Marriage Training Ch. 16

Chapter 16 of Marriage Training is now out on Literotica!  And we are getting closer and closer to the end, I kind of can't believe it.  At which point I'll be switching over from the past to the future, and writing something much darker.  I kinda wanna do some more playing around with the human psyche.  I got to do a little bit with Marriage Training, but honestly not as much as I wanted to do since it ended up becoming almost romantic.

With my next work, I think I've figured out a way to get the romance in there to keep readers happy, while still getting to explore all the dark stuff that I want to =P  It's going to be set in the future, although it's not going to be super sci-fi / fantasy.  I just set it into the future because it makes it easier for me to write the dark stuff without becoming uncomfortable... since it's going to be in the Non-Con category, I need it to be situated so that I am okay with writing it, and the scenario that I came up with makes me too uncomfortable to write about if it's set in the present.  I really want to do as much of a mind-fuck as I do dark erotica with the story.  Soooo that's all the hints I'm giving, which really isn't much at all, but hopefully you won't have to wait too long to find out.  I think I'll probably be done with Marriage Training by the end of October.

Hopefully I'll be done with Stronghold by then as well, but we'll see.  As usual, I'm trucking along and I am REALLY enjoying writing this book, but it is definitely going to be quite a bit longer than I originally realized... I'm already well over 100,000 words into it and still have a lot to write.  I'm getting really close to the end of my outline though, so that's always exciting =)

Later this week... watch out for a Stronghold teaser ;)

New Story: Thunderstorm Threesome

So, as usual, I've been working on multiple projects and last week I finally finished a reader requested standalone story that I've been working on for at least a month (got caught up enough in the series that this standalone took forever).  Thunderstorm Threesome was a fun request for me to fulfill because I haven't been writing any threesome stuff in my current books and I kinda missed it =)  Plus, I love "shaping" someone else's fantasy.

This week I'm hard at work on the next chapter of Marriage Training, which is almost done!  And then I'll be getting back to Stronghold, which definitely got pushed aside in favor of MT.  I can't believe how close to the end I'm getting for both stories, although I'm definitely a lot closer to the end of MT.  Whoo-hoo!  I think there's only about 3 chapters left to go and then I'm going to be working on some much darker stories - which, as much as I love Gabriel and Vivian, I'm really excited to do some darker things.  I'm just feeling it lately, don't know why.  Too much romance maybe? hahahahaha

Anyway.  Gonna throw out another teaser for Stronghold next week and hopefully the next chapter of Marriage Training will be out then too!

Interview Me Part 3: Personal Questions & The Future

What sports do you like to watch?

Football!  I'm a Skins fan (although this season I don't know if I can really say I "like" to watch... wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't gotten all hopeful after last year).  I also love watching gymnastics and ice skating during the Olympics, sometimes swimming, skiing and snowboarding, but the only thing I watch on a regular basis is Football.  

Do you and hubby want to have kids? 

Who are you, my mother? lol.  Yes, but not for a couple of years.  We're having a good time being married and spending time with each other for a bit before kids take over our lives.  I have to say though, when they're teenagers I'm going to have nightmares about them discovering what Mom writes about.

Do you watch a lot of TV?
Um... sort of?  Like I said, I'm more of a book person, but there are definitely days when I'm feeling the TV thing.  Lately I've been watching a lot of Property Brothers and Love It or List It.  Hubby and I have also been watching Dr. Who (the one that's on Netflix right now, Chris Eckleston and David Tennant) and I've been trying to get into Star Trek.  I'm about halfway through the first season of the original Star Trek series (whoo Captain Kirk!).  But I read more than I watch TV.

What is your favorite movie and why?

Love Actually.  I love how it shows so many different characters who all intertwine. I love the love stories.  I love the music.  I love the message.  I watch it every year around Christmas.  Sometimes multiple times.  

What is your favorite book and why?

My favorite book of all time is The Merro Tree by Kate Waitman.  It has everything I love in it... an underlying message, an emphasis on the importance of the arts, romance, intrigue, a bit of a mystery, an underdog overcoming everything to succeed, and so many moments when I want to either cry or leap for joy.  It's an incredible piece of work and it kills me that more people don't know about it.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Enjoy life.  Don't focus on the bad stuff, focus on the good.  Because life is short and you never know when it's going to be taken away from you.

Also, STOP USING YOUR CREDIT CARD  YOU'RE GOING TO BE PAYING THAT SHIT OFF FOR YEARS AND IT'S GOING TO SUCK BALLS.

What is your favorite quote?

"There's a skinny woman inside me, screaming to get out... but I can usually shut her up with cookies."

Seriously, that's one of them.  The other one is from the Lord of the Rings:

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know... It's all wrong.  By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are.  It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo.  The ones that really mattered.  Full of darkness and danger, they were.  And sometimes you didn't want to know the end.  Because how could the end be happy?  How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?  But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.  Even darkness must pass.  A new day will come.  And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.  Those were the stories that stayed with you.  That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.  But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now.  Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't.  They kept going.  Because they were holding onto something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for. 

Which famous person, living or dead, would you like to meet and why?

Aw man... I hate this question because I never know the answer.  Maybe Henry VIII... because I'm wildly curious.  I've always had a bit of an obsession with him and I would want to know what he's actually like.  I can guarantee that if Dr. Who was to show up on my doorstep, I'd tell him to take the TARDIS to Tudor England, preferably when both Anne Boleyn and Catherine were still alive because I'd want to meet both of them too.

What does the future hold?

Ah good question.  And I have SO many answers.  I definitely want to keep writing... I'd love to eventually make it my full time job.  That would be my dream.  However, even if I never make it that far, I'm going to keep providing stories to Literotica and books to Amazon and Smashwords. 

Once I'm done with the Domestic Discipline Quartet I'm going to start a series that will include the book version of Marriage Training and will be called The Society of Sin.  There will be four other books in the main series, about Gabriel's father and step-mother, his two sisters, and another two characters that will be introduced in the other books. 

Once I'm done with the Stronghold series, or if I finish The Society of Sin first, I'll be starting on a new book series that will be set in the distant future.  It's somewhat based off of Carolyn Faulkner's book Prima, except that I didn't agree with her vision of the future.  I haven't come up with a title for the series yet, but I've come up with the plots for four or five books in it.  The idea is that a disease has killed off a large portion of the population, but proportionally was much worse for women, and now we've gone back to a medieval mindset even though most of the technology is still in place, because women need to be protected / cherished as the bearers of children, etc.  They are to be well-loved and also well-disciplined.  Because of the lack of women in general, men often save up in groups - either brothers or close friends - to buy a wife ;)  I'm still working out how the society works, but by the time I'm writing it I should have that all worked out.

There are several series that I want to work on, as well as a couple of standalone books, many of them in the Victorian timeline, some Westerns (cowboys... yum), and some contemporary.  I'm also working towards two other pen names, one of which will focus more on romance and one of which will focus more on shorter / darker novellas that will usually be focused on a fetish (demon sex, were-animal sex, etc.).  I've noticed there are a lot of novellas out there that sell for $2.99 and as long as they're about a specific kink, they do pretty well.  So I kinda want to try my hand at that.  I'll def announce all new releases on the blog, because a lot of them are going to only be 99 cents for the first week =)

For Literotica I definitely have a few darker works coming up, as discussed here on my blog, and I've also been working on an outline for a follow-up series to Being the Maid starring Samuel.  I definitely want to finish some of the series that I started and never completed, like Instruction and From Terra.  And, of course, working on the reader requests that come my way =)

So yeah, that's what I'm working towards!

How can readers discover more about you and your work? (Thanks Queenie for thinking of this one =)

Website: 

Facebook: Not on it currently... thinking about making a Golden Angel page but I'm afraid no one would friend me =P

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoldeniAngel

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/goldeniangel/boards/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Angel/e/B00897C6HG/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1379678726&sr=8-2-ent

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Goldeniangel

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6440220.Golden_Angel

Thank you all SO MUCH for all the amazing questions, I can't believe what an incredible response my request got and how many different questions people came up with!  Some of which I had no idea anyone would be interested in LOL.  

Interview Part 2: About erotica/porn/sex

Today's "interview" is a little shorter, but the questions are a lot more personal too =P

 

Do you ever masturbate when reading erotic stories? Do you watch porn and masturbate? Do you prefer to read stories or watch movies? 

I'm going to go ahead and answer these three questions together since they kind of intertwine =)  I've always been more of a book person than a movie or television person.  With my college boyfriend we would sometimes watch porn, and I downloaded a LOT of files from Kazaa (hahaha, remember Kazaa?!) looking for the ones that appealed to me.  I downloaded hundreds, possibly thousands of files, over the course of a couple years and the collection of ones that I kept that turned me on was about 30.  

 

For me, watching porn is a couples activity, I will very rarely watch it on my own, and when I do it's kind of like foreplay... I watch it to get in the mood, maybe play with myself a little bit, and then I go find one of my favorite stories to get off to.  When I found Literotica, that was the first time I started masturbating.  I actually didn't masturbate before I had sex (weird, right?), but the stories on Lit would get me so hot that if my boyfriend wasn't around I would take care of myself.  Now when I masturbate it's with one of my favorite stories in my other hand ;)

What do you fantasize about while masturbating?

Since I'm usually reading, I fantasize about what's happening in the story that I'm reading.  Sometimes I'm in the place of the main character, sometimes I'm just watching the action.  My favorites tend to involve multiple partners, a little bit of pain, and anal.  


Is there anything you've tried in real life that you'd never write about and vice versa?

Hmm... wow, I can think of TONS of things I've written about but never actually tried (caning comes to mind, as do most of the more brutal scenes I write) and I don't think I will EVER try... I'm not sure there's anything I've tried and not written about in one form or another.  Even my more embarrassing sex moments came up in First Time Blunders.  Granted, they're mixed in with my friends' embarrassing moments so that no one will know which are MINE, but they're still out there LOL.
 

Have you ever swallowed cum? 

I'm definitely a "swallower."  The taste doesn't bother me and I find something incredibly satisfying about giving head and getting a guy off with something that requires a little bit more effort on my part.  I don't really think about it as a "reward" as I sometimes describe it my stories, but there's something sexy about it to me. 

Have you ever thought about writing a movie?
Honestly no.  Script-writing is incredibly different from writing a story or book and I kinda suck at it.  I also don't find it to be a lot of fun - not that I've ever tried to write a porno, but I once tried to write a play.

Would you ever let someone make one of your stories into a porno?
Um... I'd probably want to see the script before I agreed.  Also, strange as this may sound, I'm not entirely sure I support the porn industry.  If a woman enjoys her job, that's one thing, but if she's in it because she feels like she has to be because of the money thing... I dunno.  It's kind of a weird area for me.

What's your favorite sexual position?
I'm so boring in real life... missionary.  LOL.  It's the one that I get off in the easiest, when the guy's on top of me and I can feel his weight over me and every thrust is grinding against my clit... I've found that I can still get off in other positions, but it takes a lot more work.  The worst one for me is me on top.  I enjoy it in a lot of ways because I get to see how much my man is enjoying himself, but it's almost impossible for me to get off when I'm on top.  I can get really close, I just can't seem to get over the edge.

If you were single, would you be willing to get gangbanged by 10 hot guys? 

I honestly don't know how to answer this question LOL.  Um... maybe?  Multiple men is definitely one of my favorite fantasies... the main problem being that I'm definitely a one-man kind of woman when I'm in a relationship.  I suppose that if I were single and there were 10 men that I was reasonably attracted to and they said they wanted to gangbang, then I would be willing to try.  I have no idea how well I would succeed lol.  It's a great fantasy and a fun thing to write about, but I can't imagine how sore I would be afterwards!

Interview Part I: About Writing

So, because you all are wonderful, I have received a ridiculous amount of "interview" questions... so many that I realized I needed to break up this blog into three different blogs to be released today - Tuesday... otherwise the one blog would be the longest blog in the history of blogs... (possibly not, but it would be up there).  I've combined some of the questions that I got that seemed to go along with / were similar to others and I've separated them out into three categories.

Today I'm answering the questions about my writing, tomorrow I'll be answering questions about erotica/porn/sex, and on Tuesday it'll be the questions that are more personally directed to me as well as one very important question: What does the future hold?

Here we go... Part I:

How old were you when you started to write erotic stories?  What inspired you to start writing?  

I was 22.  I'd been reading Literotica for several years, but because I'm a speed reader I was starting to run out of the stories that I really enjoyed and new ones weren't coming out quickly enough for me, and a lot of them didn't have exactly the kinks I was looking for or they would have some and not others and I started thinking "Maybe I should just write what I want to read."  And so I did.  My first series, Office Play, ended up getting a lot of really supportive comments from people and it made me want to keep it up... especially because I def got off on writing the EXACT kind of story that I wanted to read.  Still do.

 

Do many people know you write erotica? How do people react when you tell them? Do they buy your books? 

Define "many."  LOL.  Almost everyone knows that I write, what they know about what I write depends.  My family knows that I write for amazon and that I write erotic romances, they don't know about Lit... my dad just doesn't talk about it and my mom's thrilled that I've found a way to make extra money (actually, I'm wasn't the one to tell my Dad, my mom outted me at a family dinner to him and my brother... bro was not pleased LOL).  My friends know that I write that as well as the fact that I write for Literotica.  Actually, one of my friend's boyfriends thought we were pranking him when she told him - and was even more unnerved to realize that he was in the middle of thoroughly enjoying reading Being the Maid.  He said he couldn't finish it once he knew that it was me writing it LOL.  Other friends haven't had that difficulty.

 

If any of them have bought my books they haven't told me, but a lot of them have read my stuff on Literotica over the years =)

 

Do you correspond with other authors on Lit? 

Sometimes.  In the past I used to e-mail / co-write with drksideofthemoon.  He hasn't been around for a while though.  Lately LoAnnie's probably the one I talk to the most, through twitter, although I also occasionally e-mail with abob1 and a few others.  It's always nice to be able to chat with / vent to people who know exactly where you're coming from, although I don't always have time to e-mail, etc. when I'm doing 80 million other things as well LOL.

 

What came first, the kinky real life or fictional?

Definitely the fictional.  Although, I definitely always had kinky fantasies.  Slave Leia in Star Wars had me thinking up non-consent and dirty fantasies when I was like 12.  At the time I thought there was something wrong with me, when I finally found Literotica I finally realized that a lot of people have dark fantasies.  Even now, my real life isn't as kinky as the stuff I write about - although every year we do get explore a little more kink ;)

 

How much of the stuff that you write about have you personally experienced?

It depends on when the story was written.  When I first started writing, I had absolutely no experience in the things I was writing about (and I think it comes across because some of what I write is way too harsh to be anything but a fantasy).  Eventually I told my boyfriend about some of my fantasies and we started to explore, I've done even more exploring with my husband.  I have come to the conclusion that some of the stuff I write about are things that are hotter in my head than they would be to experience.  I'm a little bit of a masochist, but I definitely like to read about things that would probably be too much for me to experience and still be turned on.  I've also discovered that I like reading/writing about humiliation, but it doesn't turn me on to experience.  Being called a "slut" or a "sexy whore" doesn't turn me off, but it doesn't do anything for me either.  I've done bondage, spanking, nipple clamps, vibrators, anal, strap-ons, a little bit of whipping, a flogger, and a couple other things.  I usually review those toys on my blog.  

 

Do you ever get fed up of writing about sex or have writer's block?

Oh absolutely.  That's part of why I write more than one story at a time.  If I'm writing a sex scene between Adam and Angel and I get sick of it, I can move over to Vivian and Gabriel courting, right up until they get to the next sexy time and then I'll jump over to Cynthia and Wesley, etc.  That also really helps with my writer's block because it gives me something fresh and different to look at and work on, and when I come back later it's usually with new motivation / ideas.

 

There was definitely a longer period where I was tired of writing about sex, which I took a break from Literotica during, but that was mostly because I was going through a bad time in my life.  Even then I would come back and write sometimes because I couldn't stay away.  I just love to write. 

 

Have you ever written a scene that holds no interest for you?

Oh absolutely.  Pretty much every incest story I've ever written LOL.  As long as I don't think about how the characters are related to each other I'm okay.  It's the #1 most requested story category that I get so I can't seem to entirely avoid it, and since I've found my own way to manage writing in it, why not, you know?  Any lesbian scene too.  Trust me, I don't have anything against lesbians... in fact, I applaud their bravery.  Vaginas scare me.

 

What erotica sub genre is your favorite/least favorite to read/write?

Pretty much anything with either reluctance, anal or a little bit of pain and I'm happy.  My least favorite is probably lesbian, both for reading and writing, because it's something I have a harder time working in the things that turn me on.  I still write it occasionally, even though I don't do the survivorphile contest anymore, but pretty much only if it's a group sex, BDSM or non-con/reluctance story.  Because that's my way of working in the things that interest me, and I can't write a story that has absolutely nothing that gets me going. 

 

What are your pet peeves with fans?

Definitely when they try to take over the story.  Obviously that doesn't really happen on Amazon but it happens all the time on Lit.  Someone will have a vision of how they think the story should go and try to dictate it to me.  Or they'll dislike something about a character and want me to change it or they'll try to put their own spin on how they think BDSM "should" be or how a woman/man "should" feel rather than recognizing that everyone is different.  I've gotten more than one comment about how Vivian should be more like Alanna or Jessica and I'm just like, how boring would it be if I only wrote about one kind of submissive?  Vivian LIKES being submissive and I like her.  I'm not going to change her just because of some comment made on Chapter 9 of the story (I can't actually remember when the comments started but I know it was several chapters into the story).

 

What do you love about your fans?

I mean... what's not to love?  Other than the pet peeve-y stuff ;) Although I'm not really sure I consider those people 'fans' because they apparently only like my work if I write the story to their specifications.  But seriously, I think I have a lot of wonderfully vocal fans who come up with fantastic ideas.  I love getting reader requests as well as comments on my stories with suggestions.  I know the latter part might sound weird when I was just bitching about people trying to direct my writing, but there's a difference between suggesting something that would be cool or saying "I hope this happens" and saying "a real person would never act like this, she needs to ____________."  A lot of my best ideas and little twists come from comments that fans make - sometimes criticisms and sometimes compliments or hopes.  I absolutely love how involved people get in the story line... I was in alt over the whole Team Justin vs. Team Chris thing that was going on during Venus School, that was quite possibly one of my favorite things (especially since I knew from the beginning that all 3 of them were going to end up together).  I love that people are invested and that they let me know it.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. 

 

What kind of music do you listen to when writing (is it different depending on the kind of scene or maybe you don't listen at all)?

I usually don't listen to music when I write, sometimes I have the TV on in the background... I usually like shows that I find silly and not SO interesting that I have to watch every moment.  Lately my choice has been Big Bang (real sexy right? lol) because it has funny moments but I'm not actually invested in it.

Who do you read (erotic and otherwise)?

Lately I'm reading a LOT of Victorian romance, although I also hit up the occasional BDSM novel.  My automatic-buy erotica/romance authors are Cherise Sinclair, Lexie Blake, Stephanie Laurens, and Kallypso Masters.  I also will almost always buy things by Laura Lee Ghurke, Lisa Kleypas, Carolyn Faulkner, Elizabeth Powers, Julia Quinn, Maggie Ryan and Laylah Roberts.

 

When it comes to 'otherwise' - I am a GIANT sci-fi fantasy nerd.  Patricia Briggs, Karen Marie Moning, Mercedes Lackey, and Gail Carriger are among my current buys.  On my shelves are also Robert Jordan, Tamora Pierce, Spider Robinson, Angus Wells, Piers Anthony, Elizabeth Moon, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffrey, Sara Douglass, Eric Flint, David Drake, Brian Jacques, Laurell K. Hamilton, Frank Herbert, Terry Goodkind, Kate Elliot, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, etc. (I have a ridiculously large library).

 

And when I'm not reading either of those, I'm reading historical fiction or history books focusing on the Tudors, especially Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn =)

 

What genre would you classify your books as?  What draws you to this genre of books?

I would definitely classify my books as erotic romances.  A lot of the stuff I have on Lit I would classify as pure erotica, although even there I would say I'm slowly moving in a direction towards erotic romances.  Part of what draws me is that I find relationships between people absolutely fascinating.  I love exploring the different ways a relationship can go right or wrong and I love that there are endless variations on the same love stories, depending on the people involved in the story.  Plus... I love the sexy stuff. 

 

If I was a first time reader, what book do you suggest I start with?

Probably The Venus School of Sex.  Unless the person tells me that they're into historical in which case I would send them to Birching His Bride.  Eventually I'll hopefully have more options to send people to =)

 

Where do you get the ideas for your stories?

Sometimes they just come to me and I'm not sure where they come from, but more often they're sparked by something.  It can be anything from a conversation with someone, to seeing a movie trailer, to reading a book and thinking "but what if it happened this way instead," to getting a specific request from someone.  The ideas tend to come in from all over =)

 

How much research do you do for each book?

Very little... lol j/k.  It depends on the kind of book.  Some things come purely from my imagination (like what it feels like to be double penetrated), some things I have to look up online - like what kind of dojo Liam has and what some of the exercises would be.  Other things I really do have to research, especially when I'm writing historical stuff... although even there I tend to rely on knowledge that I already have, since I was a History major before I was an English major =)

 

Do you write part time or full time?  How do you schedule it into your day?  Do you have a page or word count goal in mind when you sit down to write?  What do you write on?

I write part time...  I wish I could go full time.  And I don't really schedule it into my day, I just fit it in where I can, which also means I usually don't have a goal when I sit down other than "get as much done as possible."  I write on a computer, and I type about 100 wpm so that's a good thing =)

 

What is the hardest/easiest thing about writing?

The easiest thing for me is always writing the outline / story idea.  The hardest thing is getting the characters to stick to it LOL.  Sometimes the easiest/hardest thing is the exact same thing: keep writing.  Sometimes I'm not in the mood, sometimes the words just flow like a river.  And I don't always know which it's going to be when I sit down.  

 

Do you design your own book covers?  If so, how do you make the choices?

Yes I do.  At the moment I use bigstock.com for stock photos and then I do the writing on them myself.  I usually look for something that I find visually appealing and that speaks to me about either the characters in the book or the plot line.  A lot of the time I'll just look at a picture and thing "Well that's close, but it's not quite right," and I couldn't explain logically why I chose a different picture that felt completely right when it might be really similar to the one that's not.  A lot of the time it's a gut feeling.

 

As a self-publisher, what are the advantages and disadvantages?

The advantages are definitely that I can keep my books super cheap because I don't have to pay an agent / allow a publisher to make decisions like cost.  The disadvantage is definitely editing and marketing.  I would love to have access to a professional editor and to have someone else handle my marketing for me.  One advantage I have is that I only started publishing because of fans on Literotica who asked me to, and so I started with a group of people who were interested in buying my books and who were wonderful enough to leave reviews for me on Amazon once they did, which helped out immensely. 

 

What are your views on good and bad reviews?

A bad review can make me pissy and feel like not writing, especially if there's nothing constructive in it.  I can take constructive criticism, but a lot of the time people leave bad reviews that don't give me anything to work on for next time.  It's frustrating.  Good reviews, for me, aren't just the ones that compliment me (although I love those), they're the ones who do give constructive advice or suggestions or criticism so that I know what to do for next time.  And I love them.  Good reviews make me feel happy and motivated, they can completely make my day if I'm in a bad mood when I read them.  I'm always checking for reviews, because it's the validation that people enjoy what I write and that it's worth the time and energy that I put into my writing.

 

Do you ever write something you really enjoy and no one else seems to?

Haha, I wish my humor stories got more attention honestly... I go back and re-read them sometimes and I think they're hilarious... but after they were first published they stopped getting any comments.  *cries* j/k.  They're probably mostly funny to me, to be honest.

 

What advice would you have for young writers?

Don't give up, because writing is one of those things that you can always get better at - that's one of the most lovely things about it.  When people give you CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, don't get pissed, LISTEN to it.  It's incredibly hard to listen to people tear up your work, but sometimes (a lot of the time) they have a point.  Don't be afraid to change things.  Also, know when to stand up for your work.  I got TORN apart in my creative writing class by the professor in college, but one of the things that she kept saying was that it wasn't literary... but I knew that the audience I wanted was more general, I wanted to write more pop-literature than what she considered "true" literature.  But I still took a lot of her advice on things that I thought were applicable.  The best thing you can do is be open minded and be willing to look at your work with a critical eye, listen to constructive criticism that is given to you and READ.  Read lots of work by authors that you love, study what they do and how they do it and try to apply it to your own writing.  I can honestly say that I wouldn't be as good a writer if it wasn't for all the reading I do.
 

What are your long-term writing goals?

Lately I've been toying with the idea of making some of my books available through Amazon in print... they have a program so that I could do that.  The main thing is that I feel like a print book should be even more heavily edited / perfect than a Kindle book, in large part because it's automatically going to cost more for people to buy them.  So I would want them to be professionally edited, which costs money (probably like a thousand dollars per book if not more) and I'm not sure whether or not people would be interested enough in buying the hard copy to make that worth it.  One of my friends suggested doing a Kickstarter to try and raise the money, which I'm seriously considering.

A Bit of Random

Thank you to all of you who have sent me questions for the "interview" (see previous blog if you have no idea what I'm talking about ;) - I'm going to keep accepting questions through Friday and then the blog will be out on Sunday.  So far it's looking like it's going to be a VERY long blog even if no one else sends me any more questions, so that's good!  And there are plenty that I'll be able to post to Smashwords that'll be really useful =)

I've been getting a lot of writing done this week, on all of my projects which is nice.  I was so hardcore into writing Stronghold that it's taken a bit of effort to direct my attention elsewhere, but I really don't want to make people wait too long for the next chapter of Marriage Training either.  And I've had a reader request standalone story that I've been working on probably close to a month now, if not more.  Ack.

So far this week I've finished a chapter of Stronghold and am about halfway through the next one, started the next chapter of Marriage Training and I am sooooooooo close to being done with the standalone story that I can taste it.  Sadly I haven't been able to work on Seduction by Spanking at all, but that's okay because Stronghold is definitely the priority.

And, as usual, those characters are being a little unruly.  Not in a bad way, and they're not messing with my overall outline at the moment, but Adam and Angel are taking a bit of extra time that I hadn't originally planned.  Which is just fine, it's going to make their relationship stronger in the end, but it does mean for a slightly longer book =)  (So not a bad thing).  I can't even tell you all how much fun I am having writing this book, and it does seem to be flowing out of me really quickly and easily which is great.  Still aiming for an October release date although it will probably be around the end of October rather than the middle, just because I can tell this is going to be a bigger editing job than usual once I manage to finish it due to the length.  I'm already almost at 100,000 words and I'm more than a couple chapters away from the end.

So that's what's going on with me... I gotta go work out the repercussions of a fight that broke out in Stronghold ;)  Don't worry, nothing to do with Angel and Adam... but I don't think Lexie's relationship with her boyfriend Trevor is going to make it through the end of this book.  Definitely not if Patrick has anything to say about it ;)

Interview Me!

So I was on Smashwords recently, which is another place that I make some of my books available for sale, and it gave me one of those little notices about "finishing" my profile.  Which apparently includes an interview.  I was like, I should get someone to interview me? 

Then I thought, hey, I guess that's not a bad idea.  I do try to make myself pretty available for answering questions, but that's not quite the same as inviting questions.  So I'm going to invite questions from all of you, and then I'll pick some of them (or maybe even all of them) and post them on Smashwords as my interview.

I will answer ALL of them in a blog.  

Sooooo... if you have a question that you've always wanted to ask or one that you're just thinking of now, or even one that you already know the answer to but think would be a good interview question... please send it to me!  I'll be collecting the questions this entire week, September 16 - September 20, and then I'll post a blog over the weekend with the answers.  Whether or not I put all of them on Smashwords will depend on how many questions I get.

There are multiple ways you can submit a question for the 'interview' - you can leave a comment on this blog, you can e-mail me at goldeniangel@gmail.com or you can use the "blogger contact form" which is over on the left sidebar of this blog.

Thank you all very much for your help!

Marriage Training Ch. 15

Chapter 15 of Marriage Training is now up on Literotica!

The Earl has officially joined Vivian's evening training =)  But that doesn't mean that's the only place we'll see him, there's still social stuff going on in the afternoons which he gets to be a part of too.  I'm really happy with this chapter and it seems like the readers are too, going by the comments that are being left on it so far... makes me feel good!

I'm looking forward to writing Chapter 16... I will admit, I haven't started it yet.  Sometimes that happens for various reasons, this time it's because I've been hardcore going at Stronghold.  I'm like super into the mindset for it at the moment.  I've written about 2 1/2 chapters for it this week alone and I'm hoping to get even more done before the week ends because I'm just on such a roll with it.  Things are really heating up between Angel and Adam, but so is the conflict between them and it's just flowing out like crazy.

Plus things are going on with the side characters and that's helping me to write even more and even faster. 

This book is definitely going to be longer than anything I've written before, mostly because the entire story is being told in one book.  I thought I was about 6-9 chapters away from the end... now I'm starting to wonder if it's going to end up being more than that just because there's still a lot of story that I want to work into it.  We'll see.  Things are going really well and I'm definitely on a roll writing wise, so if I can get a couple chapters done a week (or more, like this week) then I'm definitely in good shape.

Of course, I will start the next chapter of Marriage Training tomorrow but I don't think that one will take me too long =)  Now that Gabriel's more involved, those chapters flow smoother than ever.  It's just that I've been soooooo constructive with Stronghold that I didn't want to take my attention away from it until I absolutely had to.  But I still think it'll keep flowing quickly... YAY!

Over 100,000!

Wow, so a HUGE thank you to everyone who reads this blog!  I can't believe it's already hit over 100,000 views... makes me feel good! =)

I check every day to see if the next chapter of Marriage Training has been published yet, but I think Lit's Summer Contest is slowing down the submissions that aren't part of it (as contests usually do).  Looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of it!

I'm chugging right through Stronghold and I think I'm still on target for an October release date, although I can't yet tell you whether it will be early, mid or late October.  I'm aiming for mid, but we'll see... it'll depend on how fast I can write and edit =)  So far it's going really well... I might have another teaser up in the next couple of weeks.  It's a little different from the Venus series since each couple is only getting one book, which means that a lot more information needs to be packed in all at once.  As well as character development, etc.  Ack!  Definitely a challenge.  It'll be interesting to see how it comes out.

The Domestic Discipline series made me a little nervous, like Stronghold is now, because it was my first series completely unrelated to Literotica.  The Stronghold series is only very loosely to do with Lit, since it's a spin-off of the Venus Rising quartet, but it's nerve-wracking in its own way.  With the DD quartet, I knew going in that Edwin and Eleanor's story was going to continue on in the second book.  With Stronghold I know I have to get it all wrapped up in one book... in a satisfying manner.

But it's a LOT of fun and I'm so happy I get to hang with the characters.  Honestly, I haven't seen quite as much of the Venus characters as I was expecting, but I've enjoyed what I have seen of them.  The guys have come up a lot more often than the girls, which makes sense since they're already friends with Adam whereas Jessica and Hilary have just met Angel.  I'm having the most fun with Lexie though... she and Angel get along really well and she is just popping up in all sorts of entertaining instances.  Poor Patrick has his hands full.

Also, the characters are finally cooperating again.  I think I've finally hit upon an outline that everyone's happy with (for the moment) and the words are really just starting to flow out of me again.  Which is great.  I was having a little bit of a block last week - and not just on Stronghold, on writing in general.  I wasn't at a standstill, but I was definitely having trouble with getting any real amount of work done.  Not anymore!  Yay!

Weekend Writing

So... the good news: I submitted Chapter 15 of Marriage Training to Literotica on Friday =)  YAY!  That should (hopefully) be out sometime next week.  The Earl is finally getting involved in Vivian's training... and I have to say it's kind of really hot.  I enjoyed that chapter VERY much.

The thing is, that also means that we're getting to the end of the story for Lit!  I have mentioned before, I will be making this into a book for Amazon, it's going to be part of another Victorian series.  I have some of the extra material already written (there's going to be a secondary story line between Mrs. Banks and Dr. Monroe, as well as interactions between Vivian and the other students and Gabriel and his family, plus several extra chapters at the end which will have to do with the Society of Sin - which is what the series will be based around.) but I'm going to have more to write afterwards, so I'm guessing that the book version will be out sometime over the winter.  Probably after Seduction by Spanking, the third Domestic Discipline book.

Now I'm starting to think about what I might write next, after Marriage Training. 

I've got a lot of focus going into Stronghold, but I definitely think I'll want to do another series for Literotica, but I really want to write something a lot darker than what I've been working on.  Marriage Training  was originally supposed to be quite a bit darker and rougher than what it ended up being, because (as usual) I was swayed by reader comments and the characters themselves.  But it means that a lot of the storylines that I've been coming up with while writing it have been MUCH rougher and darker.

Right now I'm kinda deciding between two... one is another Victorian era series.  I got a reader request for a historical, Victorian era story in the Incest/Taboo category and I ended up coming up with several ideas for something along those lines.  That one would be dark but probably a lot less rough than the other series idea I've come up with, which would (probably) be a modern-day piece, two people kidnapped and ending up as some kind of powerful man's sex slaves for whatever time period that he decides to keep them for.

Eventually I'll definitely end up writing both stories, because they're both calling to me, it's just a matter of what will come first.

This weekend I'm trying to get some more on Stronghold done as well as a little bit more work on a standalone that I've been working on here and there when I need a break from the other stuff.  Although, of course, because I'm me that's not all I'm doing... spent all yesterday at the Renaissance Fair (whoo-hoo!) and spent a good portion of the day today being a good little domestic goddess and making things all nice for when hubby gets home. 

I also broke out some nen-wa balls to play with (I think they were supposed to be the same thing is ben-wa balls) because I was thinking of writing a review for them, but I'm going to have to try them out some other time when I'm moving around more because just wearing them around the house for a short period of time didn't really give me a good idea of how effective they are.  Ie. I didn't find them effective at all, but I'm not sure how fair of a trial I really gave them.

So that's what's going on in Angel's World this weekend!

Pieces of Me

I've had a couple of questions about what parts of "me" end up in my characters... well all of them get a bit of me. It's easier to figure out what I've given the modern characters, especially since I'm currently concentrating on Stronghold at the moment. =)

Angel - lives the life I sometimes wish I could.  I'm a 9-5er because I need stability, but sometimes I wish I could do odd-jobs thing, which would give me more time for things I want to do (like sew costumes).   Also, hubby and I have recently started ballroom dancing and that definitely has something to do with her mom's occupation.  And she's also half-Asian, like me.  She also has my affinity for guy friends... I get along better with guys then I do with girls a lot of the time.   I've community theater, like her, and she's also got my bratty side and my eclectic, quirky side.

Hilary - Got my words and the prissy princess part of me LOL.  She's my softer side, the cuddly one that wants to play nicely but still play.  And the words thing... my friends often make fun of me for using expressions and words that are completely outdated.  It's something that I usually have to watch out for in my writing, because most people don't actually talk like that.  One of the best things about writing from Hilary's perspective was that I didn't have to pay attention to weeding out my anachronistic expressions, I could just relax and write.

Jessica - Okay... I hate to admit this... the Transformer's quote about getting into the car... yeah that's a real conversation I had with my best friend LOL.  Don't judge me!  We weren't talking about me going to a school like the Venus School (HA! I wish!) but I still used it.  She also got to live out all my sexy fantasies about multiple partners, exhibitionism, voyeurism, etc.  And she got my shyness around strangers and outgoing happiness around friends.  

Olivia - got the small Dominant side to my personality, the more abrasive side of my sense of humor, the pushiness that I have outside of the bedroom, and the occasional spurt of Dominance that I get inside of it.  She also gets my foul mouth LOL.

Leigh - you'll meet her in Stronghold, she's Angel's best friend and she got my ex-boyfriend (sorry Leigh!  But she gets a happy ending eventually).  She's kind of a cross between me 10 years ago and my best friend LOL.  

Patrick and Lexie are completely made up, but her brother Jake (in my head) is very similar to my best guy friend in high school.  Patrick kind of looks/acts like a guy that I flirted with a lot in high school, but I wouldn't say he's actually based on him.  

And Angel's Michael, who we'll see a lot of in Stronghold, was inspired by a guy I had a major crush on in college.  Their relationship is very similar to mine and his as well.  *sigh of longing* lol.  

 

Everyone else... completely made up. =) 

So no idea if that answers the questions or if anyone actually found that interesting... but that's a little bit of insight into the Stronghold characters.  I'm looking forward to all of their stories, that's for sure =)  

Amazeballs

Soooooo... in case you hadn't realized, I'm a big nerd.  I went to DragonCon this past weekend and it was AMAZEBALLS.  So many awesome costumes there, plus all the actors and writers, etc. One of my favorite authors, Laurell K. Hamilton was there and I got her autograph in the first book of her Anita Blake series.  Even though that series has gone downhill in the recent books, the first ten or so were fantastic and I love re-reading them.

I also got to see a panel with William Shatner which was super cool - although unlike most of the people there, I fell in love with him as Denny Crane rather than as Captain James Kirk.  I have been watching the original Star Trek during the past month though, so I understand where that love is coming from too.  He's a fabulous public speaker!  Definitely recommend going to see him if you ever get a chance.

It was three seriously intense days of high heeled boots and corsets (holy crap my feet hurt) and tons of walking, lots of waiting in line, and taking a mountain load of pictures.  We were pretty much completely exhausted by the end of every night, so needless to say I didn't get a whole lot of writing done.  And by "not a whole lot" I mean that I wrote about a page while we were waiting for the plane to take us home.

This week I've got some goals...

1. Finish and submit the next chapter of Marriage Training
2. Finish and submit the standalone story that I've been working on for a few weeks now (it's so close!)
3. Write at least one more chapter of Stronghold (aim for two...)
4. Complete the chapter of Seduction By Spanking that I'm currently working on.

Obviously that's a lot of goals... but I might be able to complete them.  It does somewhat depend on free time / level of tiredness.  And I just wasn't in the right mind set over the weekend, I was more about action and experiencing than I was about sitting / thinking / writing.  Now that I'm so tired (and my feet are so sore) sitting and writing sounds heavenly LOL.