Like many other people around the world, I wrote the first draft of a 50,000 word novel in November.  This is the third year I have done so, and 2009 in particular gave me an extra boost to dig into revision of other works after I hit my required word count.  I had been in a bit of a funk for the past few months with my writing.  NaNoWriMo gave me the permission to drop all of my excuses and just write.

No inner editor.

No wondering if I could sell the work.

No complaining to myself that I was too busy to write.

Starbucks made some serious money from me last month.  I personally contributed to helping end the recession by drinking lots of coffee and eating lots of coffee cake.  I completed draft one of this year's NaNoWriMo novel by November 20th.  It's the second work in a series I've had my hands in for awhile.  November 21st began my descent into serious revision of book one.

Another toy that helped liberate me from my inner editor this past November was writing on an Alphasmart.  I didn't have to look at the squiggly lines in Microsoft Word telling me I had misspelled words.  I plowed ahead and wrote as if typos didn't exist. 

Typos don't exist during NaNoWriMo in the same way that calories don't exist in December.

Now that it is December and typos exist again, I'm in the delightful process of extracting my plot from the garble I typed.  I ran it through a spell check and nearly 10% of the typos were strange enough that I had no idea what word I was trying to type on the Alphasmart.  The tedium of fixing my NaNoWriMo is a battle I'm looking forward to in the latter half of December and into January.

I wouldn't have it any other way.  :)

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | NaNoWriMo | motivation | revision

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The paperback edition of Beach Boys: An Anthology of Erotic Encounters with the Gay Boys of Summer: Edited by Sephera Giron is now available!  If you love ebooks but need the tactile pleasures of holding a book while reading erotic romance, check it out here.

Another paperback that is available for purchase is the Hot Dads: The DILF Anthology edited by Lori Perkins.  Check it out here.

Manic Readers has a review of Hot Dads: The DILF Anthology.  Read the whole thing here.

My favorite part of the review:

"Moving In With My Employer
Ralph desperately needs a live-in nanny to help him take care of his two sons. What will he do when Gina, a woman he had a past relationship with, applies for the job?

Ms. Jen Bluekissed brings us a story about lovers with a prior relationship and what happens when they are given a second chance. There is a scene so hot in this story it might singe your eyelids."

Because we're nearing Halloween, why not try out some lesbian Vampire Erotica?  The ebook version of Women of the Bite can be purchased here.  The paperback version can be purchased here.  Alyson Books is the publisher of the paperback.  Ravenous Romance is the publisher of the ebook.

October has been such a fun month, and it's only halfway over!  Happy reading!

P.S. I'm gearing up for NaNoWriMo in November.  Yes.  One of these days you'll see an actual NOVEL from me.  I do write those too, though I do love a great short story. 

Tags: vampire | October | NaNoWriMo | anthology | gay | lesbian | Alyson Books | Cecilia Tan | Lori Perkins | Sephera Giron | Beach Boys | Women of the Bite | DILF | Jen Bluekissed | paperback

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One of my coauthors already posted the wonderful review of I Kissed a Girl.  Isn't the cover yummy?  The release date is August 27th. 

I forgot to breathe when I saw the cover the first time. 

Tags: Lucy Felthouse | L.A. Mistral | Farrah J. Phoenix | Nola Erus | Kilt Kilpatrick | K. Ann Karlsson | Samantha Jones | inara lavey | Louisa Bacio | c. margery kempe | anthology | regina perry | Jen Bluekissed | lesbian

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Yesterday at Nashville Pride at Riverfront Park in Nashville, I had a blast!  Not only did I have the opportunity to speak with a lot of friendly, neat people, but the music was awesome!  I think my vendor booth had one of the best locations because I was directly in front of the stage at the top of the hill looking down onto the stage and the Cumberland River. 

Here's a picture of me setting up:

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | Nashville | Nashville Pride | heat | humity | feet | Tennessee | sauna | sunburn | vendor table | concert

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Tags: jenbluekissed.com | Jen Bluekissed | website

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I'm in the process of writing three short stories for Nashville Pride.  Each story has approximately 5,000 words and if read together will form a novella of sorts.  Because Nashville Pride on June 20th is an event celebrating pride, my free stories will be centered around the LGBT community.  One story will be male/male, one story will be female/female, and one story will be straight.

I've completed the male/male story.  The title of it is "Skywalk."  I'm almost finished with the female/female story.  The working title of that one is "Hot Stuff."  I'll be working on the male/female story later this week.

If you don't live within traveling distance of Nashville, TN but you want a free story trio (I'm not going to post to this blog as an incentive for people to come and see me on June 20th), consider signing up for my newsletter. There's a form on www.jenbluekissederotica.blogspot.com for you to sign up.

I don't believe in spamming, so the newsletter will only be sent out when one of three things happens.

1) I have free stories to give away
2) I intend to be at a public event for you to meet me
3) A new story releases through my publisher

If you don't feel like giving me your email address, feel free to create a new one through a free site like gmail, hotmail, or yahoo.

I'll be pasting the stories directly into the body of an email.  Attachments are evil.  I don't open them and I hope you don't open them from people you don't know either.

P.S. www.jenbluekissed.com is almost ready.  Just fixing a few last minute bugs.  I intend to have it up and running before June 20th, hopefully much sooner.

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | LGBT | Nashville Pride | freebies | free stories | novella | Short Stories | newsletter

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(This is a cross post from jenbluekissederotica.blogspot.com)

-Elle Amery is an awesome editor.

-In movies, books etc. it's fun to root for the two people to get back together after having a rocky start.

-Trombone Tease has some unique sexual positions. Let's just say that in real life my husband does play trombone, and he really liked my story. He has been a very happy player since I wrote Trombone Tease!

-Black and white covers with a touch of color are super classy

-While you're looking for Rekindled Fire, there's a free book being offered on Ravenous Romance's website (www.ravenousromance.com) and it's hidden. If you click around the website and see an ebook or audio book that happens to be listed as $0.00, you can download it for free today.

-As my husband says, "Let's get brassy, cause I'm French Horny!"

-Valve oil

-There's a witch story by Angela Cameron.

-Jen almost has enough money to get her website up and running. I'm 90% of the way there.

-Being onstage is a ton of fun, regardless of the size of one's audience.

Tags: Rekindled Fire | Brassy | top ten | Trombone Tease | Elle Amery | Jen Bluekissed | anthology

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Rekindled Fire releases on Monday, May 18th.  Check out "Trombone Tease," my male/female short story inclusion.

One a side note, I'm thrilled that I finally figured out how to insert pictures onto this blog!  I think my problem was the browser I was using.

Tags: Picture | Sneak Peak | Cover | Trombone Tease | anthology | Rekindled Fire | Elle Amery | Jen Bluekissed

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POP QUIZ

What do electric motors, Shakespeare, college dorms, shoe strings, peanut butter, voice recognition software, pagan priests, Go Go boots, and bondage equipment all have in common?

A) Jen is nuts; this is proof.

B) Jen didn't get enough sleep last night and had a funky dream.

C) They have nothing in common.

D) Jen is weaving them into various stories.

E) The free bin at the thrift shop just got more interesting.

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | Short Stories | college dorms | bondage equipment | pop quiz

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I absolutely love flash fiction, in particular the challenge of writing a short story in 100 words or less.  This is a cross post from jenbluekissederotica.blogspot.com, but I thought it's a good way to start out a Friday morning.  The title is Recipe.

Chef smiled. “Cinnamon and spice. Everything nice.”

I smiled, kneeling at his feet. “That’s not what I’m made of.”

He sprinkled brown powder and sugar and dabbed whipped cream onto his hardness. “It’s what you want. To be a good girl?” His voice’s pitch deepened when I swallowed his sweetness. He should’ve added nutmeg. Chef’s fingertips curled into my shoulder blades.

I came up for air. “Happy birthday before working your shift.” Gagging, I swallowed again. All night his cock would be sticky inside his pants while we worked my restaurant.

Our first customer said, “Anybody here?” The bell.

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | Flash Fiction | Short story | Food | recipe | cooking | restuarant | chef | birthday | challenge

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Tags: Jen Bluekissed | anthology | Elle Amery | Trombone Tease | Rekindled | Release | bondage | trombone

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Since Sex and Taxes released on April 15th, I've been thinking more and more about how taxes are more or less inevitable.  Why not make them sexy?  I'm pleasantly surprised to see Sex and Taxes in this week's top 10 list.  "Barrel of Fun," makes me get little naughty shivers every time I picture what the characters do in the story.

Speaking of naughtiness, I drove from Tennessee to Iowa on Thursday of last week and then from Iowa back to Tennessee on Sunday.  22 hours of driving in four days was a bit much.

But Ravenous Romance audio books made the driving oh, so much better!

Of the three titles I played in the car, so far my favorite is by far Ryan Field's An Officer and His Gentle Man.  As much as I could allow myself to be on edge and wishing I could pull over while driving, I found myself cussing under my breath every time the GPS started talking to me.  I backtracked on the CD tract every time the GPS decided that taking the right exit was more important than the sexy male voice pumping through the speakers of my car.

Let me tell you, the canned voice on my GPS got on my nerves when it interrupted the dirty talk and naughty deeds between the two main characters!  I wasn't quite ready to disable the GPS, but I considered it.

Aural stimulation while driving is such fun.  :)  I'm pleased to be a part of these anthologies with such talented writers.

Tags: driving | arousal | aural stimulation | naughty | GLBT | Spanking | Sex and Taxes | An Officer and His Gentle Man | Barrel of Fun | gay | audio books | audiobooks | Lori Perkins | Ryan Field | Jen Bluekissed

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I'm originally from Iowa, so my eyes and ears perked when I heard about the recent lift on the gay marriage ban in Iowa.  Since I'm working on a handful of m/m and f/f pieces at the moment, I thought I'd share a few tidbits of info.  Lots of the national news agencies are reporting through the AP on different angles of the story.  What I'd like to share are some links of my hometown newspaper (The Telegraph Herald) and the newspaper of the most recent town in Iowa where I lived prior to moving to Tennessee (The Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier). The Des Moines Register has recently run enough stories on the issue that they now have a quick link at the top of their home page devoted to the gay marriage issue.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=NEWS&template=keywords&keyword=iagaymarriage

I especially like this article and the picture :)

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090410/NEWS/904100376/1001/NEWS

http://www.thonline.com/forums/Comments.cfm?BlogID=274&MainSection=User%20Blogs&THBlogID=5#post274

The whole issue is a heated one on both sides.  To be honest, I was surprised the court lifted the ban, because Iowa is a fairly conservative state.  The more articles I've read on the issue, the more I've also appreciated that Iowa is a fairly liberal state as well in terms of civil rights.  Iowa was the first state to allow women to take the bar exam and practice law, the first state to desegregate schools, and one of the first states to strike down slavery laws.

As a part of my research, I have also recently discovered that gay marriage is totally legal in Spain, giving gay couples exactly the same rights as straight couples.  I studied in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (in the autonomous region of Galicia) in 2001.  I also have a B.A. in Spanish, so I'm not sure how I missed the news in 2005 when gay marriage was legalized in Spain.  I'm currently working on a m/m BDSM pirate short story set in Galicia between newlyweds.  :)

Tags: law | Galicia | Spain | Short story | civil rights | gay | lesbian | f/f | m/m | works in progress | news | newlyweds | BDSM | Pirates | Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier | Associated Press | Des Moines Register | Telegraph Herald | Iowa | Gay Marriage | LGBT | Jen Bluekissed

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I've been incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to write short stories for Ravenous Romance's anthologies.  One of the things I love about short stories and the ebook market in general is the quick turn around time from turning in the story to when it goes into electronic print.  As I reflect that I began writing shorts for publication in November of 2008 and I already have stories in Power Plays, Experimental, Ambrosia, and Sweaty Sex and have received acceptance into the upcoming Rekindled, DILF, and Women of the Bite anthologies, I can't help but have warm fuzzies.  RR was the first publisher to which I submitted.

I'm still plugging away at some longer works.

All of my reflection has caused me to realize how important studying the craft of writing is to success.  As writers, we're all told that writing is only one piece of the puzzle to success.  There are marketing, blogging, freebies, queries, proposals, building a fan base, social networking, commenting on other people's blogs, building a platform, and endless other tasks to complete.

I agree that all those things are important, but experimentation, writing, rewriting, and paying attention to my mistakes couldn't be more important.  Sure, I write a dud every now and again.  Nobody receives acceptances 100% of the time.  My duds are fermenting into other pieces altogether.  Dud wine can be perfectly sweet after the pieces morph into something else altogether!

On a side note, I recently searched google blog search (www.blogsearch.google.com) using the world "erotica."  My personal blog today showed up on the first page as the 8th result out of 766,414 hits for the word erotica.  I'm thrilled that jenbluekissederotica.blogspot.com is doing well.  You all must be googling me!

Tags: google blog search | revision | writing | Sweaty Sex | Women of the Bite | Rekindled | Power Plays | Experimental | DILF | anthology | Jen Bluekissed

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I just signed up for a vendor table at Nashville Pride 2009.  Information about Nashville Pride can be found a nashvillepride.org.  I will be giving out free stories on CD.  The plan is to have one m/m story, one f/f story, and one m/f story all burned to the same disc.  If you live in Nashville or are making a vacation in my neck of the woods, stop on by.  The stories I'll be giving out are exclusives that I won't be submitting for publication.  They're going to be "in person only" stories that I'm not putting on my blog either.  Mark you calendars for June 20, 2009

Jen Bluekissed

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | LGBT | free stories | Nashville Pride

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After contributing and working my way through Experimental, Sweaty Sex, Power Plays, and Ambrosia, I'm falling into a deeper love with anthologies.  Reading for a few minutes here and a few minutes there while taking a break from writing is turning out to be a ton of fun.  Not only am I able to sample other Ravenous Romance writers' work, but I get to flirt with several different characters in a short amount of time.  It feels naughty, and I like it.

As of late, my favorite short story (beside my own of course) is by Mark Farley and is in the Ambrosia anthology.  Kitchen Tongs and Pepper Mills was definately one that I read start to finish!

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | anthology | Mark Farley | Ambrosia | Kitchen Tongs and Pepper Mills

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Tags: fantasy | kinky | blog | Jen Bluekissed

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Sweaty Sex releases today!  My short story, "Getting Lucky Isn't The Same As Being Lucky," is included.  I had a ton of fun writing this one and would like to mention a few things about the story that set it apart from some of my others.

"Getting Lucky," is a baseball story.  I'm a huge baseball fan.  The rivalry between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs has kept me up many a summer night.  The setting for the story is in Dubuque, Iowa and Dyersville, Iowa.  I'm originally from Dubuque, so creating a rivalry for the two minor league baseball teams, the Iowa Cobs and the Idaho Spuds, was a hoot.  (I was utterly tempted to type Kernels rather than Cobbs.  The temptation almost got the better of me, but the Cedar Rapids Kernels may not have appreciated my using their real life team).

My husband's family is from Idaho.  Now that I'm no longer living in Iowa, I can't tell you how many people with whom I've spoken have mixed up Iowa and Idaho in casual conversation.  I couldn't resist using both in the story.  Other than farmland, the two states are very different places.

I will also mention that most of the details regarding Dubuque are true.  There are only two details that I fabricated.  One of the things I made up is that Dubuque doesn't really have a minor league baseball team.  I even found a way to work Loras College into the story  I attended Loras, graduating with BA degrees in English, Spanish, and Secondary Education.  Go Duhawks!

On a completely different note, the kind folks at the Geek Squad were able to recover all the files on my laptop as well as wipe the virus clean.  I've been breathing a giant sigh of relief for the past two days.  Let's just say that now I own more thumb drives than I care to admit.

I can't help but thank all of my readers for putting both Experimental and Ambrosia in the top ten!  Let's put this anthology there too!

Tags: Experimental. | Ambrosia | Sweaty Sex | laptop | virus | Idaho | Iowa | sports | baseball | Jen Bluekissed | anthology

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As I writer, I constantly save my work.  I have thumb drives that I use constantly as well as saving to various email accounts.  After almost every paragraph I write in my longer works, I obsessively hit the save button.

Or so I thought.

A virus recently hijacked my computer.  I've been without it all week and have been sharing my  husband's laptop.  Between my web and my thumb drives, there are various drafts of various projects but almost all of them aren't at the same stage of production as what I had on the hard drive of my laptop.  It's still being wiped clean and restored, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I haven't lost everything.

Tags: Jen Bluekissed | backup | lost

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