petak released the fallen angel Azazel from five thousand years of imprisonment, she did it out of love and pity. She found herself in a passionate sexual relationship beyond her imagining and control – the beloved plaything of a dark and furious demon who takes what he wants, when he wants, and submits to no restraint. But what she hasn’t bargained on is being drawn into his plan to free all his incarcerated brothers and wage a war against the Powers of Heaven.

As Azazel drags Milja across the globe in search of his fellow rebel angels, Milja fights to hold her own in a situation where every decision has dire consequences. Pursued by the loyal Archangels, she is forced to make alliances with those she cannot trust: the mysterious Roshana Veisi, who has designs of her own upon Azazel; and Egan Kansky, special forces agent of the Vatican – the man who once saved then betrayed her, who loves her, and who will do anything he can to imprison Azazel for all eternity.

Torn every way by love, by conflicting loyalties and by her own passions, Milja finds that she too is changing – and that she must do things she could not previously have dreamt of in order to save those who matter to her.

In Bonds of the Earth is the second in the Book of the Watchers trilogy and the sequel to Cover Him With Darkness.

Amsterdamned

I spent Easter weekend in the Netherlands, with pretty much the exact pathetic results you'd expect from a middle-aged writer trying too hard...

"Whoa shit! - get me out of here RIGHT NOW guys, I'm going to faint..."

 But in fact we were not there for the, ahem, peculiar delights of Amsterdam...

Canals. Goddamn it, we love canals.

... No: we were there to meet this gentleman:

It's the 500th anniversary of Hieronymus Bosch's death , and a unique exhibition has been arranged by the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch. Painting scattered in galleries all over the world have been brought back to his birthplace for this one extraordinary occasion.

The Wayfarer, from the outer shutters of The Haywain triptych

Bosch is a painter famous for his surreal and inexplicable depictions of Paradise (both heavenly and earthly)

Just WTF is that in the middle of the Garden of Eden?

World's. Best. Party.

No, really?

And for his horrific pictures of Hell:

And the demons therein:

In fact some of them have escaped the gallery and run amuck in the surrounding streets and canals...

It's riding "a goose". Right...

He was also, it turns out, totally obsessed with owls.

I'll have what he's on...

The Watchers secret backstory revealed!!!

;-)

Seriously, at some point in The Book of the Watchers I'm going to have to tackle a number of Big Questions.

1) WTF was God thinking of?
2) WTF is God doing right now?
3) WTF is God going to do about all these fallen angels escaping?

Don't let anyone tell you Erotic Romance is an easy genre to write...

Fundraiser

What is more nerve-racking than learning a new computer skill for a publisher? Learning how to video yourself and then doing your first ever promo video, that's what!

Everybody hates the sound of their own voice on tape, I know!

Sweetmeats Press, a small but perfectly formed and beautifully independent erotica press based in the UK, is doing a fundraising drive in order to help with getting its books onto shelves in the United States. Donors get gifts of course: $5 will see you with three e-short stories OR a full-length e-novel from the back catalogue - which is better than you'll find on Amazon -  and so on.

All support gratefully received.

Here's my video, complete with little Leonidas watching over me...

Eyecandy Monday

Yesterday evening (well, 3a.m to be precise) I subbed Sons of Summer.
Today's job is to revise, edit and sub a contracted short story on the theme of Drenched. Hence the eyecandy :-)
No pressure then.

Anthologising Blues

Helping create the Geek Love anthology has opened my eyes to a number of things. Not least the incredible difficulty of choosing which stories go in the final book. Lets just say I appreciate the work of other editors out there way more now!

Think about it. You put out a call for submissions. You want erotic geek stories, and you're determined to pick a fabulous selection. You're aware that your readership is likely to be a discerning one. So you just pick the best stories, right?

Wrong.

First, in any anthology you need variety. Your readers aren't clones, and won't all want the same things. You're going to have readers who like guys, and readers who like gals. You're going to have readers who love hardcore BDSM, and ones who skip past anything other than vanilla. And in a more general way, you need variety of voice - stories told in first person, stories told in third (and perhaps even second). Stories told from a male point of view, and stories told from a female. Hetero, gay, lesbian, and group sex. Poetic, literate, emotionally moving tales - and raunchy, in-your-face, I-need-a-cold-shower-after-this tales.

Variety of setting. Fifteen different stories set in a smalltown American comic book store, no matter how awesome each is on an individual level, will make for a turgid read. So you say: let's have some of everything right across the geek landscape! - tentacles and space opera, futuristic and fantasy and fairytale, bookish and scientific and techie and comics and superheroes and steampunk and MMORPGs....
Oh, and - apparently - coffee shops. That was a new one on me.

This is assuming that you get subs in each of these categories. You're at the mercy of your writers here.

That's when the problems really start. Because you've only got so many pages to fill.

• What do you do when you've got a completely brilliant story that you just love, but it's not erotica? 
• Or what if it's red-hot erotica, but not geeky? 
• What if you have five different Cyberpunk tales, each a masterpiece, but only one about My Little Pony fans* - does a better but commonplace story lose out to one with a unique theme?
• Does one long story lose out to two short ones of equal callibre, so that more authors get a chance to showcase their work?
• Do you accept multiple stories from a single author, thus showcasing a reduced number of writers?

Every choice hurts. I'm pretty good at being mean to my fictional characters, but I hate being mean to real people.
I know this: we will be rejecting some GREAT stories. Stories that completely deserve publication. Stories that it has left me feeling gutted to say "no" to. But ones that for one reason or another, don't fit in the anthology.
And it's the editors' job to keep an eye on the big picture.

---

*Not a real-life example.

Eyecandy Monday

I can't think of anything to say about this picture. It steals my words away.

If you want more words, there are nice reviews of  Alison's Wonderland and Fairy Tale Lust over at Erotica Revealed this month:

You’ll recognize "Sleep Tight" by Janine Ashbless as a Sleeping Beauty tale, but you won’t expect the ending. I sure didn’t see it coming. That’s all I’ll say. Nicely executed. 

And a glowing review of Fairy Tale Lust at ERWA:


“Sleep Tight”, by Janine Ashbless, offers a visceral first person account by the hapless landscaper penetrating Sleeping Beauty's palisade of thorns.  The final twist is shocking and yet, in retrospect, feels inevitable.

It's a pretty good start to my week!

Sexy Little Numbers - out now in the New World

Good morning America (and Canada and other places) - just to let y'all know that the Black Lace short story anthology Sexy Little Numbers is now available beyond the tiny shores of the UK. And it is packed full of goodies from authors such as Kristina Lloyd, Charlotte Stein, Justine Elyot, EllaRegina and Madelynne Ellis. It's the one with my tattooed and pierced m/m tale Michelangelo's Men. I was going to point you to the hot excerpt I'd previously posted on this blog ... only to discover that in the flurry of August I didn't actually put one up. Goddamn. I is so crap! Okay, I'll do an excerpt on Sunday when I get back to my own computer. Promise!

Buy at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK

Also out this week! - Charlotte Stein's first (but absolutely not, I am prepared to bet, last) solo collection of short stories, The Things that Make Me Give In - to which you should really really treat yourselves. Congratulations Charlotte!

Buy from Amazon UK