A sample of Chain of Kisses

My new e-book, book, Chain of Kisses, is out now from Changeling. It's available in Kindle and Nook format, among others. I just wanted to share a little sample of it.

You will find it here:
Chain of Kisses

Be aware, though-- this is short, but it's really, really kinky. There's a wide streak of BDSM in it, so if you don't like that, you won't like this book. In fact, I had to hunt some to find a section of it clean enough to post. As it is, don't read any further if you are under 18. I MEAN IT!!! I'm a momma, so don't make me come over there....

Twenty members of Arles’s crew sat around the octagonal serving tables in the Mjölnir’s mess. As we walked in, their voices filled the room with a cheerful babble of jokes, tech talk, and the usual playful taunts, reminding me of happier days aboard the Valkyrie.

But as they spotted Arles leading me toward the officer’s table, all conversation died away. Men and women alike turned to stare.

No wonder. A length of gold chain led from my jeweled collar to the prince’s big hand, and manacles bound my wrists. My bonds were as finely crafted and gem-studded as any jewelry I’d ever worn, but no one would mistake them for anything but symbols of my sexual captivity.

I lifted my chin and met the curious gazes, freezing my expression into one of cool disdain. I might wear chains, but I was still a royal princess of Swanhilde.

Still, the walk to the captain’s table stung. Women smirked in satisfaction at seeing an enemy so shamed. Men leered at the nipples visible through my filmy thrall tunic. One spacer made a comment that triggered barks of crude laughter.

My hands curled into fists. I wanted to rage at them, but I muzzled my fury and reminded myself of my bargain with Arles. A little shame was a small price to pay for the lives of my crew.

Even as I drew my shoulders back and stiffened my spine, eyes widened all across the room. Everyone promptly found something else to look at. The snap of heads turning to gaze elsewhere looked almost synchronized. What the hell…

Which was when I noticed the tension in Arles’s broad shoulders and his white-knuckled grip on my leash. I couldn’t see his expression -- I walked at his heels -- yet I could almost feel the radiating heat of his anger -- directed, for once, at someone other than me.

I stared at his stiff spine in speculation. Perhaps he was simply a jealous man, yet some naïve part of me hoped he’d felt my shame and silently defended me with a glare.

Ridiculous thought. Why would he care? Especially given that shaming me was obviously the intention behind the sex-thrall tunic and chains.

But as I trailed him across the gleaming faux marble floor to the table reserved for senior officers, I remembered the boy I’d loved. Arles had been an idealist then, devoted to his father’s vision of imperial honor and responsibility.

I’d been five years old the summer my mother had hand-fasted me to Prince Arles. Even then, the tall, handsome fifteen-year-old had fascinated me. He’d been kind, showing me the model starcraft he’d built, even teaching me to fly the little toy around the palace.

I’d proceeded to break one of my mother’s priceless Elderkind vases with a particularly ill-aimed dive. To my astonishment, Arles told our parents he was to blame. Though he suffered his mortified father’s thundering wrath, he didn’t reveal I was the true culprit. And I was deeply grateful.

Queen Zerelda expected her daughters to be worthy representatives of our royal House. Had Arles not claimed responsibility, Mother would have ordered the captain of the Royal Guard to flog me with his sword belt.

It would not have been the first time, nor the last.

From then on I’d worshipped my prince. And that was how I thought of him, My Prince, as though he were a hero from some ancient tale.

We spent hours together in the years that followed, arguing ancient battles and plotting wild strategies to defeat the Fafnar. I came to adore Arles with all the passion in my young heart. Not even Galon had been able to dislodge him.

But Arles was no longer that boy, as I was no longer the foolish girl trembling before her mother’s anger. It was past time I took responsibility for my actions.

I had indeed shamed the royal House of Vanda and voided the treaty that had been in place since our parents had hand-fasted us. It was a good thing Emperor Ragnar had not abandoned Swanhilde to its fate, or the Fafnar would have enslaved my people and wiped out my royal House. They’d done as much on the other worlds they’d preyed upon.

We wouldn’t have had any hope of defending ourselves. Swanhilde’s people were artisans and poets, farmers and philosophers. The Torreans, on the other hand, were the finest warriors in human space, which was why my mother had sought the treaty with Emperor Ragnar to begin with.

My stomach clenched as I considered the fate I’d almost brought down on my world. I deserve anything Arles wants to do to me.

The prince sat down at the server and waved me to the high-backed seat next to his. I settled into the chair, feeling its warm, dark blue padding shift and move around me until it cuddled my body like a living thing. I glanced over the room, lifting my brows. Every seat in the mess was of the same expensive type. “You pamper your crew, Captain.”

He shrugged. “Small comforts are the brick and mortar of crew loyalty. My people are well paid, and I treat them with respect. In return, they never hesitate to follow me wherever I lead.” Arles grimaced. “Including more than one hand-to-hand brawl with the lizards.”

“That couldn’t have been much fun.” Fafnarian warriors are built like biped tanks, more than two and a half meters tall, with armored black hides and claws like daggers. “I’ve had a scuffle or two with them myself. I killed one, but I damned near bled to death doing it.”

That particular lizard had slain Galon, which was why I went after the reptilian fucker with a quark-splitter’s axe. I’d been so blind with rage and grief, it was a wonder I lived through the fight at all.

Galon had been dead two years now, but I still missed him.

Blue brows lifted. Arles eyed me as if he saw far more than I wanted him to. With his sensor implants, he probably did. Finally he nodded shortly and turned his attention to the tabletop menu display.

I watched his clever fingers tap meal choices for both of us. I was not surprised he didn’t ask my preferences. I was his thrall, not a guest, and he wanted to make sure I knew it.

While we waited for the server to produce our plates, the prince propped his elbows on the table and studied me. I decided it was time to own up to my mistakes.

“I was a stupid girl ten years ago, Arles.” I had to force my gaze not to drop. “I know you may not believe me, but I’ve rued my flight every day since. It was cowardly, and I was not raised to be a coward. I have spent the last decade trying to become a woman who could meet her own eyes in the mirror.”

Arles bared even white teeth, not sympathetic in the least. “While my House endured the shit-storm of rumor you left behind -- rumors my enemies used against me to erode my reputation and stain my honor.”

I swallowed. “Yes, I’ve seen the news vids.” The galactic news coverage had been vicious. Reporters brought up my jilting him in every story about his victories.

“And we won’t even mention your sister’s antics once she became my brother’s wife.” The prince grimaced. “Had I not redeemed myself in the Fafnar war, our nobility would have refused to acknowledge me as my father’s heir. You damned near wrecked my career before it even began.”

“I know.”

“Meals are served,” the table announced before I could say any more. Panels in its gleaming surface opened, and the server lifted our food into place.

I picked up my fork, only to put it down again, unable to eat for the tension knotting my belly. “I wish there was a way to make up for my actions.”

“There is.” Arles studied me with a gambler’s cool calculation. “My tour of duty here is done. I’m returning to Tor. If you truly mean to make up for your transgressions, serve as my thrall until I find a wife.”

I gaped at him. It was one thing to parade around his ship on a leash, playing sex games. To do so on Tor, where the news services would beam every juicy detail to Swanhilde… ”But my mother…”

“Yes, I imagine it will be quite the scandal. A Swanhilde princess in bondage to her former betrothed.”

Another woman might have mistaken the nasty curve of his mouth for a smile. “Fortunately, you’ve seen to it that I’m inured to scandal. You, however, will experience the same depths of shame I knew when you jilted me before the whole of my father’s empire.”

I hope you'll enjoy "Chain of Kisses" as much as I did writing it. Thanks for reading!

Best,

Angela Knight

The First Chapter of Hope's Kiss

My new e-book, "Hope's Kiss," is now available from Red Sage. Here's the first chapter. If you're interested in buying the book you'll find it here: Hope's Kiss.

In the meantime, enjoy the sample...


He was naked, covered in blood, and lying in the floor of a steel cage.

She’d still know Mark Wilder anywhere.

Detective Hope Barton scanned the room from the bottom step, eyes flicking from the cage to the bloody wooden table beside it, to the shackles that hung from blood-splattered cement walls.

The big, dimly lit basement reeked of murder: body fluids, rotting gore, and helpless suffering. Her stomach heaved, but Hope had been a violent crimes detective for two years, and she’d stood over her share of slaughter. Swallowing hard, she forced her dinner back where it belonged and did her job.

“Mark.” Hope strode toward the cage, ignoring the sticky puddles drying on the cement underfoot. She was too busy scanning the room for the key to his cell. There was no sign of one, dammit. “What the hell happened to you?” When he didn’t move, she raised her voice in a cop’s bark. “Mark!”

He stirred and lifted his head from the cage’s dirty floor. One dazed green eye met hers under a shock of matted blond hair. Blood and filth streaked his face, his lips were cut and bruised, and his left eye was swollen shut.

Somebody had beaten the crap out of him. And judging from his bloody knuckles, he’d fought back hard. Which was no surprise. Mark never took anything lying down.

Her gut twisted. How was she going to get him out of here? She grabbed the thick iron bars in both hands. “Mark…” “Mark, it’s Hope.”

For a suspended instant, he stared at her without any recognition at all.

Until he roared with a tortured animal howl and leaped at her in an impossible eight-foot bound. Pure reflex had her jolting back, barely dodging his hand as it shot through the bars.
How did he do that? Nobody could jump like that!

Mark’s lips peeled off snapping teeth, his powerful body straining to reach her with fingers curled into claws. His bare, bloody feet thudded on the bars as he kicked them savagely, trying to bend the steel. His one good eye glittered in frenzy.

He has fangs. She froze, staring at his sharply pointed canine teeth. Sweet God, Mark has fangs!

He sure as hell hadn’t had them in high school. She’d put her tongue in his mouth often enough to know.

As he bellowed and clawed, Hope damn near drew down on him. She managed to drag her hand away from the grip of her shoulder-holstered 9mil. Glock, but it took an effort. I’m not going to shoot Mark Wilder.

God, she ached to call for backup, but she no longer trusted anyone in the department.

Mark finally stopped howling. Clinging to the bars, he stared at her, his good eye feral and desperate, like a wolf’s with one leg in a bear trap. Recognition flickered in his gaze. “Hope?”

His voice sounded broken, raspy, as if he’d been screaming. Screaming for a very long time.

Pity raked at her heart, along with a certain tense relief. At least he’d recognized her. “Yeah, it’s me.” She gave him a twisted smile. “Guess you were right. There is a vampire in Reede County.”

“Told you.” He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as if fighting some powerful urge. “I warned you…what he was.”

Yeah, but she’d thought he’d lost his mind. The story he’d told her last week had certainly sounded crazy.

* * * *

They’d been working their way through a pizza in his den as Blade Trinity roared away on the big flat-screen television, Wesley Snipes killing vampires with a fanged snarl and flashing arcs of his sword.

It was a DVD choice Hope later realized was deliberate.

She’d folded a slice of the pizza and was about to take a healthy bite when Mark said, “I know who killed Joy.”

Hope dropped the slice back on her plate. He’d said he had something to tell her when he’d invited her over, but she’d had no idea he’d meant anything like this. He looked tense, as if he dreaded telling her whatever he had in mind, his green eyes narrow and wary. “I’m listening.”

“Patrick Stone came to my folks’ house the night after Joy died.”

“The tent revival preacher? You think he killed your sister?” Sexual predators often assumed religious covers that gave them access to victims, and they moved around a lot to keep from getting caught.

“Yeah. We thought Stone was going to offer to pray with us or something, like my folks’ pastor had.” Mark braced his elbows on his knees. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he bit off the next words. “Instead, the fucker told us all to forget about her, that she was nothing but a little slut.”

“Oh, my God. He said that to your parents? So how hard did you kick his ass? And how many punches did your daddy get in?” She grinned, imagining Ted Wilder’s reaction to anybody saying something like that about his little girl. Preacher or no, Ted would have taken the guy apart.

“None. Dad believed the bastard. They both did.” Mark’s big hands flexed between his knees.

“What? That makes no sense. What did you do?”

“Invited Stone outside and tried to knock his teeth down his throat. He blocked every punch, tossed me on my ass…” Mark stopped and took a deep breath. “And then he told me he was a vampire. Showed me his fangs and told me exactly what he did to Joy. In sickening detail.”

“He actually had false teeth made to look like fangs?” That would explain the puncture marks in the victims’ bite wounds.

“No, Hope. He really is a vampire. He said that’s how he made my parents believe him -- he’s got psychic abilities no human can resist.”

A chill raced over her skin, and Hope had to work to keep her face expressionless. On the screen, Wesley showed his fangs in a flash of white against his dark skin. “Let me get this straight. You believe your sister was murdered by a vampire?”

He didn’t look away. “I know how crazy it sounds, but yeah, that’s exactly what I believe.”

* * * *

It had to be Post Traumatic Stress. Mark had just left the Marines after ten years in Afghanistan and Iraq as a demolition specialist. A decade of that would give anybody PTSD.

Except it hadn't been the trauma talking. Every word of his wild story had been true.

“Talk to me, Hope,” Mark begged in a ragged voice, leaning against the bars as if all his furious energy had abandoned him. “Help me hang on, or I’m going to lose it again.”

She studied him, frowning. His face was white and bloodless, his lips pale.
“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything. Just talk to me.” He closed his good eye and pressed his forehead against the bars. “How did you find me?”

“Your parents came by the Sheriff’s Office yesterday.” The Wilders had known Hope for years, so they asked for her whenever they needed a cop. “They told me they hadn’t seen you in a week. At first they’d thought you’d just forgotten to call, but when your father kept checking your house and you never came home, they got worried.”

He grimaced. “I’ll bet they’re going out of their minds, after what happened to Joy.”

“Pretty much. Which is when I decided to question Stone after last night’s revival, something I damn well should have done when you said he killed Joy.”

“Hell, I wouldn’t have believed me either.”

Hope turned and began to pace, trying to work off her outraged energy. “You know, Stone actually ordered me to forget those women, as if he expected me to obey him.”

“He did. And you would have, if you’d been an ordinary human.”

She decided not to ask what the hell he meant by that. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “So I started asking questions. One of the women from the church hosting the revival told me she’d loaned Stone her mother’s house. The mother’s been dead a year or so, and this lady hasn’t been able to sell the place.”

“And she never will when word gets out about this.” He gestured at the blood-smeared cement.

“Then this morning, Sheriff Williams called me into his office. Said to quit wasting my time with animal kills and get back to work on my caseload. But animals don’t leave finger shaped bruises, and those were human bites, no matter what the coroner said.” Hope turned to face Mark, her hands curling into fists. “Thing is, I’d discussed the cases with the sheriff just the day before, and he’d agreed they were homicides. It was just like you said -- Stone had done something to his mind.”

“Bastard’s got a lot of power.” Mark straightened abruptly, as if someone had goosed him with a Taser. His good eye widened in panic. “What time is it? Is Stone here? You’ve got to get the hell out, Hope, or he’ll…”

“Relax, tonight’s service just started. Which is why I decided to drop by and check out the house, even though I didn’t have a warrant.” She curled a lip at the blood splatter that painted the cinderblock walls. “I smelled the stench of this dungeon of his all the way out on the porch. Instant probable cause. I kicked in the door and followed the reek.”

“For all the good it does either of us.” Mark wrapped his bruised hands around the bars and stared at her with desperate intensity. At least he seemed to be tracking now. “Hope, you can’t touch Stone. Even if you managed to arrest him, all he has to do is use his powers on the sheriff and he’s out the door. Given his strength, I doubt you could bring him in at all. And I don’t want him to get his claws into you too.”

She moved back over to the cage, staying just out of reach in case he tried to grab her again. “How did you end up like this?”

“I was dumb enough to challenge him at my folks’ house.” A bitter grimace twisted Mark’s mouth, and the knuckles of his fists went white from his grip on the bars. “He told me later that’s how he knew I’m Kith. He almost grabbed me that night, but he decided to wait, think it over. Then like a moron, I showed up here and got myself caught.”

“Wait.” Hope frowned. “What the hell’s a Kith?”

“That’s what vamps call people with the psychic strength to survive becoming a vampire.” Mark leaned his forehead against the bars and closed his eyes. The hollows beneath his striking cheekbones looked deeper, as if he was growing gaunter before her eyes. “The same strength makes us immune to a vampire’s orders, so that’s how they recognize us. Which is how I became a monster.” His good eye opened, meeting her gaze in a blaze of urgent green. “And that’s why you need to stay the hell away from him.”

“And let him go on killing?” She snorted. “Not very damned likely.”

“Hope, Stone thinks you’re Kith too because you refused to back off the case. He’s thinking of turning you. And you don’t want to become that bastard’s toy.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

Hope reached for the cell phone clipped to her belt. No matter what, Mark needed medical attention. He was in shock, suffering from blood loss and God knew what else.

He straightened in alarm. “What are you doing?”

“Calling dispatch for an ambulance.” She started thumbing buttons. “You need treatment. The Rescue Squad carries equipment that can cut into a car. They can slice open those bars.”

“I’d kill them, Hope. I’d kill them all. And you too.” His gaze haunted and urgent, Mark stared desperately into her eyes. Even his tongue looked dry as he licked his lips. “Stone hasn’t given me enough blood. I’m starving. I wouldn’t be able to control myself.”

Hope froze with the phone halfway to her mouth as she stared at him. And finally started to think through the implications. Even if the team managed to subdue Mark -- maybe by drugging him -- what then? He was a fucking vampire. Half an hour after he went to the hospital, he’d be on CNN.

Somebody would shoot cell phone video of his fangs and a few choice shots of this chamber of horrors. And he’d be screwed.

Meanwhile Stone would return from his tent revival, where he was probably choosing a sixth blonde from among the worshipers. Another woman to rape and murder.

That bastard needs to die. It wasn’t the first time in Hope’s law enforcement career she’d had that thought, but it was the first time she intended to carry it out.

She clipped the phone back on her belt with a hand that shook. It had been too damn long since she’d slept, or had anything to eat beyond stale cop coffee and candy bars. Being the lead investigator on five serial murder cases would do that to you. Especially when the killer’s a fucking vampire.
“All right. What do you think I should do?”

His good eye lit with hope, and he stepped closer to the bars. “Go to my house. Look in the garage, under the blue tarp. There are eight pipe bombs and a detonator I built to look like a ball point pen…”

“Wait -- bombs? Pipe bombs?” She stared at him, incredulous. “Do I look like a suicide bomber to you?”

“I’m not talking about blowing yourself up. I sure as hell don’t want you dead. Just Stone.” Mark’s bruised hands wrapped around the bars, and he stared at her with desperate intensity, as if willing her to listen. “I’ve already built everything you need. All you have to do is position the devices, get the hell away, and press the detonator.”

“What if somebody sees me, Mark? They’d think I was some kind of psycho, killing a preacher for giggles. They’d never believe he was a vampire. I’d go to jail for the rest of my life.”

“I know, I thought of all that too. Thing is, it’s the only way to be sure of killing him.”

“What about a stake through the heart? It’d be a hell of a lot less complicated.”

“And a lot more risky.” Mark released the bars and started to pace in long, urgent strides. “What if he woke up before you finished? Hell, we don’t know whether a stake would even work. It could be a myth, like the one about crosses. Holy objects obviously don’t bother him, or he couldn’t be hanging out in churches, waving a Bible.”

Hope grimaced. “Good point.”

“But I’m damned sure those bombs would do the job. That’s why I took the risk of telling you what he was. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, but I wanted you to know why I’d blown the house. Unfortunately, I made the dumbass mistake of casing the house at night, and Stone caught me.” He stopped pacing to rest his forehead against the steel and closed his good eye. His normally healthy tan had leached away, leaving him pale beneath the bruises that spotted his broad shoulders. “Next thing I knew, I was in this cage, slowly starving to death. You and those bombs are the only hope we have of stopping him now.”

Well, at least it was a plan. A crazy plan, but a plan. Hope scrubbed her hands over her face. They were trembling hard now. “So what do I do?”

FROM MILD TO WILD: CREATING SEX SCENES THAT ARE MORE THAN THE SAME OLD BUMP AND GRIND

Here's a sample lesson from my class on writing love scenes
Introduction:

By Angela Knight

If there’s one aspect of romance that we as a genre have trouble with, it’s love scenes. After all, many of us grew up being told that when it comes to sex, “Good Girls Don’t.” Or if they do, they’re not supposed to like it.

In reality, I think we’d all agree that a sexless marriage would be arid and dysfunctional. Not to mention doomed; what man is going to put up with a wife who doesn’t like sex? Yes, he may love her, but if she hates his body and hers to that extent, somebody’s in desperate need of some serious therapy. And what kind of husband would force his wife to do something she hated? I think the technical term for that is “rapist.”

We don’t publish that sort of thing anymore.

Of course, you could create a heroine who is sexually screwed up to that extent, but readers would expect her to have her head on straight by the end of the book. Otherwise, your couple is not going to get that promised “Happily Ever After.”

Thus we have to assume our heroines like sex with their handsome heroes, no matter how virginal they may be, even in sweet romances where the bedroom door remains firmly closed.

So our heroines do enjoy sex.

It’s romance novelists who don’t.

Or at least, many of us don’t like writing about it. All together now: “It’s just Tab A in Slot B!”
I’ll grant you, the mechanics of sliding Tab A into Slot B may be the same, but only if you leave out characterization, emotion and the development of the romance.

My husband and I have been married for 26 years now, and I have no idea how many times we’ve made love. But every single time is different, depending on what happened that day, what mood we’re in, and what we decide to do to spice things up.

Strawberries, anyone? Whipped cream? No chocolate, though: it gave me a rash last time....

THE CRAFT OF LOVE

As a writer, I pride myself on writing love scenes that are vivid and emotionally intense. Readers read romance because they want to experience – or re-experience – the humming thrill of falling in love with an incredible, sensual man.

In fact, romance novelists who expect to find success must pay more attention to love scenes now than ever before. The newest generation of readers were raised on MTV and Sex in the City, and they do not expect us to primly hold back because we’re afraid of being called sluts. They want us to show them what amazing lovers our heroes are, not just tell them that everybody had a really good time. What’s more, editors know that, and they’re looking for writers who are not afraid to deliver.

But selling books is not the only reason to write good sex. Love scenes provide writers with a way to depict emotional intimacy and romantic intensity with a power that can’t be achieved in any other way.

What’s the first law of writing good fiction? “Show, don’t tell.” There is no better place to show the sweet flowering of a romance than in bed. That’s where our characters are most naked – and not just physically.

Think about it. Why do sex scandals grab headlines? It’s because we all know that a person’s core character is revealed by what he does in bed – or in a men’s room. He can make speeches about family values all he wants, but if he says he’s hiking the Appalachian Trail when he's not, we know what’s really going on in his head.

The way our heroes and heroines make love tells us volumes about what they think of themselves and the opposite sex. If they’re tender and concerned for the other person’s pleasure, that says something. If, on the other hand, all your hero is interested in is his next orgasm, that says something too.

Even more revealing is the way in which his lovemaking changes throughout the course of the book. Yes, he may know how to make a woman’s toes curl from page one, but how does making love to this particular heroine effect him? Does his concern for her pleasure increase until his focus is solely on her joy rather than his own? That says volumes about his evolution as a hero. And it also tells you a great deal about how the romance has grown.

GROWING THE ROMANCE

Every scene in a romance must do one of three things: develop the characters, develop the internal or external conflicts, or develop the romance. Otherwise it should be cut.

That definitely includes the love scenes. You can write the most sizzling scene ever put on paper, but if all it does is give the reader a thrill, it should be either rewritten or cut.
If there’s one mistake I see erotic romance writers make, that’s it: love scenes that don’t do anything. Sex scenes that are only there to give the reader a buzz may be fine in porn, but that’s not what we’re writing.

The focus in a romance is always the romance: the growth of love between two people, with all its rocky missteps and luscious pleasures.

Which is why traditional romances with three-page generic love scenes are every bit as bad as pointless erotica. If you’re including a love scene solely because your editor demands it, you’re doing something wrong. And you’re missing a golden opportunity to advance your story.

It’s my intention with this class to demonstrate how to craft love scenes that make your romance truly romantic.

Over the next month, I will post a total of fourteen lessons, one each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You are welcome to ask questions whenever you like, and I will do my best to answer.

Lessons will include:

The three functions of love scenes in romance
Character development
Heroes
Heroines
Mapping the romance with love scenes
The First encounter
Middle encounters
Last love scene of the book
Conflict
Creating appropriate levels of sensuality, whether for erotic romance or traditional
Sensual detail
C, F and P words – what language should a romance writer use?
Conclusion

I hope you find the class useful, as well as good fun.

Now, if you'd like to sign up for the class, it will cost $20 for non-members of Colorado Romance Writers, which is hosting the class. Members will pay $15. Class lessons will be posted in a special online forum, where you can also ask questions. You can have the lessons mailed to you too.

If you want to sign up, you can do that here:
http://www.coloradoromancewriters.org/

Click the workshop tab, which will take you to the sign-up area.

Thanks so much for your interest in my class!

Angela Knight

I'm teaching a class on writing erotic romance!

Hi, guys! A lot of people have asked about my class on writing erotic romance. I'm going to be teaching a new class in May. Here's information from Passionate Ink, the RWA chapter on erotic romance, which I'm teaching the class for. You don't have to be a Passionate Ink member to join.



Special workshop to fund the Passionate Ink Perseverance Fund* – WRITING EROTIC ROMANCE with Angela Knight May 3, 2010 – May 31, 2010 $25
In this class, New York Times bestselling author Angela Knight will discuss the techniques of writing erotic romance she used to make the leap to New York publication. She’ll cover creating heroes heroines and villains for erotic romance, as well as how to structure a plot that combines sexuality, sensuality and conflict to create a story readers can’t put down. She will discuss creating intense internal, external and romantic plots for erotic romance, as well as how to write multiple love scenes in such a way that each one is different and advances the plot.

About the presenter : Angela Knight is the New York Times bestselling author of books for Berkley, Red Sage, Changeling Press, and Loose Id. Her first book was written in pencil and illustrated in crayon; she was nine years old at the time. A few years later, she read The Wolf and the Dove and fell in love with romance. Besides her fiction work, Angela’s publishing career includes a stint as a comic book writer and ten years as a newspaper reporter. Several of her stories won South Carolina Press Association awards under her real name.

In 1996, she discovered the small press publisher Red Sage, and realized her dream of romance publication in the company’s Secrets 2 anthology. She went on to publish several more novellas in Secrets before editor Cindy Hwang discovered her work there and asked her if she’d be interested in writing for Berkley. Not being an idiot, Angela said yes.

Whatever success she has enjoyed, she attributes to the marvelous editors she’s had over the years. David Anthony Kraft and Dwight Zimmerman at Comics Interview taught her the nuts and bolts of fiction writing. Alexandria Kendall of Red Sage discovered her talent for romance writing and encouraged her to believe in herself. And she will be forever grateful to Berkley editor Cindy Hwang, who has been unfailingly supportive.

Angela lives in South Carolina with her husband, Michael, a polygraph examiner and hostage negotiator for the county’s Sheriff’s Office. The couple have a grown son, Anthony.

You can find out more about Angela at her website – http://www.angelasknights.com/

For more information: workshopchair@passionateink.org

To Pay Online : Using PayPal (PayPal), send payment to perseverance@passionateink.org with “WORKSHOP – Perseverance” as the subject. In the “message” section, include Your Name and Email Address.
Cost: $25 To pay by check, print this page and send with a check to Passionate Ink Workshops – Perseverance c/o Robin L. Rotham P.O. Box 2412 Norfolk, NE 68701

*100% of all entry fees from this workshop will go to fund the Passionate Ink Perseverance Fund. The purpose of the fund is to assist those RWA members who may be facing difficulties paying their Passionate Ink chapter dues. Payments from the fund will be governed by the chapter’s bylaws, and policies and procedures manual. All funding will come from directed donations.

Thanks!

Angela Knight

HOT FOR THE HOLIDAYS

On Sept. 29, the anthology HOT FOR THE HOLIDAYS will be out. It features novellas by me, Lora Leigh, Anya Bast and Allyson James. My story, "Vampire's Ball," should be interesting for people who like the Mageverse series, since it kicks off the next Mageverse story arc.

The story also features Grace and Lancelot, from previous stories. I'm pretty excited about it. Here's a little blurb:

Kat Danilo’s childhood turned tragic when her sister become the victim of a serial killer. Years later, she gets a chance at justice when she discovers she’d the daughter of Lancelot, vampire knight of the Round Table. But first, she’s got to convince a handsome vampire warrior that she’s worthy to gain the magical powers that are her birthright – powers that might help her find her sister’s killer.

If the murderer doesn’t find her first....

****
And an excerpt:

She rose on her tiptoes, caught the back of his neck, and drew his head down until she could reach his mouth. It was a surprisingly tender kiss, less an act of passion than an offer of comfort.

Her lips felt exquisitely soft as they brushed over his, a delicate seduction. She started to draw back.

Ridge caught her nape, felt the cool silk of her short hair against his fingers, impossibly soft. Opening his lips, he deepened the kiss, drinking in her taste, savoring the sweet comfort she offered.

Kat responded with a tiny moan, a whimper of breath against his mouth. She leaned into him, the silk of her gown warm from her body, her breasts lush and full against his chest. Her long legs moved restlessly, brushing his thighs.

Her scent filled his head, some delicate perfume tinged with jasmine. And beneath that, the heady musk of female arousal. He hardened in a hot, sweet rush, his balls going tight.

Vampire hearing picked up the rush of her pulse, the sea tide of her blood. His fangs slid from their housing in his jaw. He bent his head, nuzzling, and she tilted her chin, giving him access to the big, pulsing vein . . .

What the hell am I doing? The thought blew through the smoky heat of his arousal, chill as a sudden draft. Ridge blinked.

Oh, hell, he was losing it. If he didn’t stop this, he’d be balls-deep in her and coming before he knew what hit him.

And that was a really bad idea. Tempting, yes—Merlin’s Cup, he was tempted—but there was no way he could maintain his objectivity if he banged the girl.

No, not banged, a voice whispered from the back of his brain. Nothing with this woman would be as simple as a bang. Kat Danilo wasn’t the kind of woman a man used for meaningless physical release. She might draw you in with that pretty body, but she’d snare you tight with her intelligence, with her questing mind and dry wit. Not to mention the subtler temptations of shared grief.

That might be the most dangerous snare of all.

SKYKEEPERS

My buddy Jessica Andersen has a new book out this week, and I'd like to encourage y'all to take a look. I love Jess's work, and I think you will too.

Hey gang! Today we’re talking about a new release and recommended read, Jessica Andersen’s SKYKEEPERS.

Check out the video trailer: www.youtube.com/user/DocJess1

The word from the back cover …

Ancient prophecy holds that 12/21/2012 will bring a global cataclysm. Mankind’s only hope lies with the Nightkeepers, modern magic-wielding warriors who must find their destined mates and fulfill the legends to defeat the rise of terrible Mayan demons.

In Skykeepers, Michael Stone is a man with a dark secret that has skewed his magical abilities dangerously toward the underworld. Seeking redemption, he sets out on a perilous mission to save the daughter of Ambrose Ledbetter, a renowned Mayanist who died before he could reveal the location of a hidden library. The Nightkeepers must find the library before their enemies gain access to its valuable cache of spells and prophecies.

Sasha Ledbetter grew up hearing heroic tales of an ancient group of powerful magi who were destined to save the world from destruction. She never expected that her bedtime stories would come to life in the form of Nightkeeper Michael Stone, or that she’d hold the key to the warrior’s survival. As Sasha and Michael join forces to prevent the imminent battle, sparks of attraction ignite between them, and they’re forced to confront the unexpected passion that brings them together … and also tears them apart.

And an excerpt!

He’d thought he’d steeled himself for the familiar kick of attraction, the lust that hadn’t faded with their becoming lovers. But need hit him hard the moment he saw her stretched on her tiptoes to return a bowl to a high shelf, her midriff-cropped tee riding up, yoga pants riding down, the two exposing a strip of her taut, strong abdomen, with the soft lines of muscle on either side of her navel, where a trio of freckles drew his eye.

She turned slowly, and when she met his eyes, he saw a reflection of the burning heat that churned in his gut. “Well?” she said softly.

His body moved almost without conscious volition around the pass-through and into the kitchen, where he stopped close enough to catch her light scent over the cooking smells, close enough to distinguish the heat of her body from that of the stove. “What’s cooking?”

She handed over the mug she’d been sipping from. “It’s something I’ve been playing with.”

He knew she had magic in the kitchen, knew she wielded flavors with the deftness of a trained chef and the inspiration of a mage, but still he was unprepared for what hit his taste buds the moment he took a sip. Sensations exploded across his neurons in a blaze of heat, texture, and taste that had him sucking in a breath. There was chocolate, yes, but it was more savory than sweet, taken away from the realm of dessert by a mix of peppers and salt, and things he wouldn’t even begin to match with chocolate, but that somehow matched perfectly. He sucked in a breath. “Holy crap.” Took another sip and rolled it around in his mouth, closing his eyes briefly as the flavors changed subtly, the peppers mellowing to something else. “Nice,” he said, and this time his tone was one of reverence. “Very nice.”

“That,” she said with evident satisfaction, “was exactly what I was going for.”

Eyes still closed, he felt her trying to take the mug back, and tightened his fingers on it. “Leave it,” he said. “I’m at your mercy. Anything you want. Just ask.”

He’d said it partly in play, but also because he remembered what she’d told him back in the beginning, on her first day at Skywatch. I cook when I’m happy or sad, when I’m celebrating with friends or all alone with my thoughts. Which of those things applied now?

He felt the air shift, felt her indrawn breath as his own, but instead of “we need to talk” or any of the female warning signs experience had taught him to expect, she surprised him by leaning in and touching her lips to his.

The kiss was as unexpected as the hint of pepper and spice he tasted amidst the chocolate on her lips, in her mouth. Setting aside his mug, he deepened the kiss, relieved to let it be easy even though a small part of him said it shouldn’t be so easy, that he was skimming the surface of something he needed to be diving into. But then she shifted her hands, sliding them up his chest to link behind his neck and tug him closer, pressing her body to his, and the vibe went true, singing inside his skull with the warm sparkle of red-gold magic.

“Come back to bed,” he said against her mouth. “We’ve got a few more hours to burn.”

***

What reviewers are saying about SKYKEEPERS:

“… intricate and compelling … I can hear their voices, feel their thoughts, and yes, music plays. Seriously, there is a soundtrack going on in my mind and I see her world in Technicolor.” Romance Novel TV

“An exciting, romantic and imaginative tale … guaranteed to keep readers entertained
and turning the pages.” Romance Reviews Today

“… a compelling and passionate lovestory.” (4 1/2 stars) Romantic Times Magazine

In stores everywhere! FMI, check out www.JessicaAndersen.com

AK

My Dad

Hi, y'all. I hope you'll forgive me for some shameless Dad Promotion. He's a builder in South Carolina, and he's been building gorgeous houses for 40 years. Unfortunately, the market sucks dead frogs. He's not really computer savvy, so my sister and I coaxed him into hiring Creations by Kendra to design a new website. Here it is -- What do you think?

http://www.paulkleebuilder.com/

My new Mageverse novel!

I've been getting a lot of questions from people wondering if I'm going to continue the Mageverse series. As a matter of fact, I'm currently hard at work on MASTER OF FIRE, which features the Logan MacRoy, the son of King Arthur and Guinevere.

I really like this guy. He was inspired by a real person, Lt. Ashely Harris, forensic chemist with the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office. Ashley is a good friend of my husband, and he's also a really cool human being. Most forensic chemists for Southern departments just test drugs, but Ashley is also a member of the bomb squad and an arson investigator. He also helps out on my husband's hostage negotiation cases by driving the department's 400-pound robot. (Which is operated by remote control.) He uses the robot to deliver phones to hostage takers or handle bombs.)

At one hostage case, the hostage taker was threatening to shoot the robot. Ashley, using the robot's PA system, said, "Man, let me get my robot out of here! Don't shoot me! I'm just the robot driver!" The guy let the robot go, and they got him to surrender.

Ashley's birthday was last week. One of his friends had a banner made with the words, "I'm just the robot driver!" There was also another sentence: "19 second man." I need to find out what that means.

Anyway, Ashely let me spend a week following him around on his job. He showed me the robot and the huge green bomb suit, (designed to be worn while disabling bombs.) He showed me how to test cocaine and crack and meth samples, and spent hours helping me design death traps for my hero and heroine to face. Yesterday we came up with a truly horrible situation which should have readers on the edge of their seats.

And when he's not doing all that, he builds Habitat For Humanity houses with his church youth group. And runs with his wife, who is a marathon runner.

What a cool guy, huh?

Oh, by the way -- my next book will be coming out on May 5. It's the second book of the TIME HUNTERS series, and I think you'll really like it. More about that later.

Best,
Angela Knight

Angela Knight teaches an Action Sequences Workshop!

Hey, guys! I will be teaching an online workshop on writing action sequences in April. If you'd like to sign up, it's here:

http://www.carolinaromancewriters.com/

Hope you'll join me. Should be a good class. I've never taught this one before, so it will be new material.

Angela Knight

Making a living wage as an e-book author

By Angela Knight

One of the hardest problems for writers is the question of how to support yourself. I am going to be blunt, based on my experience as a writer over the past 12 years.

First off, writing is not a way to get rich quick. Some really lucky people – like me – are able to support themselves really, really well as writers, but the majority are not that fortunate.

I have been writing erotic romance professionally for 12 years. Of those 12 years, I have only been able to support the family on my income for the past three. The other nine was spent getting to this point. Then there were the eight years prior to that when I was working intensively on learning how to write romance and erotic romance and getting my work rejected.

Yeah, you’re right. That’s 20 years of work.

Now, the point of this blog is not to tell you that your dreams are a waste of time, or that you won’t be a success for 20 years, because I do not believe that. What I want to do is tell you what I discovered by trial and error that worked for me, so you can do these things NOW and make your dreams come true a little faster.

So here goes.

First, learning to write takes time. People look at your average category romance and think, “Boy, this is a piece of crap. I could do this. Hey, romances are just a formula, right? Just plug in a girl and a boy, and sex, and at the end they get married and live happily ever after. I write that and boom-ya – I’ll make a ton of money.”

Yeah, people say that. But people are IDIOTS. As they quickly discover when they write that simple formula and it gets rejected by every editor in New York. A good story involves writing smooth, clean, clear prose that is lyrical enough to be interesting; heroes and heroines with internal, external and romantic conflicts just serious enough to be resolved in the story’s length; minor characters who complicate the heroes’ lives; a villain who appears too powerful to be defeated, and yet who IS defeated believably; and a romance that inspires the reader and causes her to dream.

That’s a lot of stuff to do in 400 pages. Doing it well is even harder. So you need to practice shorter pieces that are simpler to do. My first published work was a three-book comic book mini-series, which is about as stripped down as prose gets.

Write a series of 20-page love scenes, then stories about a character solving a particular problem in 20 pages. That will teach you a lot, because once you can do a 20-page story that works emotionally, you have jumped the first hurdle. Then SAVE those stories, because you can use them later.

Then write longer stories – 50 pages, 100 pages, 200, 400. Learn how to construct a plot for longer lengths.

Join a critique group online. In my case, I did this in 1990, which was before the widespread Internet. I found a bulletin board for erotica writers called Cat 9. I submitted my stories and read other people’s stories, and I listened to the reaction I got. I paid attention to the criticism and worked on making my stories more erotic. I read and critiqued other people’s stories and learned from THEIR mistakes.

I wrote about 20 or so short stories for Cat 9, and I had a ball doing it.

Then in 1995, I saw a flyer at a convention for a little company called Red Sage, which was acquiring erotic romance novellas for a collection called SECRETS. I had just had a crushing rejection from a Harlequin editor, so I was really depressed. But I thought, “Hey, I know I can write erotica! Why not give it a shot?” So I did. Within a week, I got a delighted call from the publisher, Alexandria Kendall, who bought the novella. I proceeded to sell her several more novellas and a novel. This started building the core of my fan base.

Then in 2001, I started a very, very small Yahoo group (only 25 people at first). I took all those kinky short stories for Cat 9 and posted them on my yahoo group. All the sudden, people started joining my group in droves. Today there are almost 2000 people on that group. Give people free erotica, and they will come. The addy is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/angelaknight/

I had to take the stories down eventually, because I sold them to Berkley in a two-book deal that will eventually be published under another name. Not bad for a bunch of smut I wrote as a learning exercise.

Now, that little yahoo group helped me in another way. When I stared publishing e-books, I’d announce that a book was coming out, and every soul on my Yahoo group would flood the site and buy the book. This was really early in e-pubbing, so at that time, 100 sales in a day was a serious triumph. In fact, my group has been known to break shopping carts. I am proud of that.

My first e-book was called BODICE RIPPERS, published by Renaissance E-books. It was, by the way, my three favorite Cat 9 stories, rewritten. My publisher e-mailed me the day the book came out, astonished, because my group pounced on Renaissance and bought the hell out of it. I was very pleased.

I didn’t make a lot of money off it, but packaging those stories was the smartest thing I ever did.

A month later, my publisher e-mailed me again. “Hey, somebody from Penguin Putnam just bought your book.” It turned out to be Cindy Hwang, who had read my Secrets books from Red Sage. She was looking somebody who could write romance in a hot, erotic way, and BODICE RIPPERS convinced her I could do that. She later said something to the effect of, “If you could make those pieces of smut romantic, you can write erotic romance.”

She e-mailed me and asked if I’d like to write for Berkley. I, of course, said yes. I submitted two story ideas I wrote THAT WEEKEND, and she bought them. (All that practice writing stories paid off in allowing me to brainstorm the ideas really fast.) Those ideas became the Mageverse series and the Warlord series, and now I’m making a hell of a lot of money off both of them.

My point is that none of the short stories I wrote was a waste of time. I learned from writing those stories, building my writing skill. Then I used those stories and the Internet to build my fan base, which was one of the things that attracted Cindy Hwang. She figured if I could build a good fan base with the small exposure I had, I could build an even bigger one with the big print runs of New York.

You can do the same thing. You just have to be willing to work.

Take your short erotic fiction to publishers like Changeling Press, which specializes in works of 12,000 words or about 50 pages. http://www.changelingpress.com/ Buy a couple of their e-books, see what they publish and if your work fits. Follow their submission guidelines here: http://www.changelingpress.com/submissions.php

I like Changeling because they publish short works, they have good editors, and they won’t screw you. This is a key point, because a lot of authors have been screwed by publishers (including me.) You want an honest one.

Next, you need to concentrate on getting a lot of books written. Write five pages a day every day, and write as many books as you can back to back. Writing is like everything else: you get better with practice.

If you would like detailed advice on writing, there are a lot of books out there. One of them is by me: PASSIONATE INK: A GUIDE TO WRITING EROTIC ROMANCE, here:
http://www.amazon.com/Passionate-Ink-Writing-Erotic-Romance/dp/1596323906/ref=sr_1_41?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232300373&sr=8-41.

The more books you write, the faster you write them (as long as you don’t sacrifice quality for speed) – the more chances you give readers to discover your books. Then once they read one of your books, they’ll go out and buy more.

The first month an e-book is out is when you make the most money. Back several years ago, I’d make about $800 that first month a book was out. (Most e-publishers pay monthly, instead of every six months, like print pubs.)

After that, I found I’d make about $100 a month per book. So to support myself, I figured I’d need about 20 e-books out to make $2000 a month.

Back before she became a New York author Lora Leigh was the Nora Roberts of e-publishing. She had a lot of books and a huge fan base, and she made serious money as an e-book author. That’s really the key.

So work your ass off. Find a publisher like Changeling or Loose Id at http://www.loose-id.net/ (They’re great for longer fiction.) Get yourself a yahoo group, give away stories to build your readership, then write a lot of books. And use the internet, which is the best low-cost advertising means possible to promote your books.

You’ll probably need a day job to support yourself, but eventually, you will find yourself with a very nice second source of income. I can’t tell you whether you’ll be able to support yourself solely off your writing, because that’s up to you. It’s certainly possible.

Best of luck!

Angela Knight

Piracy

Recently, I've read the discussion that says downloading pirated e-books is no different from taking a book to a used bookstore, or checking out a book from the library.

This is faulty reasoning.

The difference between USBs and Libraries and Pirate sites is that libraries and whoever took the book to the USB bought the book. It's ONE COPY. That $7 was paid, regardless of whether it sits on the original buyer's shelf or in the hands of library or USB patrons.

When somebody pirates a book, the book can be copied ENDLESSLY on thousands and thousands of computers. It's more like making photocopies and giving them away. The authors get no money for any of those pirated copies.

You have to remember: somebody like me makes damn good money, and piracy really doesn't hurt me that much.

But when you start talking about pirating some poor author who gets paid $100 a month in royalties, she's taking it up the ass. And make no mistake: that's all most e-book authors make a month. A few make good money, but most don't, particularly new authors.

Fuck me over if you want to. But DON'T fuck over that poor little author, because she's not making any money to begin with.

And these little e-pubs are now struggling desperately in the current rotten economy. Piracy can sink these little pubs very easily.

So if you download pirated books, you are contributing to the destruction of the very thing you love -- the ability of creators to create fine fiction. Yes, anybody can write a story and put it on a website, but it's not going to get edited by a professional, it will suffer in quality, and creators will not have the chance to learn from the process of working with a professional editor. Do NOT discount the value of editors to writers. The ultimate difference professional input makes in quality is like comparing something somebody puts on You Tube to GONE WITH THE WIND.

Another thing: let's say everybody gets pirated books, and ALL the pubs go under. People like me would have to find full time jobs doing something else, and all you would get out of my ass is short stories I write at night when I'm not working at Walmart.

Currently, I give money to CARE, to various other charities, and every fricking relative I have, from my son to my paralyzed brother in law. All that goes away. The classes I teach when I go to writer's chapters go away, because I could not afford to travel.

This is not idle speculation, because piracy has done serious damage to the music industry. Record stores have gone out of business; the CD selection in stores like BEST BUY is shrinking. I make a point of buying music. I REFUSE to go to pirate sites because eventually, you can make it impossible for these companies to make any money at all. They will go under. I do buy music at iTunes, and I often buy entire albums. It's a way to make sure artists can keep producing.

So don't steal from artists, whether it's downloading pirated books, music or movies. It's stealing, and eventually you will destroy the very artists whose work you enjoy.

AK tries a new writing technique.

Hi, gang. I found a fantastic book at Barnes and Noble called "First Draft in 30 Days" by Karen Wiesner.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Draft-Days-Karen-Wiesner/dp/1582972966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225885819&sr=8-1

is the link for Amazon.

The reason I bought this book is that I'm a plotter. I normally write one sentence for every scene that I plan for a book. In my last book, GUARDIAN, which I just turned in (Yay, me!) The plot did help, but then when I hit several of the scene, the book came to a screeching halt for a day or two while I brainstormed my way out of it.

So I started reading this book, hoping for a way to improve my productivity. I'm convinced that writing more books, better and faster, is the key to success. It seems that the authors that are really popular are productive as well as skilled.

(Many of them seem to be pantsers, too, but I simply can't pants. I've tried, and my muse doesn't work that way.)

The premise of this book is how to create a really detailed plot in a month. It's not a book in a month kind of thing. I've never been able to do book in a month. But this book gives you a schedule and technique to create characters, do a rough plot, then research, then add more and more detail to your plot until you know the details. You can then read and evaluate the plot and find any weaknesses that would keep the book from working.

In the end, you have a long plot about a fourth the length of your full manuscript. By plotting this way, you work out many of the missing details so you can blow through the book. I'm currently plotting a novella this way as an experiment, and it seems to be going well.

One of the techniques it suggests is to look for photos of settings, such as your characters' bedrooms, living rooms, etc. This is appealing to me, because I've always found it difficult to come up with good descriptions of locations that don't sound like what I've used before. I'm even rendering pics and storyboards of characters and scenes. The hope there is to help me solidify the story in my mind.

One of the new tricks I discovered was I did some long drives to Charlotte, which is 90 minutes from my town. That long drive gave my muse time to come up with all kinds of juicy details. The conflict I've come up with feels really strong. Too, one of the ideas I've come up with is the core of a new Mageverse arc for the next several books of the series.

Yesterday I finished character sketches for my hero, heroine and primary villain. I like the romantic conflict I've developed, and the interpersonal conflicts feel good.

I'll continue to blog on my progress and tell you how it goes. Thanks!

Oh, this novella will be in a Christmas anthology for 2009. I don't even know the title or release date yet. But I can tell you the story is currently called "Vampire's Ball." The core idea is that during the Dragon War (which we saw in MASTER OF DRAGONS), many of the Magekind were killed. So Arthur has decided to do a recruiting drive. The Magekind is holding a ball, to which they've invited a large number of Latents they believe can survive the transition. The latents are also expected to face a series of challenges. This will give me a chance for appearances by heroes from previous books, such as Kel and Reece Champion. The hero of the book is a Ridge Champion, a descendant of Reece's. His job is to work with heroine Katherine Danilo, a latent who is a fitness instructor.

Katherine has very good reason to become a latent, but at first Ridge thinks she's one of those who just wants to become an immortal witch. He soon discovers her motives are far more powerful -- and dark -- than that.

Anyway, I will keep you posted on the progress on my book!

Angela Knight

Angela Knight

Angela Knight tours Michigan!

I'm going to be participating in a bus tour of Michigan's Wal-Marts. If you live in the area, you're more than welcome to come meet me. And there will be lots more authors there too, including Cherry Adair, among many others. It's going to be lots of fun!

DETROIT, MI
Friday, September 19

10:30 AM to 11:30 AM
Signing MEIJER #21 Kalamazoo
5800 Gull Road
Kalamazoo, MI 49001

3:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Signing MEIJER #50 Cascade
5531 28th Street SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49512

5:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Signing MEIJER #158 Knapps Corner
1997 E. Beltline NE
Grand Rapids, MI 49525


LANSING, MI
Saturday, September 20

10:30 AM to 12:00 PM
Signing MEIJER #25 Lansing
2055 W. Grand River Avenue
Okemos, MI 48864

3:00 PM to 4:30 PM
Signing MEIJER #173 Ann Arbor
5645 Jackson Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

4:30-4:55 PM
MEIJER #32 Canton
45001 Ford Road
Canton, MI 48187

DETROIT, MI
Sunday, September 21


10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Signing MEIJER #57 Rochester Hills
3175 Rochester Road
Rochester, MI 48307

12:15 PM to 1:45 PM
Signing MEIJER #34 Royal Oak
5150 Coolidge Highway
Royal Oak, MI 48073


3:30 PM to 5:00 PM
Signing MEIJER #67 Monroe
1700 Telegraph Road
Monroe, MI 48162


AUTHOR ROSTER FOR 2008 BUS TOUR

Cherry Adair
C.T. Adams
Jessica Andersen
Allison Brennan
Kathryn Caskie
Cathy Clamp
Colleen Coble
Kresley Cole
Jordan Dane
Deeanne Gist
Tom Grace
Kristan Higgins
Elizabeth Hoyt
Angela Knight
Leslie Langtry
Jade Lee
Robert Liparulo
Susan Mallery
Monica McInerney
Sophia Nash
Brenda Novak
Deborah Raleigh
Victoria Rowell
Gena Showalter
Chip St. Clair
Roxanne St. Claire
Sherry Thomas

The deadline is approaching for Angela Knight's August onlline writing class

If you're interested, I'm teaching my next online class beginning in August for the Kiss of Death chapter of RWA. It costs $30 for non-members of the chapter. You don't need to be a member of RWA or Kiss of Death, though KOD members only have to pay $15. You need to sign up by July 27, 2008 to get in. You pay via paypal. There will be thirteen lessons, presented on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. You can find the class here:

http://rwamysterysuspense.org/2008killerinstinctsaug.html

To participate, you'll be sent a link to the class's yahoo group after you give your paypal payment. There is no set time or chatroom involved. You read the lessons and ask questions via e-mail, which I also answer via e-mail. You will also be able to download the lessons to your computer from the files section of the group and keep them.

Please note that I have presented "Dangerously Sexy: Putting Heat As Well As Danger in Your Romantic Suspense" before. However, I'm going to do a rewrite on it, and probably add some material to boot. And I will answer questions, which can be asked anytime, not just on days I'm giving the lesson.

Here's the Introduction of the class as a sample:

Dangerously Sexy: An Introduction

First, I'd like to thank you for signing up for my Kiss of Death class, "Dangerously Sexy: Putting Heat as Well as Danger in your Romantic Suspense." I hope you find it as useful and informative as the KOD classes I've taken since myself.

Putting sizzle in your romantic suspense is a topic I'm definitely familiar with. I'm the author of eight novels and more then twenty novellas that incorporate a blend of erotic romance and suspense. The combination has been an effective one for me. My books have hit a number of bestseller lists, including USA Today and Publisher's Weekly. My last novel, Warrior, is a New York Times bestseller.

This, however, is not a class on writing erotic romance. My intent here is to help you learn to use sensuality and sexuality - which are not the same thing - to give your romantic suspense more realism and power.

Sex is enormously powerful in human relationships, but it's often dismissed by romance writers as annoying and boring to write.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that we've all heard our genre dismissed as soft core porn for women. There's a temptation to say "But our books are not really about sex." Actually, it would be more accurate to say that they're about a lot more than sex. Sex is an inextricable part of romance, because like it or not, all romantic relationships are at their core sexual. If you ignore that dimension of your characters' relationship, you deny yourself and the reader key scenes of character interaction and development that are integral to the romance.

Another factor is that writers sometimes dislike writing sex because they're not comfortable with it. They've been taught that "good girls DON'T." But to pull off a good sex scene, you have to be totally honest in portraying the act of love in all its passion. That means revealing that you and your heroine DO like sex, and that can be really frightening. After all, you're talking about something very private, which you may have been taught not to discuss at all. What if people think you're kinky? What if – Oh, GOD – your mother, kids or preacher reads your book?

Thus it's often emotionally safer for writers to write one really mechanical love scene where the characters have sex in the missionary position for three pages with as little sexual detail as possible. No wonder people hate writing scenes like that.

The key is, don't worry about what this scene says about you. Hard as this might be to believe, it's not about you – it's about the COUPLE. How do THEY experience making love? Be honest. Do you really think this passionate, gorgeous, heroic young couple is going to thrust at each other three times in the dark, climax, and then roll over and go to sleep? A scene like that cheats the readers, the romance – and YOU, as an artist.

So tell it like it REALLY is.

Real artists take risks, folks. Great artists are brutally honest about what their characters feel, whether or not it's politically correct, whether or not Mother and the kids like it. If you're worried about it, do what I did: make a deal with Mother and the kids. "My books have scenes that are sexually explicit. I don't feel comfortable with you reading them." I pretty much guarantee that neither your mother or your kids WANT to read any sex scene you've written. Mine don't.

If you're really paranoid, use a pen name and refuse to tell anybody what it is. I did that too for a while.

But no matter what solution you arrive at, have the guts to show your characters' passion in all its emotional intensity. It's not easy, but if you really want to write a book that blows away readers and editors alike, that's what you have to do.

Which is why the porn accusation never fails to irritate me. As I've said more than once, "If it was nothing but porn, I wouldn't have to work so hard at it."

My objective in these classes is to demonstrate the techniques of writing deliciously romantic sexual encounters that also advance plot and characterization.

In our next three classes I will discuss the creation and motivation of heroes, heroines and villains and their respective attitudes toward sexuality. How can you construct these characters to maximize conflict?

Next we'll talk about creating a strong romantic suspense plot while simultaneously motivating sex and romance believably. After all, thinking about sex when someone's shooting at you is a little dumb.

In week three, we'll talk about the nuts and bolts of writing a highly sensual love scene. We'll explore ways to build romantic conflict during love scenes, and we'll dissect a love scene to see what makes it work.

In week four, we'll discuss language - just what do we call all these body parts anyway? We'll also talk about violence and sex - how far is too far? And finally, we'll look at building a believable Happily Ever After ending that pays off everything that went before.

Feel free to ask questions. I will be more than happy to answer, or at the very least, find an answer for you.

Best,
Angela Knight

TIME HUNTERS: GUARDIAN

Thought I'd share a little about how things have changed on the TIME HUNTERS series. I had originally intended to do five books, but I developed a killer case of writer's block, and realized it was because I couldn't figure out how to plot that many books. So now it's going to be a three book series instead.

If you've read WARRIOR, you know that I included the first chapter of a new book called ENFORCER. As it happens, I couldn't get that book off the ground no matter what I did. Just wasn't working. And I was pulling my hair out.

About the same time I was struggling with that, my gallbladder went south. It's a side effect of gastric bypass, basically. The gallbladder stores gall for use when you eat fatty foods. If you don't eat much fat, the gall hangs out and turns into stones. Which then get shot out when you eat something like a hamburger. This is excruciating. First time it happened, I honest to God thought I was having a heart attack. My surgeon told me I was going to have to have the gallbladder out. I didn't much want to do that, but after five or six attacks in the course of a month, I decided pain sux. So out it came.

Now, I had to go on hydrocodone, (AKA Vicodin or Loratab.) First because of the pain of those damn stones, then because of the surgery, which HURT, then because my back went out because I was favoring my abdominal muscles.

(By the way, I developed a thankfully brief addiction to that shit, which I kicked by going cold turkey as soon as I realized I was hooked. Jesus, that was scary. DO NOT TAKE THAT CRAP one second longer than you have to. It's evil. Getting off it was no fun, either. The first three days I was miserable, because I craved the damn stuff so BAD. But I refused to get the prescription refilled, and now the craving is, thank God, gone.)

But while I was floating in my fluffy pink hydrocodone fog, Nick Wyatt came to call. Nick is absolutely the sexiest freaking hero I think I've ever created. He's half Xeran (Yes, the evil bad guys in the series) and he has cool psychic powers. To be honest, he was inspired more than a little by Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, except sexier. HA!

Thing was, I knew he wasn't the hero of ENFORCER. I also knew that if I put him in ENFORCER -- and I tried -- he would take the book right over. He was that hot. So I talked to Cindy Hwang, my editor goddess. Somewhat to my surprise, she told me to drop ENFORCER and do Nick's book next. ENFORCER will be the third book; Dona and Alerio will get their story, just not the way I originally planned it.

So now I'm writing GUARDIAN, which stars Nick and Riane Arvid, Jane and Baran's daughter. (Jane and Baran being the couple from JANE'S WARLORD.) I am really stoked about this book, and I think the fans are going to love Nick. I'm already in love with him.

In other news -- WARRIOR made the New York Times list! I am SO excited. Oh, yeah! Doing the dance of joy!

Anyway, wish me luck on GUARDIAN. Thanks!

Angela Knight

The function of Love Scenes

By Angela Knight

There seems to be a perception among some that titillation is the main purpose of love scenes in romance novels. In reality, such scenes are a powerful means to explore and deepen the emotional relationship between the hero and heroine, to intensify the romantic conflict, and to develop both characters.

In order to take advantage of that innate power, a writer should make sure she has a good sense of the internal and external goals, motivations and conflicts that drive her characters, and that she understands how those goals, motivations and conflicts interact to intensify the romantic conflict between them. It should not be possible for both characters to get exactly what they need and want; if one character “wins,” the other must lose. If both characters can get what they want without a major adjustment in the thinking of one of them, the conflict just isn’t strong enough.

For example, your vampire hunting hero can’t achieve his goal of killing the vampire heroine. Instead, the course of the romance should change that goal so that he wants to love the heroine instead of killing her.

The love scenes should pay a key role in changing those objectives. As they make love, he discovers she’s not the vicious killer he imagined.

Of course, you have to motivate his going to bed with her in the first place. If he doesn’t have a good reason to risk his life making love to what he believes is a vicious killer, the reader is going to think he’s stupid. Is he trying to use himself as bait? Why does he think he can get away with this without ending up dead? Obviously, he needs to have some believable plan to keep himself safe, or we’re going to think he’s Too Stupid To Live.

You also have to address her motives for making love to a man who thinks she’s a killer. Does she know what he believes? Does it bother her? What about her hunger for blood? She needs to drink blood to live. Does sleeping with him trigger her hunger? How does that make her feel? Does she feel guilt, or is it something natural to her? Is she irritated with his fear of her? How does that play out in their love scenes?

Think about ways to demonstrate the personalities of these two characters. How do they view making love?

Does the risk of making love to her add to his arousal? She could kill him. For some people, that kind of risk is the ultimate high. If he’s an adrenalin junky like a SEAL or something, that could play a role in his motivation.

Does she view making love as a necessity, or as a joyful act of mutual pleasure?

Try to come up with a scene that would best demonstrate or intensify this conflict. How does it play out when they make love?

What does it say that the passion between them is strong enough to bring them together despite this conflict?

To make it more believable that they would fall in love despite all these forces, you have to make the love scenes themselves as intense as possible. Each scene should deepen the attraction and passion between the couple so the reader can literally watch their love grow.

You do that by using sensory detail. Each love scene should make mention of some kind of sensory detail in every paragraph, whether it’s taste, smell, hearing, or touch. How does it feel when he licks her nipples or clit? How does she taste to him? How do those sensations make him feel? What’s the texture of his skin, or the smell of his hair?

Concentrate on the emotional impact of those sensations. Make those reactions as intense as possible.

Give thought to the setting of the love scene. Location has a strong emotional effect. Hurried, hot love making in public is far different than slow, languorous passion in the bedroom. Use locations which intensify the emotional effect you’re going for, and vary them. Creativity is the key to eroticism in fiction as in life.

Think what kind of props you can use to intensify their emotions. If he’s still afraid of what she’ll do, what if she ties him up? Imagine his combination of fear and intense, kinky desire. And how will he feel when she does nothing except give him fantastic pleasure? He was at her mercy, and she didn’t hurt him. She has proven she can be trusted.

Maybe the bondage scene is the turning point in the relationship – the point where what began in fear and deception starts becoming trust and love.

You MUST have a turning point in the romantic conflict, and it must be as dramatic as possible. When you’re doing a huge 180 in attitude like that, the hardest part is making it believable. The reader has to understand WHY this incident would make the characters view each other in a different light. She also needs to understand why it would shake everybody up.

As a reader, I have read books in which the characters suddenly go from “I hate him,” to “I want to have his baby,” without any explanation at all. Nothing will make me slam a book into a wall faster. You have to motivate these changes in attitude for them to be believable.

The ingredients to one of these huge turning points are: A.) A dramatic incident where the characters confront their fear. (The vampire heroine gets tired of putting up with his paranoia and ties him up and screws his brains out.) B.) The reaction of the character to that scene. “Oh, my GOD! She didn’t kill me! And it was...wonderful. She’s not who I thought she was. She’s HUMAN in all the ways that count. I WAS WRONG ABOUT HER.” C.) A scene that follows that demonstrates the change in his attitude – maybe the next time they make love, he’s tender with her, not just hot and horny.

In the scenes that follow this turning point, their love becomes more intense, the tenderness in their actions grows, their kisses become more passionate.

That scene changes everything. And because it has changed everything, their attitudes toward each other changes, and they find the strength to confront the Big Evil Bad Guy and beat him. They couldn’t beat him separately, but together, in love, they have the strength to defeat him.

Then, in the final love scene, you pay off the novel. I usually make this the last scene in the book. The characters are deeply in love, and they trust each other without question. There’s humor, because humor demonstrates trust. We don’t have gentle, teasing sexual humor with someone we’re not completely comfortable with.

It’s also a very passionate scene, with lots of soft touches and gentle kisses as well as hot sex. And the hero should – possibly for the first time -- say something really romantic to her in the afterglow. Men don’t make declarations of love – and mean them – easily. As readers, we know when this hard-edged vampire hunter tells the vampire she’s the center of his life, he means it. And we just melt.

Deliver that scene with all the emotional intensity you can, and the reader will search for every book you’ve ever written and buy it. And as for the editor – she’ll snap your book up and pay you a nice advance, because you’re the writer she’s been looking for.


Sincerely,

Angela Knight

Point of View

I wrote this lesson for my class on writing love scenes. I like the way it turned out so much, I thought I'd share.

By Angela Knight

Point of view is one of those concepts that gives newbies fits. One reason for this is that the effect of POV can be very subtle – so much so that most readers don’t notice it at all, so new writers don’t understand its importance.

There’s an easy illustration of POV that should clarify the issue. It’s a gimmick often used in television mysteries where they don’t want to show the identity of the killer, so the camera is positioned as if it’s looking out of his eyes. You can see the knife in his hand, you can see the victim, but you can’t see the killer’s face, any more than you can see your own when you’re not in front of a mirror.

That’s point of view. You’re in the character’s head, experiencing the scene as if you were that character. You think his thoughts, you feel the sensations he feels, you hear what he hears.

Most writing teachers will tell you not to switch point of view in the same scene. That’s called head hopping, and it’s considered a deadly sin. Why?

Let’s go back to our knife-wielding television killer for a moment. Imagine that the bad guy is in a fight with other bad guys, all armed with knives. Now imagine that every shot, the camera switches to the point of view of a different person. One minute you’re swinging the knife, the next it’s coming at your chest. Or you’re in someone else’s head completely, and you’re in a different fight.

In all my years of watching television, I have never seen that done. Why? Because it would confuse the hell out of the viewer. He’d have no idea who was doing what.

The reader has the same problem when you head hop. It throws her completely out of the scene as she tries to figure out whose head you’re in. Any time she has to stop reading and go back and reread to figure out what’s going on, you’ve thrown her out of the story. Confuse her too much, and she’ll just stop reading.

So head hopping is bad. Yet Nora Roberts, the highest paid romance novelist of all time and my personal goddess, switches POV constantly. I’m reading her latest right now, and I couldn’t help but notice how she does it.

First, Nora only switches POV when she’s got a good reason. In most cases, one POV per scene is a really good rule, and I suggest you stick to it. It jars the reader less. But there is one kind of scene where being in the heads of both characters is a benefit, and that’s the love scene. And the only way you can show how making love affects both characters in one scene is with a POV switch.

So how do you pull off a switch without confusing the reader? Well, there’s the line break – skipping a line to indicate a switch. Then you start the first sentence of the new POV with something like, “John bit back a moan as Mary ran her tongue over his nipple. God, she was good at that.” By using John’s name first thing, we clearly tell the reader whose POV we’re in, so there’s no confusion. (Note: I don’t use, “God, she was so good at that, John thought.” “John thought” is redundant, since it’s obvious we’re in John’s POV.)

Really, you don’t even need the skipped line. Making the switch with a new paragraph is fine. But in both cases, you absolutely have to start with the character’s name, and a sensation that plainly shows we’re now thinking his thoughts.

If the line was simply, “John moaned,” the reader will probably assume we’re still in Mary’s POV and Mary heard John moan. But by adding a sensation and then a thought, we establish that we’ve done a POV switch. “John moaned at the feeling of Mary’s wet, hot little tongue flicking over his nipple. God, she’s good at that.”

Now, there are little niggling things about POV you need to keep in mind.

Let’s get back to John and his sensitive nipples. “John moaned at the feeling of Mary’s wet, hot little tongue flicking over his nipple. God, she’s good at that. John’s brawny pectorals flexed and his blue eyes darkened in reaction.”

If you’re deep in John’s point of view, he can’t see his own blue eyes darken. Nor can he see himself blush, or a hard frown cross his mouth. You’ve just jumped cameras again, changing POV in the same paragraph. Now your verbal “camera” is located outside John’s body, as if you’re watching John instead of being John. This is BAD, and is considered the mark of an amateur.

What you can do is show what John feels when he experiences, say, a blush. “John felt his cheeks heat. Oh, great – now he was blushing like a sixteen-year-old girl.” That tells the reader he blushed without jumping POVs.

Also, watch the tone of John’s POV. You don’t want him to sound like a woman. That line, “John’s brawny pectorals flexed” was definitely not in John’s POV. It’s an out-of-character line, because John probably doesn’t think of his pecs as “brawny.”

When you’re in deep point of view, you have to stick to the language and thoughts the character would use. Thus, John is not going to think about the heroine’s “lovely brocade mauve curtains,” unless John is an interior designer. Most men wouldn’t know mauve if it bit them on the butt. And “lovely” is a word men just don’t use unless they’re talking about a woman.

You want John to sound like the butch Alpha Male marine he is, right down to the frequent “motherfuckers” strewn through his thoughts. (Though if he’s a banker or something, I’d probably go easy on the “motherfuckers.”) By using the technique of being deeply in the character’s head, you can create a very strong sense of him as a character. Readers feel he’s real.

And that’s what you want.

By the way – when switching POVs during a love scene, I still wouldn’t do it more than once. It’s too jarring. We want to experience how each character feels during that scene, but we don’t want to give the reader psychic whiplash.

--Angela Knight