K.C. Burn – Erotic Romance Author

I’ve been so busy with edits and various other obligations that I think I failed to post about my upcoming releases.  Now that contracts are all finalized & whatnot I thought I’d drop a short post about them.  The sequel to Wolfsbane, MIA Case Files: Blood Relations, is scheduled to release this fall from Loose Id.  Although Adam and Carmichael both appear, the story focuses on one of Carmichael’s colleagues at the agency.  I’ve posted a blurb on my Books page.

I also have a futuristic novella due to release in spring of 2011 from Carina Press.  It’s called Spice ‘n’ Solace, and I had a blast writing it.  Quick and dirty?  It’s a case of mistaken identity where a high profile negotiator assumes a brothel owner is his escort for the night.  Hijinks ensue.  Okay, not actual hijinks, but the phrase amuses me.  There’s a blurb for it on my Books page also.

In the past three weeks, I’ve also completed the first round of edits for both, so I’m sure you can understand why I’ve been so busy!  I’ve been pretty lucky, in that all of my books so far are keeping the titles I gave them.  Several author friends have bemoaned the necessity for changing titles.  I anticipate joining them with my next submission.  The name in my head for my current WIP is probably not viable from an editor’s perspective.  But we’ll see… that’s assuming an editor likes the story… *wink*.

How important are titles, anyway?  Do words or titles using other languages create a barrier to book purchases?  Or do they create an allure, a mystique, that entices readers?  I know I’ve bought books based on cover art, and I’ve bought books where I’ve only read the first sentence of the back cover blurb, but I don’t recall if I’ve bought/dismissed books based solely on the title. Will using non-English words in a title lead people to assume the book isn’t written in English?  I’m guessing you can see where I’m going with this.  The title I have in mind is a non-English art term.  I believe it’s a relatively well known term (I don’t care to share yet… I have weird hang-ups about titles) and I’m hoping to have some ammunition when I submit.  Alas, I know I am not the final arbiter of titles — will having to change the title change the way I perceive my book?  Probably.   I’ll keep you posted!

This month has been so busy, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do a review for the DIK 2010 Reading Challenge. Somehow, I managed to squeak it in! I’m reviewing J.L. Langley’s My Fair Captain. This is the first book in her Sci-Fi/Regency series, and it’s a great intro.

In the future, there are at least two planets whose social structure and culture are based on the Regency period from Earth. One is traditional and the other, Regelence, is patriarchal to the extent that the ruling classes are genetically chosen to be male and to be interested in same sex pairings. Nate was born on Englor, the traditional one, but flees to the Intergalactic Navy when his relationship with another man is the root cause of a scandal.

Several years later, when he’s asked to investigate a theft of weapons, he ends up on Regelence, a planet with customs that are familiar and yet vastly different. He meets Prince Aiden, and finds he needs to decide if he’s willing to give up his life as a navy captain for an innocent, untried man who is so obsessed with his art he often fails to see to his own safety. The problem is that Aiden is more alluring than Nate would ever expect a virgin to be, especially since giving in to the temptation would require him to marry the prince. Aiden is equally fascinated with Nate, and they fall in love. However, the thief could spoil their happily ever after when Aiden gets in his way.

This book was so much fun. It combines the rules and tradition of a typical Regency romance with a spicy futuristic twist. Nate and Aiden are very different from each other, but they’re both compelling characters who you can’t help but cheer on, hoping they get what they want. The sex was hot and the love story was beautiful (I could probably say this for all of J.L.’s books, actually). I highly recommend this book, not the least of which because the sequel, featuring one of Aiden’s brothers, is an awesome follow-up.

After a two week hiatus (OMG… my most recent round of edits were unexpectedly taxing), I’m posting at Flirty Author Bitches about cowboys vs. zombies as romantic heroes – another romantic cage match! Stop by and drop a comment!

Well, it was a scramble to get this done before I left for the RWA National Conference!  In fact, I’m posting this from the hotel right now.

Anyway, for this month’s DIK Review, I chose Gobsmacked by LB Gregg (and for some reason, I keep typing that as Gobsmaked).  This is the first of the Men of Smithfield series, and it’s a great beginning to a great series.

Mark discovers his boyfriend is cheating on him and kicks him out.  He’s also feeling a little vindictive, and in the process of extracting a little revenge on Jamie, via his belongings, discovers that Jamie’s neck-deep in trouble and has dragged Mark into it with him.  Fortunately for Mark, his best friend Tony is a cop who is willing to help and protect Mark… for more reasons than just friendship.

I was hooked from the very first sentence, and the book was filled with what I’ve come to realize is LB Gregg’s signature – lots of humour, lots of love and lots of quirkiness (the sex is totally hot, too).  It’s a fun read, and although there’s a couple of times where you just want to shake Mark for being obtuse (as I’ve no doubt Tony wanted to do also), you can’t help but sympathize with him.  You want him to get his revenge on Jamie, you want him to end up with a man who loves him, and you want him to have his happily ever after.  Although it looks a couple of times like that’s not going to happen, LB delivers, and leaves us with a very satisfying conclusion.

Today’s my first day blogging at Flirty Author Bitches, and I’m blogging about Pirates vs. Ninjas (as romantic heroes).  Stop by and comment – everyone who comments is entered into a monthly drawing for prizes!

So, I love punk. I like the music, I like the look. Sometimes the attitudes are questionable, but I think that may be based more on individual personalities than the whole concept. Of course, a movement born out of class struggle and rebellion isn’t always going to be sweet and nice. How could it? But on this side of the pond, I was probably exposed to a less radical version – maybe that helped, I don’t know. Regardless, I enjoy mohawks, body piercing, tats, everything. Probably my favorite piercings are the labret and eyebrow.

That being said, what I can’t quite grasp is the new trend (and I assume it’s a new trend given the frequency of sightings over the past month) is the motorcycle helmet with the fabric mohawk on it. I don’t get it. I have friend who says it reminds her of Marvin the Martian. I personally think of a venetian blind duster, but I could also go with Roman Centurion. None of these is, I’m sure, what the wearers are going for, although Marvin does have an inexplicable coolness factor in his own right.

Is it just me? Or is this the turning point where I completely leave my youth behind and start sounding like my parents: I don’t know what’s with kids these days…

I watched The Birds recently.  I’ve never seen it before (I’m not much into old movies) but I thought it was maybe time I saw it, for my own edification.  I mean, it can’t hurt to watch what’s considered a classic, right?

Well, one part in particular caught my attention.  The heroine (whose name escapes me… clearly I wasn’t THAT into it) follows the hero home (a man with whom she had a brief conversation with in a shop… where she LIED about who she was), sneaks into the hero’s house and leaves a bird as a gift for his sister (who she knows even less than the hero).  The heroine also pumps local inhabitants for information about the hero and his family.

My first thought?  Ew.  Creepy stalker.  Forget the damned birds, Hitchcock had the makings of a scary movie right there.   No doubt that part of the story was meant as some nod to feminism or something.  On further consideration, though, I know I’ve read scenes like this in romance novels and was perfectly willing to suspend disbelief that the recipient of such actions would be romantically inclined towards the ‘stalker’.

In real life, though?  This would be, hands down, a romantic deal breaker.  But I am a lot more forgiving in my fiction, and I’m not even sure it’s necessarily because of the ‘fantasy’ element.  I’ve read more than one sexy hero who smoked, and the smoking itself was sexy in the story.  Real life, though?  Another deal breaker.  Several years ago, my husband wanted to take up cigar smoking.  I told him I refused to have kids with someone who smoked.  So he didn’t.  The irony of us later deciding not to have children is not lost on me.  Nevertheless, I think I surprised him by taking such a hard stance, because I’m a fairly laid back sort of person.

What about cheating?  Now, I see more of this in gay romance than I have in straight… at least, where the cheater is forgiven and taken back.  Personally, I think that it has more to do with long-established reader expectations in straight romance than anything else.  Regardless, cheaters can be forgiven and the relationship can go on.  I don’t know if I would consider this a deal breaker, because I’ve never truly faced the situation.  I like to think I could be reasonable if I was in love with the person and it was a one-time physical thing, but I can’t be sure.  Can a relationship truly survive that fractured trust?  I’ve seen it strongly affect friends’ subsequent relationships, long after breaking up with a cheater.

So, I’ve covered smoking, stalking and cheating.  What about other elements like voyeurism, gambling, drug addiction, abuse, alcoholism?  I’ve seen them all in fiction, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the patience in real life to accept these in my relationship.  And I’m reasonably sure no one actually fantasizes about having a partner with these issues, so what is it that makes these compelling?  Why are these not reading deal breakers?

Those tortured heroes?  Super sexy in books.  In real life?  No way.  I like my men with minimum baggage, fully sane and capable of being responsible members of society.  Of course, that may be because I’m loaded with baggage and not entirely sane.  Thankfully I’m still a responsible member of society. 

I believe the reason we read about tortured characters and seemingly impossible relationships is hope.  Hope that if people with all these problems can find love and happiness, well, we’ve all got a chance, too.

I adore this game. It doesn’t move too fast (which is excellent, since I’m incredibly uncoordinated – meaning I generally suck at most video games) and it is ridiculously quirky.  I love having catapults taking out zombies via watermelon or corn.  I’m highly amused by chili peppers burning zombies into cinders.  And I might be little obsessed… or perhaps using it as a crutch.

See, I’ve got two completed manuscripts out in submission hell.  And I’ve found that after completing a manuscript, I fall into a weird funk, a pseudo-post-partum depression.  It shakes off after a couple of weeks, and I’ve got a new project that I want to get started on.  Truly, I do!  I just need to get my brain in gear to write and break my addiction to Plants vs. Zombies.  Hey, I may not be writing, but at least I’m saving the backyard from zombies!

If only I could claim the game helped me create zombie fiction (research, yeah, that’s it).  Unfortunately, as much as I love other people’s zombie stories, I don’t know that I could write one of my own.  Eh.  Back to the game!  Writing… this weekend… I swear…

We just started watching Twin Peaks. Yes, I know I’m twenty years too late. But strangely enough, despite the furor over the show at the time it came out, neither my husband nor I had ever watched a single episode. I have to admit, the show’s pretty surreal. And I assume that’s intentional. But the number of people who are having affairs, are abusive, or just plain got an extra helping of crazy seems rather excessive. It’s like watching some ramped-up soap opera version of Lost.
A few things I’ve noticed… Kyle MacLachlan looks a little unfinished. He’s much better looking now than he was then. The credits are INSANELY long and boring. And the show seems to have a lot of screaming. We faithfully watch Doctor Who, which requires the characters to do an awful lot of running. Running, always running. In Twin Peaks, it seems to be screaming, always screaming. Especially Laura’s mother. Her lungs have gotten a fantastic work out in most episodes so far.
Besides that, both my husband and I were wondering how Twin Peaks would fare if created for today’s audiences, for different reasons. Hubby wondered how people would deconstruct each episode on blogs, etc. as they did for Lost. Myself, it’s more of an academic exercise, as in, what would they have to change (besides those clunky old phones) to account for the internet, and as a result, how the story would have to change.
Or would the story have to change? Could the same story be told, but use different mechanics and processes to come to the same conclusion? Could it be drawn out as long as it was? Would modern audiences be receptive to the deliberate, and at times plodding, pace of the story? Would modern forensics catch the killer more quickly?
Of course, we haven’t seen the entire thing yet. We’re about six or eight episodes in, and I think there are 30 episodes in total. I don’t even know if catching Laura Palmer’s killer is show’s raison d’etre or if there’s something else driving it. I might be able to answer some of my questions more readily afterwards. Or maybe I won’t. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to find out the show ended without resolving many of the conflicts that are coming to light.
Still, I’m enjoying the weirdness of it, and admit to being surprised that it became as popular as I remember it being. Because it is fairly weird, the characters are mostly nuts, and don’t seem particularly realistic or logical. Perhaps Twin Peaks was the progenitor of shows like Happy Town & Harper’s Island neither of which I could make myself watch more than a couple of episodes. Maybe Twin Peaks was a phenomenon that is destined to never be repeated.

Many of us have songs that evoke particular memories for us, whether they be good or bad. For instance, Smash Mouth’s All Star makes me think of a large green ogre (and smile). The Power of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood was my first dance with my husband at our wedding. Anything by Def Leppard reminds me of a crappy ex-boyfriend. I Know It’s Over by the Smiths… total breakup song. The three songs that heralded my musical epiphany when I was sixteen, and still influence my musical choices today (Join in the Chant by Nitzer Ebb, Stigmata by Ministry, Testure by Skinny Puppy). I think we all have those special songs.

But that’s not the musical conditioning I’m talking about. I was listening to the radio in the car and realized that my generation might be the last one who has a ‘next song’ conditioning. With the ability to buy music, picking and choosing, like you were eating at an enormous buffet, there may not be too many people who buy whole albums and listen to them, repeatedly, from start to finish. I still try to buy whole albums, because I’ve found lots of songs I love amongst the more popular and well-known songs.

The mix tapes I made and listened to incessantly? To this day, I still expect to hear Balloon Man by Robyn Hitchcock after I hear The Promise by When in Rome. I expect to hear Squirrels (by Dr. Demento?) whenever I hear Soft Cell’s Tainted Love. Or Headhunter by Front 242 whenever I hear The Bog by Bigod 20.

And the albums I listened to obsessively? Sex on the Flag should follow Spiritual House because that’s the order they come in on KMFDM’s Money. Hungry Like the Wolf should follow Lonely In Your Nightmare as they do on Duran Duran’s Rio.

The ease of shuffle on the iPod means that if I didn’t imprint any ‘next song’ conditioning prior to owning it, most likely I never will. And the generation after mine? Is the shuffle all they know? Is there no happy expectation of knowing what’s coming next? I’m guessing not. Make no mistake, I love my shuffle, but there are times when I really want to hear the song I’ve been conditioned to hear next. (Yes, I know I can make playlists… it doesn’t seem the same.) And I’m amused by the fact that the brain still makes these connections for me ten, fifteen, twenty years later.