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Tuesday, 15 May 2012
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Near Erotic and Erotic Romance Writers
Author of Teaching Between Midnight and Dawn Alexandria Infante for Eternal Press.
So,
cruising some of the sites that I subscribe to I found myself wondering; why is it that because the internet offers some form of anonymity, people seem to just run with that? Then I postulated the question; why are near Erotic and Erotic Romance Writers treated differently? Almost as if we were branded with a scarlet A among the writing community, because they never take us seriously. Perfect example; I liked over 100 author pages on amazon as a favor to some fellow authors. Ya know how many people liked my page, and kept shouting for me to add tags? 16 flippin people. Is that some janky arse shite or what?
Well anyway, you would not believe some of the comments that I received when I posted this same question. I have changed the names of the kind folks that posted, because I'm not trying to hurt people's feelings, (well except for one tool who just wouldn't stop ranting!) :) its their opinions, and the great thing about America is that we are entitled to them.
But I do feel that some of the things that they said were a bit harsh. But at the same time its good to get feedback from the public. Most of them have the misconception that all we erotic Romance novelist do is ply them with gratuitous sex, have no form, skills, hope of any kind of plot, goal for the writing, and our characters just aimlessly screw each other; and to this I do take OFFENSE. We as Romance, near Erotic and Erotic alike need to skool them, because we have substance, heart, talent, and everything else that a "Normal" fiction writer does.
C'mon fellow Erotic writers, let's storm the "Normal" fiction masses and show them what we can do!!! ;)
Some of the comments that were posted on the site...
M&A: wrote:Interesting dilemma, Alexandria.I haven't read your books, but clearly you have put your heart and soul into them. I think there probably is a segment of the reading public that arbitrarily rejects the "erotic" label. Probably because of a perception that "erotic" is synonymous with gratuitous sex rather than what Faulkner referred to as the "heart" vs. "glands" in his Nobel Prize address. Can an erotic novel have pretensions to art? Of course it can in the hands of a serious novelist. Think Lady Chatterley's Lover. A marvelous novel, ahead of its time,though it would likely have been categorized "erotic" had it been written today. Now here's a bit of irony for you to ponder. I first read this as a young teenager in the "expurgated" version. Ran into a lot of asterisks. But it had great power as a love story. Some years later, when the ban was lifted, I read the "unexpurgated" version. Maybe it was dated by then, but I found some of the dialogue (passages like "F___k a flame") a little ridiculous. In the end, I thought the expurgated version was a better novel. What was left to the imagination was more powerful than some of the explicit passages. I think that is something for every serious novelist (such as yourself), writing in the erotic genre, to weigh carefully.
Dickweed wrote:
I find it difficult to take, any writer that uses 'kinda', 'lil', 'cuz', 'shud' (etc) too seriously - but, maybe, I am just an old British dinosaur ! (No offence meant) !( yea he is, but he should have tried punctuation first tee-hee.)
K&C wrote:
I think it depends. I imagine fans of the genre will take the writers seriously but there does seem to be a bit of a stigma on it. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of it. I don't mind if there are erotic scenes in books, but in erotic novels that I've read, it seems that the big goal is to get two people into bed. And that's what the genre is about I know. But that's not what I read a book for. I also think that the genre has been hampered in the past a bit by some poor writing and hackneyed or cookie cutter plots. That could be changing, things becoming more sophisticated in the genre. So I do think in the writing world in general, the genre might still be looked down a bit, but I don't think that's necessarily fair. It has an audience and if the writing is good, it should be as respected for what it's supposed to be.
L&M wrote:
Yeah, I gotta say Alan (yeah, that's right, I typed "gotta"...hell not to mention "Yeah"), if offence (in America we spell it offense so you're spelling is really upsetting my spell check) was not meant, why say it? Obviously these are informal discussions in an online chat format, not book proposals or resumes. And please, don't get me started on British English. Much as I love things British, when I was there in the 80s, there were times I needed the Universal Translator just to understand people. After all, it wasn't Americans who created rhyming slang. I know the British think they invented English, but they didn't. They appropriated it from about 80 different other cultures thousands of years ago and slapped their own brand name on it when it started coming together in the form of a language. American English is just another branch of the tree.
Having said that, Alexandria, your stuff (yeah Alan, I typed "stuff") sounds interesting. If I have a complaint with the erotic genre it's with those books that put aside plot and character development for sex scenes. But you seem to have a pretty good balance. It's nice to have a strong female character too. I think one of the things affecting the respectability of the genre is the Harlequin Romance sort of work which I think a lot of people think of when they think romance or erotic fiction. They do seem a bit "assembly line." Maybe writers like you can bring some legitimacy to the genre. :)A&P wrote:
As a writer of erotic stories, I can tell you from the feedback I get on Bookrix.com, people do take you seriously.
So guys, just thought I'd share a few with you out there. I'll keep you posted with updates ;)
You can check out Teaching Between Midnight and Dawn here or @ www.poisonedpin.webs.com
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
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New Release... :)
The Next Book to be Released Aug 1st 2012 @ EternalPress.biz
A Lad's Trousers
Zalanthea is a runaway slave but not by choice. While emptying chamber pots she’s attacked by a Union Soldier, and in the process of defending herself she kills him accidentally. She knows that unless she flees she’ll be dead by morning, so she steals the town’s drunk’s clothes to disguise herself as a boy.
Thinking her a lad Mr. Wooldridge offers her a job on board ship, because the boy looks as if he hasn't eaten in days. Zayla believes he’s the Captain and follows him aboard the large ship. She’s surprised when Wooldridge delivers her to the captain, and she realizes just why he’s been dubbed the name Stone. The piercing gray eyes say all that he doesn’t. Yet she can’t help but feel an instant attraction towards him.
Zayla takes to ship life, but is plagued by nightmares. In the midst of one of these nightmares Stone stumbles from his bed to wake the screaming boy. As he tries to comfort the crying boy he suddenly realizes that he is a she. Not only is Stone stunned, but now he’s embarrassed because in his haste to get to the boy he forgot his under things....
And you can also still buy Teaching Between Midnight and Dawn @ EternalPress, Amazon, Barnes& Nobel; and where ever eBooks are sold
Arieanna’s life right now seemed nearly complete. Her career was soaring, she had a family who adored her, and her students loved her. Life was simple and uncomplicated. That is until she met Auron.
Arieanna doesn’t know that Auron has been sent by a secret priesthood of Saint Cisadore, and is actually there to protect her, the descendant of Ast’ at all cost. His number one objective is to keep her book from entering the hands of the wrong people, in spite of the fact that it might cause his own death.
Although exiled nearly two centuries ago, Auron knows if that book gets to Jimmy Mann, all hell will break lose. Centuries of war will then spill onto a human battle ground, and the Council will do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.
The legend says Arieanna holds the key to the location of Ast’s infamous book of magick; the only problem is, is that she doesn’t know it.
Monday, 02 April 2012
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"Be My Guest"...
So,
I know how vicious, fiendish, flagitious, foul, heinous, and any other adjective that can be added to the search for publication, literary agents and just plain getting your work out there. There are sooo many guidelines, so many "We want it this way," or, "No that's completely not what we want," and it can be very frustrating.
So in the spirit of the fellow author, and the fact that the site is going so well; I've decided to do Guest Blogs, and up in coming Author Interviews, and add them to the site. For all of my fellow authors, published or un-published, I would like you to stop by and as Disney's Lumière would say "Be My Guest" (wonder if any one else knows that Lemur was Law and Order's Jerry Orbach? Isn't that so caaaazy lol. I loved Lenny lol) ). All you need to do, is stop by the site (www.poisonedpin.webs.com), send me a shout out, and tell me where you saw this posted, then contact me with your email address, state whether you are published or un-published, give me a synopsis of your Short Story, Novella, Novel, or Poetry, then we'll go from there. Also please state if you would like to do a Guest Blog, or an Author Interview; but tech both are completely fun. I've done both.
Also check out the trailer for my new book; A Lad's Trousers, to be released in Aug.
Thanks Guys
Kindest Regards and hope to hear from you guys soon.
Alie out!
Monday, 19 March 2012
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Hummm writing and race?
I was leafing through blogs today, and came across this blog called blogher, which I later found out was a sister of blogger. Anyway, it was by a woman named Laina Dawes and she posited this;
Over the past decade or so, many people of color found that the heavily marketed romance novels contained stories and situations that did not reflect their personal experiences. With Fabio on the cover clutching a willowy blonde in his arms, served as a reflection that the contents of the book were directed towards a market that didn't include them.
Most of the post was on African-American writers, and how what was early on the scene like Terry McMillan only reflected mostly Black middle class, that didn't reflect the true lives of African-Americans. There we went our separate ways, because every African-American did not grow up in a violence fill neighborhood. I was surprised at some of the answers that she got to this post, but I wanted to join in at the same time; because she did raise some good questions. I feel some of the stuff that she said I could agree with, but at the same time, why should I be defined by my race? Being a writer is who I am and my race Should Not matter.
For those of you who don't know, my book Teaching Between Midnight and Dawn was published on Aug 7th of 2011 for Eternal Press, and it was a hard row to hoe. I write interracial romance, and it took me forever to get this book published.
I love the Paranormal, but I didn’t see myself reflected in the works that I read; and if I did it was a side character, a supporting character, or a villain; so I thought I’d write my own. Being multi-racial (Puerto Rican, Cuban, Native American, Irish and African-American) I wanted to see a character like me, and the fact that this is rare spurred me on. Authors like me tend to get pigeon holed into one specific genre like Minority literature, Latina, African-American, or Ethnic, who hardly ever move out of that to become main stream; and I think that this is completely unfair. I hoped by writing what I believe the genre should encompass, people would see the book for the story and negate the race of the character; that being, anyone could place themselves in the shoes of the character, not just someone of a minority background.
However, I find the fact that we have to be billed as African American, Native American, Latina, or Asian almost contemptible. When I walk into a book store seeking a book on Milton or Shakespeare, it isn't billed as "old ass British White dude", ( and don't get me wrong, I love my classics. I just started teaching Literature and Art History) but I think that its sad that we as minorities must be displayed that way. Love is love, and color shouldn't matter when it comes to affairs of the heart. I write paranormal romance, and the fact that my characters are Scottish wolves and British vamps who have a thang for color, shouldn't matter one way or the other when dealing with love and romance. Having a multiracial character who speaks Spanglish, and has a ghetto side, if that's what you want to call it, has gotten me a few harsh reviews for the book. My entire series, 12 books so far, each have a main male character that is of a different race; from Japanese, to African and white, to Romanian, to Native American and so on; because true love is color blind, even if people still don't accept that.
It is in my opinion, that many times white America will look at a book and say "Oh, that's a black writer, or a Latin writer" and they believe that they have nothing in common with the character, so they can't see themselves reading the book. This is completely biased, because we as minorities do it everyday. As far as publishing is concerned 90% of their business comes from white America, which is the reason that minority authors have such a hard time getting their works published, and if they do its almost stagnate in its movements.
Unfortunately, many Publishing companies continue to hold onto that bullshite antiquated idea that the average soccer mom/ house wife, (mostly who romance novels are aimed at) won't want to read a book like that, unless its Jorge the pool boy, or Malik the thug that happens to be very articulate to her surprise, and tutors her daughter (but it is acceptable for her to have some secret fantasy about either one, because that is not openly interracial dating. It's just a lil nookie on the side). It all goes back to that taboo system, and even in the 21st century, people are still too terrified to touch it. But I notice that when it comes to books, only minorities have their race put out before their name even appears. I shouldn't have to be billed by Latina author, Native American author, or black author. I am a writer, and that is all that should matter.
These were just some random thoughts that i had about the post and wanted to share. Hope i didn't bore you guys too much lol.
I can't wait to see the reviews that I get for my new book A Lad's Trousers, because its set in the 1800s and the main male character is a White northern Aristocrat. :) I'm lovin that!
Alie out! :)
Monday, 05 March 2012
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New trailers...
Okay,
so here's the scoop lol. I need new faces. You ask for what? Well, since the first book Shades of Grey in my Historical Women's Fiction series has sold, I need new faces for the trailer. I'm sure my daughters and their friends are sick of me usin them lol. So, if you're interested, catch up with me @ here, or at facebook alexandria infante, or at my web page, www.freewebs.com/poisonedpin. :)
poisonedpin
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- Name: poisonedpin
- Gender: Female
- Member Since: 6/21/2008
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just an aspiring author
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I am so excited to say, that Teaching Between Midnight and Dawn will make its Debut on Aug 7th 2011 at Eternal Press.Com. I am so happy
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So guys, the journey has produced fuition! I am now about to be among the ranks of published author!!!! The date; Aug 2011, t
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Got some new offers, but I'm sooo confused as to what's what. If anyone out there knows give me a hallor pleases. I need help ugh!
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