The Naked Page

New Website and Blog

2009-03-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

Big changes afoot at jamiesobrato.com! I've done away with my old website (sob) and moved it along with my blog to WordPress.

I guess that means I'm saying goodbye to my Blogger blog. WordPress is groovy in ways that make the move worthwhile. I'll keep this blog at least during the transition. I doubt I have the fortitude to move all the content, but that's okay. Does anyone really need to dig back in the archives for our old discussions of panty preferences and such?

If you've moved a blog before and have any tips, I'd love for you to pass them along.

I know my new web presence isn't anything fancy, but I'm really happy to have complete control over it now, and eventually I'll get it all customized and flashy--just give me time. For now it still provides a place to find out about my new releases and waste time chatting on the blog.

Free Books!

2009-02-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

Harlequin is celebrating its 60th anniversary by giving away 16 free ebooks. You can download them here:

http://www.harlequincelebrates.com/

If you have an iPhone, you can get the books easily on Stanza, which is a free app. If you don't have Stanza yet, just download it, and then in a matter of a few minutes you can download all the free HQ ebooks. I've been reading mine on my phone all week.

Tweet Much?

2009-02-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

Come follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiesobrato

I may not be an early adopter, but I'm an enthusiastic one. What? You don't use Twitter? You're not sure why you'd ever want to in a million years? I wasn't sure either at first, but I've decided it's a great low-time-commitment way to stay in touch.

Cough, Cough

2009-01-30T09:36:00.000-08:00

I'm still trying to get over the flu. As January passes me by, in my heavily medicated haze I'm only vaguely aware of the time lost. I almost have to laugh at how motivated I was at the start of the month. I had resolutions, and a long list of goals so detailed I had to subdivide them into what I would accomplish monthly, weekly, daily, and hourly. And I was working through that list diligently, accomplishing things like crazy, somewhat amazed at my own wildly productive state.

I was, perhaps, overdoing it a bit. Maybe putting too much pressure on myself. And so, me and my long list of goals ended up with a weakened immune system. Is the virus nature's way of reminding us that we with our detailed goal sheets are not really in control?

Did you set goals for this year (and this month and this week and today and an hour from now)? How's that working out for you?

Come Chat with Me at EHarlequin

2009-01-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

Oh, the flu. Cough, cough. Woe is me. I've mostly been in bed for the past week, and I'm starting to go a little stir crazy.

I'm chatting this week over at Eharlequin, and the message board is pretty darn quiet right now, so come on over and post a comment! Pretty please?

The topics I'm discussing are balancing contrasting elements in stories and writing for different lines. Here's a link:

http://community.eharlequin.com/node/125011#comment-139825

(I noticed my original link wasn't working properly, so I'm trying the one above now...we'll see if it works.)

The Ever-Shrinking Novel

2009-01-14T10:03:00.000-08:00

I started reading a Madeline L'Engle book, Many Waters, with my kids recently. It's a much longer-than-usual novel, especially for kids, with meandering chapters and small print. And while I consider myself to be a reasonably literate person, I have to admit, I find myself looking ahead and thinking, when is this #!@&! chapter ever going to end?

That's not because it's a young adult book, either. I love reading YA novels. I'm also re-reading one of my all-time favorite books, The Poisonwood Bible, and a friend remarked to me the other day when I mentioned it that she thought the story went on way too long. Indeed, it's quite long, but in this case I savor it--I don't want the story to end. It's a rare book I can say that about.

Meanwhile, my own stories tend to be spare, and I always strive (thought don't always acheive) to write fast-paced page-turners. I like this as both a reader and a writer. I'm part of the trend of the ever-shrinking novel, I guess.

Publishers cite printing costs and competition with other media as the reasons for novels getting shorter and shorter. Do we even care? Is anything being lost as novels get shorter?

A Change of Pace

2009-01-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

My first Harlequin SuperRomance novel, A Forever Family, arrived in stores today. I'm so busy with other projects and life in general that I haven't done anything to celebrate, but I should. This book probably saved my creative life last year when I wrote it.

After sixteen novels in a row (not counting the ones that weren't published) all in the same style and tone, I was getting more burnt out than I imagined possible. I was beginning to think I had nothing left in me when I sat down to write each day...and often couldn't write much at all.

Then I started working on this book, and all the exhiliration writing once brought to me came back. I remembered why I'd dreamed of becoming a writer in the first place.

When I re-read A Forever Family now, I see things I would do differently if I had the chance to write it again, but it still represents a...dare I say it...joyful (yes, joyful) process for me, and for that reason among others, it's my favorite of any novel I've written.

Only 5000 More Hours to Go

2008-12-16T12:25:00.001-08:00

I'm in the middle of reading Malcolm Gladwell's latest, Outliers. In one section, he suggests that a primary factor separating the truly great from the merely average is number of hours spent practicing one's skill, whether it be a playing a sport or composing music or writing or whatever. He says 10,000 hours seems to be the magic number that most people have spent practicing their skill before they reach greatness.

Okay, I think, I've spent most of my adult life writing, and if it takes me X number of hours to write a book, how many more hours do I need to spend writing before I find my work in college anthologies of great American literature? I did some very rough calculations (because really, I have no solid idea exactly how many hours it takes to write any given book--and do I count the hours spent staring off into space trying to think of my next line, composing email, etc?), and I discovered that I'm maybe halfway there.

Only 5000 more hours to go. Look out Hemingway.

The Long and Short of It

2008-12-15T15:39:00.000-08:00

Up On the Housetop, the novella I have in the Harlequin Heating Up the Holidays anthology this month, is my first time trying out that form. At 100 pages in length, I thought it would be easier to write--and take less time--than a full-length novel, and I was dead wrong.

I've written around 16 novels (more like 20 or 21 if I count the ones that never sold), so when I sit down to write fiction, my brain automatically starts coming up with stories that take 300 pages or so to resolve themselves. This made readjusting to accomodate a shorter story difficult. It required writing tighter and toning down the conflict, while reimagining a story arc that isn't so wide.

I think it took me about two months to write the novella, which is about how long, roughly, it takes me to write a 300 page novel. So much for my carefully planned writing schedule.

Heat Up Your Holidays

2008-12-03T09:29:00.001-08:00

My latest book, Heating Up the Holidays, arrived in stores this week. It's a novella anthology featuring stories by me, Jill Shalvis, and Jacquie D'Alessandro, and it has firefighters--lots of firefighters! Check out the cover, excerpt, etc. in the books section of my website.

I'm thinking it'll make a fab stocking stuffer for the romance readers on your holiday shopping list.

Cover Ruminations

2008-09-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

Why, oh, why, are the hero and heroine on the cover of Seducing a SEAL so shiny? Anyone care to venture a guess? Are they all oiled up for a wrestling match? Are they merely wet from the rain? Or, like Labrador Retrievers, is that the protective oil their hair produces to keep them from getting too wet? The heroine especially looks like she'll slip from the hero's grasp if he tries to embrace her any more passionately.

Guest Blogging with Bunny

2008-09-13T09:22:00.001-07:00

Today I'm blogging over at www.plotmonkeys.com, and for once I think I came up with a pretty useful post about editing/writing/etc. Check it out and you'll get to see a picture of one of my adorable bunny rabbits, Robin Williams.

Girl Talk Updated

2007-11-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

Check out the latest Girl Talk conversation, in which Cindy and I debate the merits of procrastination. How could procrastination have any merit, you wonder? Well, read on: http://www.jamiesobrato.com/girl_talk.html

Guest Plot Monkey/Lost Reader Mail

2007-11-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging today over at www.plotmonkeys.com on The Art and Craft of Knowing Nothing. Check it out.

Also, if you've sent me an email in recent months and haven't heard back, it's likely because I had a hard drive crash and lost all the data on my old computer. I tend to save up reader mail to reply to all at once, and I am sad to say I lost lots of reader mail that I hadn't replied to yet. so please know I'm not ignoring you! I do have emails from the past month, but my new email and internet situation have been pretty unreliable and it's kept me from catching up on everything yet.

Get It While It's Hot

2007-11-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's hot whether you get it or not, but SEX BOMB arrived in stores yesterday. Yay! I feel like celebrating, because this book was no easy birthin', I tell ya. Just ask my beloved editor.

It took forever to write, from day one, involved much bleeding on the page, and for whatever reason, it was hell to edit. And edit. And edit again. The end result is a book I love though, so it's all good. And Romantic Times loved it too, even gave it their 4.5 star Top Pick review, which gave me some much-needed validation for all the hard work. Here's the juicy part of the review:

"Hot, funny, exciting and unique, Sex Bomb by Jamie Sobrato is a wonderful book. Ellie is a truly original heroine, and Christian is drop-dead attractive."

Aw shucks. I'm blushing.

And on to other matters, yeah, I've been a lousy blogger of late. But I hearby announce my intentions to start posting daily again. Or semi-daily. Or something along those lines.

Anyone have their own good news or bad news or whatever to post???

Sex Bomb

2007-10-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

I guess now is as good a time as any to bring back my poor lonely blog from the dead.

I've got a new book out next month, Sex Bomb. Here's the cover (which rocks):

Here's the blurb:

Ellie Jameson is more than a pretty face. With enough self-defense and weapons training to be her own covert agency, she's ready for all the bad guys of the world. And when gorgeous assassin Christian Navarro breaks in to her bedroom to request her help, she finally gets her chance. There's even a bonus—she has to pretend to be his lover.

It doesn't take long for fake sex to become real. In fact, their bedroom recreation is so steamy, she doesn't want it to end. As the stakes on this mission rise, Ellie fears losing
Christian more than taking out any villain. Is a career as a superspy worth giving up the hottest sex of her life?

Call Me Wicked

2007-05-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

My next Blaze arrives in stores in June, and it's (as far as I know) the line's first book featuring a witch as a heroine. If you read The Sex Quotient last summer, you'll remember Lauren and Carson from that story, but I only hinted around in that book about Lauren's true non-mortal nature. Call Me Wicked is the sequel, in which Lauren and Carson reunite...

The back cover copy:

Lauren Parish's hottest fling was with Carson McCullen—a mortal and a huge no-no in her witching world. His reappearance in her life has her imagining many new steamy encounters. Too bad his timing sucks.

She's busy avoiding the witch-hunters who want her dead, and her only option is to go underground. And when the hunters spot Carson, he has to join her. Still, there are worse ways to pass the days than in seclusion with such a scrumptious man.

Before long their bedroom maneuvers make their previous affair seem G-rated. All too soon, however, they have to return to the real world…and the threat facing Lauren. Logically, she knows she should let Carson go. But how long can she go without this hot sex?

Pleasure for the Savvy Collector?

2007-05-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

I was going to post about something else today, but when I went to Amazon.com to look up a link for the book I wanted to blog about, I noticed that my Golden Heart-winning Blaze, Pleasure for Pleasure, is selling there used for $20.

Hee-hee.

Original cover price? Probably about $4.50.

Creativity Cross-Training

2007-04-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging elsewhere today. My long-time pal Tessa Radley has her first Silhouette Desire novel out this month, Black Widow Bride, (Yay Tessa!) and to celebrate, she's having a blog party full of guest bloggers. I posted on the need to do a little creativity cross-training in order to keep the muse in shape. Check it out here.

Hurry to the Store! Right Now!

2007-04-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

Sex As a Second Language arrived in stores this week and will be there for the next five minutes or so at least. I don't mean that as a comment on my incredible popularity (cough, cough), but rather as a warning about how briefly it will be on store shelves (two weeks max in some places). Hurry out and buy a copy! Pretty please?

Oh, and need I remind you that this is the book dedicated to you, The Naked Page People? How's that for sales pressure?

Naked Page People Dominate the Golden Heart

2007-03-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

Two of our very own beloved Naked Page people have some excellent news to share. The announcements for Golden Heart and Rita finalists were made yesterday, and both Cindy Procter-King and Melissa James (AKA Avery Beck) got calls!

Congratulations, girls! Give us the scoop. And we want to know where you were when you got the calls, how you reacted, and what you're doing to celebrate.

For anyone who doesn't know (is anyone else even reading this blog anymore, since I became missing in action?), being a Golden Heart finalist years ago got me my first agent and my first book sale, so I know all too well that this is an excellent sign of good things to come. Can't wait to scream for you, Cindy and Melissa, at the award ceremony in Dallas! Good thing you're in different categories so you can both win. ;-)

Sex As a Second Language

2007-03-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

I actually have a new book coming out April 1st. Here's the scoop:

Eurogirl: A single woman in Rome. Sleeping with hot foreign men. Waking up blissfully alone. Sharing all the yummy details online. It's life just the way sexcapade blogger Ariel Turner likes it until the ideal Italian bed buddy comes along.

Now she's found a candidate for that position. Marc Sorrella is drop-dead gorgeous and he has the most delicious moves!

Unfortunately Marc seems a bit too interested in Ariel's past and her blog—places she definitely doesn't want him to go. The best way to distract him? Turn the tables and dig around in his past. What she discovers just might revoke his eligibility for a spot on her top-ten-hotties list!

Spring Cleaning Your Brain

2007-03-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

So yes, I'm still alive. Finished my book and am recovering, slowly but surely. I find myself looking around my apartment and realizing some serious spring cleaning needs to happen here.

And the same thing happens when I look at my creative life. Need to clean it up, dust away the cob webs, and get my writing to feel fresh again. But how do we do that? Have you ever spring cleaned your brain?

I think my spring cleaning will include exercising 5 days a week (since this helps in a round-about way), starting a strict routine of finishing my writing in the morning before I look at email or the internet, and trying something different (either in my creative life or my day-to-day life) regularly to shake things up.

How about you? What kinds of things jumpstart your creativity?

Some Thoughts On Writing and Sex

2007-02-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

Wise advice from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of one of my favorite books published last year, Eat, Pray, Love: Some Thoughts On Writing.

Also, I'm blogging today over on the Exploding Cigar site. Check out my post on why sex is good and necessary in romance.

What's Luck Got to Do With It?

2007-02-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

This quote made me think about the struggle to become published and how often we attribute luck to being a big factor in whether we sell our work. I do believe luck is a factor, but it's a smaller one than many people realize. We have lots of control over how much of our success is determined by luck and how much of it is determined by our own actions.

What I mean is, sometimes authors happen to be at the right place at the right time with the right book, and great things happen to their careers. People tend to call that luck. But that's dismissing the hard work and talent that went into writing the book and the work that went into putting the book in the right place at the right time.

Luck may have been a factor (say, if you happen to be writing great paranormal novels today, when the market is hot for them, instead of ten years ago when no one wanted them), but it does the author a disservice to focus on it. Even in the example of writing paranormal, we could eliminate the luck factor to a large extent by saying that if anyone chose to persist in writing paranormal books when the market for them was dead, they were creating their own bad luck, and if they were smart enough to jump on their passion for vampires when the market was on the upswing, then they made a smart business move.

I can think of one author whose career took off in a huge way a few years ago, and lots of people said she'd just gotten lucky. What really happened though was that she was a smart, talented woman who wrote for years and years, paid her dues, kept her eye out for opportunities, wrote the best books she could, and when she spotted what had the potential to be a huge opportunity, she worked as hard as she could to get it, and then she made the most of it.

Was that luck? No. It might look like luck on the surface, but it was really hard work and dedication and good business sense.

The authors who keep writing and keep improving and keep learning from their mistakes and keep sending their work out as much as they can are the ones who sell. If you find yourself frustrated that you aren't making progress, then you may need to take a hard look and what you're doing and assess what you might be doing wrong. If you can't figure out on your own, recruit the help of a trusted friend to offer their brutally honest opinion.

Don't succumb to writing it all off as luck (or lack thereof). We don't have the fates of our careers totally within our control, but we can control the most important thing--the writing itself.

Help Me Out Here

2007-02-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

I have to finish up my cover art suggestions for my November book today. The book's title is Sex Bomb, (hee hee--I love that title), and I need ideas for cover images. I'm brain-dead thanks to my current work in progress.

So help! If you come up with a cover image idea that I end up using as one of my suggestions, I'll mention your name in the book's dedication. I get to suggest three cover ideas, so potentially there could be three names mentioned. The catch is that you have to give your ideas to me here in the blog comments section by the end of today, which I know isn't much notice.

Here's a little about the story: The heroine is a makeup artist by day who secretly longs for a life of excitement and intrigue. When an operative from a secret crime-fighting organization called The Enforcers crawls through her window one night, ties her up, and tells her that if she helps him find her criminal father, she'll have a chance at becoming an Enforcer herself, she accepts the challenge, while secretly planning to seduce him so that she can protect her father from being captured. She figures sex is the one weapon every woman knows how to wield better than a man. Or something like that.

Ideas?

Cindy's New Short Story and More, More, More

2007-02-16T17:22:00.000-08:00

Our own beloved Cindy had a fun new short story released today online, Deceiving Derek. Check it out!

In other news, I have a book due in two weeks and have entered the "I'm a foul-spirited zombie who can think of nothing but my work in progress" stage of creativity. Beware.

I got a copy of my April release, Sex As a Second Language, in the mail this week (it was supposed to be two boxes full, but instead, they accidentally sent me one of my books and a whole buttload of another author's). The dedication reads, "To The Naked Page People, for hanging out on my blog and listening to me whine incessantly."

What's everyone doing for the long weekend? Did you even realize it's a long weekend? Here in this San Francisco suburb where I live, next week the kids have no school, and it's widely known as "ski week" (a name at which I can't help rolling my eyes, partly because I hate skiiing, and partly because I cannot afford a trip to Tahoe). What school officials don't seem to realize is that it should be known as I-need-to-write-without-interruption-all-freaking-week week, and it is wrong, wrong, wrong of them to go scheduling county-wide weeks off from school without consulting my writing schedule first. I mean, duh. Who do they think they are?

Hearts and Flowers and Stuff

2007-02-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't read the Girl Talk discussion Cindy and I posted recently about what we think is romantic, today's the day to do it. Apparently, as romance authors, we're supposed to sort of know what romance is all about, but the conclusion we muddled toward is that it's a highly individual thing. Big revelation, huh?

Anyway, what are you doing to celebrate Valentine's Day? Do you think it's the dumbest holiday ever, or do you love it? Or did you totally forget it's today?

I wasn't really planning to celebrate, but my kids kind of forced me. I gave in to their pleas, and we went to the local variety store yesterday, where I was surprised to find a frantic crowd of shoppers elbowing each other out of the way to grab the last of the heart-shaped candy things. I snagged a few little boxes of message hearts, a small toy for each kid, and then suffered in line for 15 minutes.

Today my son has a play date after school, so my romantic evening will be spent presiding over a small herd of noisy Valentine's Day candy-charged children.

Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough

2007-02-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

My dear friend Isabel Sharpe's new women's fiction novel Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough just hit the shelves today, and I'm so excited for her, I've gotta announce it here. Go read the excerpt on her book page and then hurry on over to Amazon and buy the book!

Valentine's Day, Etc

2007-02-05T20:24:00.001-08:00

I know this was a Christmas thing, and maybe everyone on earth besides me has already seen it months ago, but just in case your guy needs an idea of what to get you for Valentine's Day....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dmVU08zVpA

Also, the other blog I participate in, http://www.loveisanexplodingcigar.com, is having a Valentine's Day contest, in which we're giving away a way cool prize worth $100. You just have to go to the site, register as a user, and post a Valentine-y sort of recipe on the contest thread at the top of the page. The winner will receive 5 $20 gift certificates, for Amazon.com, Victoria's Secret, Godiva, Novica.com, and Red Envelope.

And I'll mention, since my last topic was kind of pathetic, I also blogged today over at the Cigar site. You can check out that entry if you want, entitled Hot Guys and Shiny Objects--Or What Attracts You to a Book. I promise it's not as lame as the entry I did here.

Goals, People--Writing Goals, Not Soccer Ones

2007-02-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

Well since the wistful tone of my last post made everyone think I was feeling sad about my career, I figured I'd better get back to my usual thing. Which is...what? Hell if I know.

Anyway, I just got word that a workshop I agreed to participlate in at the RWA National conference was approved, and that means I'm officially going to the conference in July. Conference always sends me into a goal-setting frenzy, making lists of the bazillion things I'm going to accomplish before I go so that I can justify spending too much on the trip and feel like I'm accomplishing something in my career.

So what are your writing goals for the year? Or if you're going to RWA National in Dallas, what are you going to accomplish before you get there? I am going to finish the (ahem...cough, cough) 5 proposals my editor has been waiting all too patiently for, finish the book I have due March 1st, and finish two single title proposals I've started recently and want to have done before July.

Now you see why I have to laugh in the face of my own goals (imagine maniacal laughter here).

February, the Month with Too Many R's

2007-02-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is the profound realization I had this morning: Wow, it's February.

Why does February have that extra R? Don't answer that, because I really don't actually care. I'm just rambling.

I've had my not-quite-four-year-old daughter home from school with me all week, which has me musing about the passage of time and how it can simultaneously feel so fast and so slow. It's like that saying about staying at home with young children goes--the days pass too slowly and the years pass too quickly.

But now I'm thinking of that saying in terms of my development as a writer. I had all these grand plans for myself. Career goals and such. January marked 4 years since my first book hit the shelves, and soon I will be coming up on the five year mark since I sold my first book.

I'm still here, still fumbling along, still the same writer with some of the same problems and a few new ones. I have not seen any wild, overnight successes, but I'm grateful to still be rowing the boat blindly in what sort of feels like the right direction. The years have passed too quickly since that first sale, and yet the days alone at the keyboard can feel long and relentless.

But in the face of all those goals I put on paper way back when and have yet to acheive, I have to laugh. It occurs to me more and more that all we really have as writers are these lonely days with our writing. That's where the reward is. That's where the challenge is. That's where the action is, slow and tedious as it might be.

Outward success is fleeting and hard to hold onto, but if you can find your real satisfaction in the work itself, if you can accept that being a writer really is...simple as it may sound...really all about sitting down and writing, you've got the one thing that will sustain you throughout this arduous writing life.

Five years will pass. Ten, fifteen, twenty, and one day you will look up from your keyboard (or whatever it is we're writing with twenty years from now--thought recognition software?) and realize it's February again, and you're on the other side of winter again, and then, simply, you will get back to work.

Girl Talk Updated

2007-01-27T08:14:00.000-08:00

Cindy and I have a new Girl Talk column posted. This one is in honor of that upcoming capitalist holiday of hearts and flowers, Valentine's Day. It's all about what we think is romantic. So go check out What's Romantic? (Or Not).

Brilliant Quote of the Day

2006-12-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

"Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done."- Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird

Did you read that? Go read it again.

Celebrate

2006-12-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Solstice!
Merry Christmas!
Happy Hanukkah!
Happy Kwanzaa!
Happy Holidays!
Happy New Year!

Did I forget anything? I'll be away from the blog for the holiday weekend. I wish you all the best, the happiest, and the sweetest time on Earth.

Peace and Love,
Jamie

Zen and the Art of Ignoring Reviews

2006-12-19T19:07:00.000-08:00

I've probably already blogged about this, but I'm too lazy to go back and check...

I google my own name about once a week to see if anyone is putting anything weird about me on the internet (naked photos, slanderous accusations, etc...heh). Really, that's about the only reason anymore. It used to be that I was hoping to find complimentary reviews, or morbidly curious about negative reviews, but I've finally gotten to a place where neither have much effect on me. I'm happy if I get a positive review from RT, but only for about 5 minutes. And I'm vaguely bummed if I get a negative review, but only for about five minutes.

Putting your work out there as a writer means you will either learn to have a similar neutral attitude, or you'll slowly drive yourself insane. Because ultimately, if you're going to discount the negative reviews, you have to discount the positive ones too. Really. I know, it sounds shitty, but actually it's a cool thing to realize that your opinion is the only one that should count with you in the end.

You have to reach that Zen place where other people's opinions wash over you like water. Or something. I should have a better metaphor, but I think you get the idea. You can develop this talent even before you sell by learning to feel the same about rejection letters.

Sure, an editor or agent's opinion is about a million times more important than a reviewer's, but you can't ever let yourself forget that most of the best writers in the world suffered through lots of rejection, and an editor or agent's opinion, even though it feels like it's going to make or break your career, is really still just one person's opinion, and the only things that will make or break your career are things you do yourself.

Taking this lesson to heart is one of the best gifts you can give yourself as a writer. Let go of the need for everyone else's approval and write to please yourself. Write something you can believe in, because your opinion has far more power over your writing career than anyone else's does.

And blah blah blah. I can't believe I just wrote another rah-rah motivational post. What the hell is wrong with me?

Here's something more interesting. A certain website known for harsh reviews said my second book read as if I'd written it with a gun held to my head. LOL. That comment hurt at the time, because it was probably true--that's pretty much how I felt when I wrote most of that book. I had to finish it right after 9/11 happened, while I was mostly alone in a foreign country feeling utterly devestated, missing my family and friends, and feeling like the world as we knew it had come to an end. Trust me, the last thing I wanted to be doing was writing a light, humorous romance novel. But I had to write it anyway.

Sometimes the bad reviews are true, and sometimes the good reviews are true. And it doesn't really matter. Some people really loved that gun-to-my-head book. Some people didn't. That's life. I like the book, and that's what matters to me now.

Must We Discuss Panties Again?

2006-12-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

I've noticed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for my recent blog topics. You people clearly don't want to talk about writing, which leaves me wondering what the hell to write about. Panties again? Why are panties the most popular topic here at The Naked Page? Shouldn't we be embracing full-on nakedness? Shouldn't readers of this blog be more passionate about the commando look than the boy short?

Apparently not. I hope you people who were all rah-rah about boy shorts last year have come to your senses. I still do not look good in them, so they are a fashion trend I must reject, even though I own a few pairs of the dispicable things. Adding insult to injury, the only new undergarment trend I see in the Victoria's Secret catalog is the low-rise boy short. Bleh.

So come on, suggest a topic. If it's panties, okay, I'll play along, but what else is there to say about underwear that we haven't already said?

Meet Fake Jamie

2006-12-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

I should probably be reporting this to the Myspace authorities...and I have, and I will again...but while I'm trying to get the page taken down, I just want to introduce you to Fake Jamie. Why did someone create a fake Myspace page with my photo and only partially correct info about me? Why do they have some of my information correct (and how did they find out any of it?), while having other things totally wrong (I'm NOT a guy, and I already have kids, whom I do very much want)?

I'm baffled. This must be a scam, but I don't know what kind, so let's all befriend Fake Jamie. Invite him (her?) into your friends network. Email him (her?). Fake Jamie looks pretty lonely. And Fake Jamie needs to update his (her?) photo, because that pic's a few years old and I (he?) no longer have blond hair.

Romance Novel Cover Model Speaks Out

2006-12-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

Today, my favorite news publication, The Onion, brings us this insight into the mind and lifestyle of your average romance novel cover model.

Giving Myself Cavities

2006-12-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

A friend mentioned recently having read a few of my early books and commented on how they managed to be blatantly sexual and yet sweet at the same time. My first reaction was to think, "Sweet?! My writing?! No way."

I have long bristled at the word "sweet." I once considered it a comment on a person's character that is so cliche and generic that it's basically meaningless. Hence my reaction when I hear the word applied to my writing.

But I know deep down that it's true. I've heard the comment enough times from my agents, my editor, and readers, that my stories, much to my once-chagrin, have an underlying sweetness about them, that it has forced me to face my inner sweet girl and give her a break.

It's something very interesting about writing. Once you've written enough that you have found your voice, you are essentially putting your personality on the page every time you sit down and write. The stronger your voice, the more of your true self you're putting out there.

I like to think of my novels as being kind of brash and hard-edged, but really that's an aspect of my personality. Just as I do in my writing, I tend to hide my gooey, cavity-causing center under a layer of brashness.

Having trouble finding your voice? Hearing comments in rejection letters about how you're writing isn't quite there yet, or isn't distinct enough, or doesn't stand out from the pack? Try to put more of yourself into your work. If you write the story in a way that is truly you, that reflects who you are as a person, then you'll be writing the story that only you can write. And you'll stop hearing those "it's not distinct enough" rejection comments.

One exercise I think can help you get in touch with your most distinct voice is to write a scene as if you were writing it for only your best friend to read. Feel free to use the language you think only he or she would appreciate or understand--slang, profanity, whatever--and allow yourself to relax like you would if you were having a conversation with that friend.

What aspect of your personality do you think you'd be most embarrassed to find reflected in your writing?

Spreading Myself Thinner

2006-12-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

I'm participating in a new blog with some fellow writer friends, Samantha Hunter, Karen Kendall, and Sarah Mayberry. It's called Love Is An Exploding Cigar, and I predict it's going to be the most phallic-symbol-laced blog on the internet.

Come check it out during those times when The Naked Page is developing cobwebs, or when I post holiday gift guides here that are so lame the only comment is from a spammer.

What Not to Buy

2006-12-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

Since last year Cindy and I did a Girl Talk holiday gift guide, I thought this year I’d do a Naked Page Anti-Gift Guide: what not to buy for your editor or agent for the holidays. Don’t ever say I never gave you any valuable advice.

Avoid sending Pepperidge Farms Assorted Big-Ass Sausages, unless you know for sure that your colleague is not a vegetarian and also does happen to feel passionately about processed tube-shaped meats. I’m all for absurdity, but gift sausages just aren’t quite absurd enough to be clearly a joke. Also, although I know lots of people send and enjoy receiving smoked fish as a gift, I just think it’s an all-around bad idea. I would avoid the entire meat section of the gift catalog, frankly.

Another thing—avoid sending lingerie (this goes double for sex toys). It just involves too much margin for error. You can’t really guess accurately whether your editor is a 34C or a 36D unless you have a highly discerning eye, and you don’t know either if she’s into trashy or elegant or girl next door. You can guess, but you can’t know for sure. Would she want the naughty Catholic school girl get-up, or the black lace-up bustier? There’s no way of knowing. And while those What Would Jesus Do? thong panties might sound great to you (yes, I’m going to keep bringing these panties up for the rest of my life), if you don’t know your colleague’s position on the whole Christ thing, you’re going to risk offending. Really.

Speaking of Christ, religious gifts in general--not a good idea. That pink ruffled bible cozy with the crucifix on the front might seem really sweet, but not if your editor is Jewish, or Hindu, or has an upside-down pentagram tattooed over her left breast. Seriously people, this is why you need me…to clue you in on this stuff.

Last but not least (and this is only loosely related to the sex toy thing and the meat thing), no appliances. Your Aunt Sally might love a George Foreman turbo double burger grill, but I’m not sure my agent even has a kitchen, and if she does I doubt she’s ever cooked anything in it. Remember, the publishing industry is in New York City. Electric can openers, blenders (unless accompanied by tequila and margarita mix), toaster ovens and the like just don’t go over well with that crowd.

Okay, and last, last thing…speaking of alcohol, unless you’re absolutely sure your editor is out in the open about being a hard liquor girl, that Maker’s Mark gift assortment is a tricky choice. If you hit her with it at the right time (like, say, on the day you’re a week late with your most recent book and she’s going to have to stay up all night editing it), it might be welcome. The rest of the time, you risk offending her with the suggestion that you know all about her little drinking habit.

And there you have it, the gift guide that keeps on giving.

Some Girls Like It Rough

2006-11-29T10:36:00.000-08:00

If you ever feel paralyzed by the idea that what you put on a blank page has to be good, then you need to give yourself the freedom to write truly shitty rough drafts.

I can hardly write on airplanes, or if someone is in the same room as me, because I can't stand the thought of anyone reading over my shoulder and seeing how bad my first draft is. I go into an utter panic if someone tries to take a look at my in-progress manuscripts. In a word, they suck.

And yet, somewhere between the rough draft and the final version, some stuff happens that usually makes the story readable--decent enough that I don't feel like dying of embarrassment that thousands of people will read my books.

We all know what that stuff is. It's called "the revision process," and it is without a doubt where most of the action is, much as I hate it. I love the time when I'm free to just write any old crap and move on. I'm a rough draft kind of girl..

If you can find some real joy in writing your first draft, you'll be more likely to put some magic on the page that you'll be able to really do something with during revisions. So go buck wild. Learn to like it rough.

What's your favorite part of the creative process? (Mine, aside from the rough draft stage, is when I write The End.)

The Ubiquitous Let's Be Thankful Discussion

2006-11-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

I just read that one of my all-time favorite novels, What's Eating Gilbert Grape? by Peter Hedges, is one of the latest victims of censorship. Because, you know, high school students are totally unaware of that wicked oral sex stuff, and we must protect them from knowing about such heinous things at all costs. Uh-huh.

I love that book so much that I once sent it to my cousin in prison because I thought it was the kind of story that might have a tiny chance of reaching him, maybe give him a glimpse of something transcendent. That's what good art does, anyway, when we're open to it.

Since we are nearly upon the holiday of turkey massacre, I want to say that I am thankful for books like What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, and I am thankful for authors like Peter Hedges, who write stories about the human condition that make the human condition not suck.

There are about a million other things I'm thankful for too, but I'm not going to get all smarmy and list them here. So what are you thankful for?

Longest. Entry. Ever.

2006-11-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Most writers at some point early on in their creative efforts, spend a lot of time angsting about whether they're writing the "right way." And if you happen to pick up a how-to book about writing, or attend a writing workshop, you will probably have your angst amplified by more experienced writers insisting that this or that is the proper way to write a book. Add to that the fact that writing a novel is an incredibly difficult and organic and confusing process that boggles even the sharpest minds, and you have a recipe for wanting to find the Right Way and cling desperately to it.

So here is the big secret of the writing process: whatever you do that works for you, keep doing it, and whatever doesn't work for you, don't do it.

Whew. There. The secret is out. Aren't you glad I enlightened you? What? You're still confused? (Don't be. It's as simple as it sounds.)

I actually believe there is great value in writers talking to each other about their processes, comparing notes, etc. Listening to how other writers write can give us clues about what we might or might not find useful.

It only becomes a problem when you let it convince you that because one successful writer writes for 8 hours each day, 5 days a week, always creates an extensive outline at the start, and never, ever suffers from writer's block, then you are simply fucked and will never make it as a writer. Or maybe your favorite author writes really fast, like 20 pages a day, and you are slow as molasses, and this leads you to suspect you should go ahead and take that assistant manager job at Walmart.

Everyone's writing process is unique, much like any other personality quirk, but it's not a set of rules for anyone else to follow. Just listen, and consider, and maybe once in a while you'll pick up something that helps you along your own path. Or maybe you'll just get a little sense of confirmation that you're not crazy after all for only being able to write from midnight until dawn, and only while downing espresso with Nirvana music playing in the background.

Also consider that at different learning stages, your process likely will need to evolve a little, and you should let it. The more flexible you can be about your process, the more work you'll probably get done.

My writing process is weird enough that it will probably make you all feel sane and normal, so I will share it. I tend to write in mad bursts, with dormant periods in between during which I like to think my brain is resting and preparing for the next writing frenzy. The closer my deadlines get, the faster I write.

I don't have a favorite time of day or place to write. Usually, "whenever I'm awake" will do, and I like to write in bed but will work anywhere that isn't too noisy. But since I have kids, I usually try to get all my writing done while they are in school. If I need to work more because of a deadline, I will write anywhere and at any time, and I occasionally pull all-nighters if I have to (but I try hard to avoid this, because it sucks).

I write most of my scenes totally out of order, just writing them as they come to me, and then moving on and writing another and another until I have what I can only hope is something resembling a coherent story (but sometimes not). Then once I can't think of any more scenes to write (this usually happens when I'm 50-100 pages short of a complete novel), I stop and put everything in chronological order.

After that, I have to fill in all the stuff that's missing, delete the repetitive stuff, connect scenes together and/or set them up, fix the continuity problems created by writing out of order, and format the story in chapters.

Because I'm usually writing books that I've sold on proposal (first three chapters and synopsis), I have the synopsis as a rough guideline of how the story should go. Sometimes I follow it, and sometimes my final story doesn't much resemble the original plan.

One of the first scenes I write after I've finished the three chapters for a proposal, is the final scene of the book. Having that scene gives me a destination, and my final scene usually doesn't change once I've written the rest of the book. I might need to fill in some details, but that's all.

Is this how you should write your book? Probably not. Does it make your approach any less valid? No way. But maybe the valuable thing you can take from hearing my process is to consider how your brain works and tweak your own writing habits accordingly if you're finding yourself frustrated.

I'm not a linear thinker, and I consider my writing process sort of circular. The story usually ends in a similar place as where it started, only the characters have been transformed in some way by their experiences. If you are struggling with getting a book done, it might help to figure out if you are a linear or non-linear thinker. Do you tend to move logically from point A to B to C, or do you jump around a lot and consider point Q before you can understand point D?

Linear thinkers generally need to write their stories on a logical timeline, starting with chapter one and moving along through the story as a reader would read it. Non-linear thinkers sometimes might find more creative synergy in writing whatever scene they feel like working on, regardless of timeline.

So let's compare notes here. What's your process?

That Up and Down Motion Thing

2006-11-15T17:46:00.000-08:00

No, not THAT up and down motion. Jeez, you people think about nothing but sex. Oh, wait, that's me. Um, er, anyway...that thing I mentioned a few posts ago is a simple idea my editor mentioned (I'm probably even remembering the term wrong, but "up and down motion" is what stuck in my head) that can help to keep in mind when you're writing scenes.

The idea is that at the start of a scene, if things are going well for your protagonist, then by the end of the scene it all should be going to shit. And then, if you start out the next scene with things going badly, by the end of the scene there should be some sense of improvement, hope, and/or a problem resolved on the way to the overall plot resolution. And so on. This could be either in the internal conflict, or the external, or both.

Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule, and there is no such thing as a hard and fast rule, and sometimes the best stories throw all the rules in the garbage. But it is a good tool to keep in mind if you find your story feeling flat, dull, not going anywhere, or whatever.

And now, since your eyes seem to glaze over when I start talking about anything remotely useful, I will also point out that I dedicated my April 07 book, Sex As a Second Language, to you Naked Page People. In it, the heroine is a blogger, and her blog posts along with comments from the readers of her blog appear at the start of each chapter. So don't say I never gave you anything.

Am I the only person on earth not participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)? I even saw a piece (which I now cannot find) about it on the NPR website. I think that officially makes it a very mainstream kinda thing, yes? And am I the only person who thinks "NaNoWriMo" is the most annoying name on earth?

Body Art Gone Bad

2006-11-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

So I'm like in revision mode now, which isn't nearly as fun as "I have nothing urgent to do" mode. My editor called me the other day with revisions for the witch book I just finished, and she said that some of my scenes don't have enough "up and down motion." And I'm like, okay, okay, fine, I'll add more sex. Except she wasn't talking about sex. I need to add more of that too, but she was talking about something else--something about needing my characters to actually have goals and do stuff or, you know, not be so boring.

Also, she needed me to find a tattoo image online for the cover of the book, because the heroine has a tattoo on the back of her neck, and that is going to be the cover image. So I spent a couple of days getting all glassy-eyed while staring at photos of people's hairy tattooed shoulders, legs, and various other body parts (ahem), in search of the right image. There are a lot of BAAAAAAD tattoos out there in the world, lemme tell ya.

But this renewed my interest in a tattoo for myself. And then I thought, hey, this is sounding like blog topic material, since my main criteria for blog topics seems to be that the subject be utterly devoid of value or meaning. So now I'm thinking of getting a tattoo on the back of my neck, like my heroine has. But what...I don't know.

Here's the question: what's the worst tattoo you've ever seen?

I had a hair stylist once who had a tattoo of an extremely large-breasted naked woman on his underarm. This disturbed me, and it gets my vote for worst tattoo...though gosh, there are so many to choose from, it's hard to narrow it down.

Brain No Work Now

2006-11-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

Me write only cave man talk now. Me tired. Me finish write witch book on Halloween. Me need sleep. Me need new brain, not have so much miles on it. Me go eat Halloween chocolate, make feel better.

You Know You Want It

2006-10-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

A Whisper of Wanting is in stores now, so hurry your butt on out and buy a copy.

Also, if you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, did you know it automatically enters you to win books and stuff? Like, every month? I know, I know, I need to update the contest page on my website, but for now I will let you know here about the latest contest for the Lust Potion # 9 series. Here's the blurb thingy:

LUST POTION #9 Harlequin Blaze miniseries from Jamie Sobrato, Colleen Collins and Carrie Alexander

Enter three times to win!The Lust Potion #9 authors are offering you three chances to win the grand prize of a crystal perfume bottle, plus a $15 Amazon gift certificate that may be used to purchase all three Lust Potion #9 books (winner's choice). Enter at www.jamiesobrato.com ,
www.colleencollins.net , and www.carrielaexander.com .

Three runners-up, one drawn at each website, will receive a backlist book from one of the authors.

The rules: Contest closes December 7, 2006. One entry per website, please. Foreign addresses welcome. Entry may require author newsletter sign-up. Newsletter subscribers must not be no-mail to qualify for entry.

So, in case you haven't figured it out yet, to sign up for my newsletter you have to go to my Yahoogroups page and join my yahoogroup. This means you will get a newsletter from me about 3 or 4 times a year, usually only when I have a new book in stores. And every month or so I choose a name from a member of my Yahoogroups newsletter list to be the winner of my contest. So it helps if you actually give your name when you sign up for my newsletter, because I don't like to address the contest-win email to "hey you," or "Teddybear1984" or whatever you go by online.

The Reviews Are In

2006-09-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, so there is only one review, from Romantic Times magazine, but hey, it's a good one. I'm not exactly being all chatty on the blog these days (I had revisions due, so shoot me), and this is the best I can do for new content. Behold, my 4-star Romantic Times review:

"Humor and hot sex combine in A WHISPER OF WANTING (4) by Jamie Sobrato. Visiting a San Diego tourist trap, journalist Ethan Ramsey is offered "crazy passion" in the form of a lust potion. When he doesn't buy, the owner slips the bottle to the group he's in when police come into the shop. Ethan wonders if there's something more illegal than pretend lust and takes the bottle to Detective Nicole Arroyo to have it analyzed. They had a failed sexual encounter two years before, and he hasn't been able to get over her. When part of the potion spills on them, their attraction flares out of control. Good description (the salesman is a "tiny lizard of a man"), very hot sex, strong characters and an interesting plot make this a wonderful read. Since this is part of a series (Lust Potion #9), we don't find out if there's actually a potion."

I wrote A Whisper of Wanting during the most stressful, tumultuous, depressing months of my life (while going through a divorce and a move to a new city), and hearing someone say it doesn't suck puts a smile on my face. I can finally heave a sigh of relief that maybe my career isn't over after all.

Whew.

Lust Potion # 9

2006-09-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

My friend Cindy is a lovely human being who, among her many charms, possesses the ability to update my website. This is not the only reason I love her, but it's right up there in the top 10. My website is finally, after more months than I care to mention, updated!

So for those of you who've been literally wetting your pants waiting to hear more about my October Blaze, A Whisper of Wanting, you can now scurry on over to my website and read all about it. You can also admire the gorgeous and blatantly phallic cover.

Whisper is the first book in the Lust Potion # 9 Blaze miniseries. The second and third books, written by Colleen Collins and Carrie Alexander, will be out in November and December. I think we are doing some kind of contest where you can win something fabulous, but I am not sure what it is yet. I should probably know this sort of thing. Stay tuned for more info.

Call Me Crazed

2006-09-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

I should be diving into writing my next book right about now, Call Me Wicked. It's due November 1 and should put me in a nice Halloweeny mood just in time for October 31st. I won't even need a costume, I'll bet.

Wicked will be released next summer as Blaze's first book featuring a heroine who's a witch. I can't wait. I wanted to do a whole witch series, because as a teenager I obsessively read Anne Rice's Mayfair witch books and the whole witch theme is now permanently imprinted on my psyche or something, but the editors want to test the water first with one witch book to see how it sells before considering a series.

If you read The Sex Quotient this summer, you should remember Lauren and Carson as secondary characters. Did you notice anything strange about Lauren? Well, duh, she's a witch. It was fun planting little clues in that book without ever coming out and saying it. So now you know.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little crazed and not exactly, ahem, diving into the book. I have revisions that my editor will be calling me with any time now for the book I just turned in, and I just finished writing up some ideas last week for her to look at for a couple of Superromances I'd like to write, so I'm nervous to hear if she likes them or not. As the days pass, I get more and more paranoid about her not liking them, and about my revisions being so huge that she's busy writing me a 20-page revision letter.

Urgh.

So what are you all working on right now? Distract me from my paranoia please.

Hey Look, A New Post

2006-08-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering where I've been for the past month, I had a summer book deadline, which is something like having a Christmas book deadline, only without the presents. Basically, summer deadlines, especially right-after-RWA-National deadlines, suck.

So I just finished the book yesterday. Whew. Call me relieved. My hair is falling out, I have a cold, and there is a towering pile of laundry nearby. I'm not sure which of those is the most significant detail, but at least the book is done.

I wrote nearly every day for the past month, and now all I'm good for is sitting around at the playground handing my kids snacks and reading books and magazines I could only gaze longingly at during deadline mania.

So, what did you do on your summer vacation? Me, I wrote a book.

See You In Atlanta

2006-07-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

This is the week of insanity and frantic last-minute wardrobe planning for those of us in the romance writing world. In a few days we will all board planes to Atlanta and converge on that big sweaty city for a week of industry networking and gossip, a week of editor and agent meetings, a week of catching up with the writer friends we don't see all year.

And of course, since we've spent the other 360 days of the year mostly alone except for the imaginary people and voices inside our own heads, we are an interesting group to observe in such an intensely social setting.

If you're going to be in Atlanta on Wednesday, July 26th, stop by the Marriott Marquis downtown, 5:30-8:30 PM, for RWA's annual literacy autographing, where a buttload of authors (including me!), will be crammed into a giant room signing books. It's fun, it's dizzying, and it's a good cause. Plus, I occasionally like someone to stop by my table and pretend they're a fan of mine, and who better to do that than Naked Page people?

Here's a link to a complete list of authors attending.

And if you're going to be at the conference, I hope you'll say hi if you see me wandering the hotel.

I'll try to report in here to let you non-conference-goers know what's going on. Bethany has a head injury, and she's going to be my roommate this year. This should be fun. Well, she's not going to be my roommate because of the head injury, though that might make more sense (Does she realize what she's getting into? Actually, she does--she's had the misfortune of sharing sleazy hotel rooms around Europe with me...). I will not tell the story of how she got the head injury here, but I am tempted to make up something good.

Oh, and need I point out that this your last week to find The Sex Quotient in regular stores? Yes, I must point it out. You can buy an autographed copy at the literacy thing Wednesday night, by the way. I think there might be copies of Once Upon a Seduction there for me to sign too.

More of Me to Love

2006-07-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

You may have been wondering if I have:

a. died
b. been abducted by aliens
c. run off to join a cult
d. forgotten that I have a blog
e. all of the above

Or you may have better things to wonder about than the minute details of my possible alien abduction and subsequent probing.

I don't have any good excuses for my absence (plenty of bad excuses though). So instead, I will just drop the big thrilling news on you that I have prolonged my writing career by another year by selling 3 more Blazes, all to be released in 2007. So you get more of me to love, and I get to earn something resembling a poverty-level living. It's a win-win situation.

I know you're all squirming in your seats there, and not because of that strange itch you've been suffering in your nether regions. You want to know about the books (humor me here--nod your heads).

In April 07 there will be an international Blaze set in Italy, tentatively titled Sex In Any Language, in August 07 there will be a paranormal Blaze featuring Lauren and Carson from The Sex Quotient, titled Call Me Wicked, and in November 07 a kick-ass action-adventure Blaze titled Sex Bomb.

Not to mention my next Blaze for October 06, the first in a 3-book series called Lust Potion #9. My book is A Whisper of Wanting, and it's followed in November and December by stories from the fabulous Colleen Collins and Carrie Alexander. More info on the series to come.

So there. No more angst over whether I'm being probed by aliens. I'm actually, you know, busy writing books and stuff...just as The Great Enlightened One has instructed.

The Sex Quotient is Here

2006-07-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's July 1st, which means my book The Sex Quotient is officially in stores and will be for the next few weeks or so. Go buy it! Please. Pretty please?

Since I am broke (this is a blatant attempt to induce guilt and make you go buy my book) and had to stop paying the person who used to update my website, and since I have been too crazed/busy/verging on manic to figure out how to update it myself (or have our dear lovely Cindy do it for me), I don't have anything about the book on my website. How sad is that? Now I am one of those lame authors with a website desperately in need of updating. I used to be so efficient about that stuff. Soon it's going to start feeling all stale and musty over there on http://www.jamiesobrato.com. I already see cobwebs in the corners. I should just give it up and go straight blog, with no static site. Really, I know I keep saying that, but I should.

Anyhow, I woud post the back cover copy to entice you, or something, but I can't even find it, and I'm too lazy to type it off the back of the book. Seriously, I'm just a mess. Trust me--the book doesn't suck. How's that for a sales pitch?

Here's the cover again, so you can be sure to spot it and that loony freaking cowboy and horse on your next trip to Borders:

Naked Page People Successes

2006-06-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have no success to gloat about on my own behalf, but I do need to gloat for a few of my dear friends. Bethany just signed with a humongo impressive literary agency, and Cindy just sold a novella.

Yay!!! These are signs of much more success to come. Nake Page People rock.

Jaded Shaft: The Mad Libs

2006-06-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

Bethany has completed the fill-in-the-blanks for our little Mad Libs game. So now here's the deal: you have to read through them all (in the comments section of this entry) and then vote for the one you like best.

You can't vote for mine. Well, you can, just to kiss up to me, and I might send you a free book or treat you favorably here at the Naked Page by showering you with compliments, but in order for the contest to have a winner, it would be best if you vote for someone else's.

The person with the most votes will get their choice of any or all of my books, signed and mailed to them, including my upcoming July release. I will also strip naked and rub said books all over my body before mailing them, if that pleases the winner. No? No one wants me to do that? Well, I wasn't really going to do it anyway (yes I was).

All other Mad Libs participants will also get a signed copy of The Sex Quotient, my July book, just because I'm feeling all generous and stuff.

Part I: In Anticipation of the Jaded Shaft

2006-06-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

Bethany is approximately 4.2 times more brilliant than I, and she of course came up with the solution to our little Jaded Shaft story stalemate. Mad Libs! Okay, now, as a kid, I have to admit I found Mad Libs to be about as interesting as toe jam, but as a frustrated English major with a raunchy sense of humor, I can dig the charms of Bethany's list.

So here's the deal. You provide a list of words that match the list below. Be creative. Make them funny, or weird, or nasty, or sexy, or off the wall, or all of those, or none of those. Bethany will plug the words into the story, and then the fun begins. (Did I get that right?)

noun
adjective
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Jaded Shaft: The Short Story

2006-05-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

I know we all envisioned The Jaded Shaft as a movie, but maybe we should first come up with a short story that could be the inspiration for the movie. Sort of like Brokeback Mountain, but without the anal sex. Or, hey, maybe it could be that kind of movie. I give us full creative license to do whatever the hell we want to do.

After all, I don't write romance novels, according to certain uptight, undersexed, granny-panty-wearing Rita judges. So I can write any damn thing I want. And this is my blog, free of the rules of the romance genre. We can get down and dirty if we want to, and there aren't any disapproving Rita judges to purse their lips at us (or maybe there are, in which case, I'd just like to say: kiss my ass).

If you need a little refresher on The Jaded Shaft, please check out our previous discussion (you'll have to scroll almost to the bottom of the page to the Jaded Shaft entry).

So. We need to start brainstorming. Have we even figured out what or who The Jaded Shaft actually is? (I'm too lazy to go back and read those 130-something comments on the previous thread.) Talk amongst yourselves.

The Upside of Sex

2006-05-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

I just realized I have a "round robin" short story up at Harlequin's website. It's called The Upside of Sex and it's a very quick read. If you are wondering what the hell a round robin is, basically, I wrote the first chapter of the story, and then anyone who wants to can try to write the next 4 chapters. They submit chapters and someone at Harlequin picks a winner every week to be the one that's actually used for the story. Then I write the final chapter based on what everyone else has written.

Clear as mud? It's actually kind of a fun creative writing exercise any of you Naked Page people could participate in. Please. Go participate. Do something fun with my characters, because I'm going to be pissed if they end up trying to rescue a secret baby from a renegade rancher or something. The hero is not a sheik. The heroine is not a virgin. It's a Blaze. They're supposed to be young and cool and having sex. Enough said.

Oh, and I just noticed there's a typo in the story. Don't email me about it. I don't want to be reminded.

Random Stupid Thoughts

2006-05-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

So life is whipping my ass lately, and writer's block is a raging problem here in naked page land, where the pages really are, literally, naked. I have tried in vain to convince my editor that the blank page is a story in itself, a minimalist commentary on the utter futility of the story as an artform, but she's not buying it. Really just not buying it.

Shit.

I saw a report over the weekend that Tommy Hilfiger bitch-slapped Axl Rose. This is the kind of news headline that makes me think for a moment that I need to stop drinking whatever it is I've been drinking, but no, it really happened. On an only loosely related note, I named the family dog after Axl Rose when I was a teenager. It was going to be either Axl, or Barry White, and I just couldn't do that to Barry.

So. Um. One way to know you are fucked as a writer is when you can't even think of random stupid thoughts to write on your blog. Somebody help me out here. Please post a random stupid thought or two of your own. Please. I'm on my knees--no, not doing THAT--begging you.

As Lewd As It Gets

2006-05-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

I gotta love that As Hot As It Gets, my "not a romance" romance novel, continues to be at the center of a controversy.

Heh.

If I were going to pick a book title to become the emblem of oversexed romance novels, I think As Hot As It Gets is perfect. I mean, it's just so ripe for lampooning, for one thing. And, hey, it just about sounds like a porn flick title, which makes every conversation about it that much more fun.

Stuff and More Stuff

2006-05-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

I am feeling like a really uninspired blogger lately. I imagine this malaise strikes many a blogger who, upon having blogged for a year or so, realize that they have nothing of consequence to say.

So as long as we are in agreement that I am an utterly pointless voice in the universe, let's get down to business and decide who should be the next American Idol. I was rooting for rocker Chris for a while, but...eh, I guess the danger of having figured out one's signature sound is that you can start sounding really monotonous after a while.

I like Catherine's voice, but I think she's kind of Generic Pretty Singer. I am not dazzled by her hair extensions. Does the world need another Celine Dionne? NO! And let's don't even talk about the little Yamin guy. I mean, he's got a nice voice at times, but here again we must ask, does the world need another soulful but unoriginal R&B singer? Eh. The R&B world is pretty bereft of real talent, but it's proven of late to much more strongly value the pretty package rather than the voice.

And that leaves us with Taylor. Goofy, weird, earnest Taylor. I guess he gets my vote just because he's so joyful in his goofiness, so unafraid to look like a dork when he gets lost in a song, so, well...real.

And on an unrelated note, I just got the newest Victoria's Secret catalog, and dear God, please tell me the gaucho is not back. Please. On my ever-growing list of things the world does not need, gaucho pants are at the top of it. So if you see them in stores, or in your newest VS catalog, step away. Do not get lulled into thinking that their width at the bottom will balance the width of your hips and somehow make you look slim. They will not. They will simply make you look like a woman in some bad hybrid skirt-pants.

(And I realize as I post this that some of you East Coasters probably already know who got voted off AI this week. But this is a West Coast blog, people. I don't know yet, and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to make fun of that Yamin guy.)

Domination and Some Chicken

2006-05-03T13:59:00.000-07:00

I hate to resort to old jokes or a Burger King ad to fill my blog, but I know there are at least a few of you out there who haven't yet experienced the perverse and idiotic pleasures of Subservient Chicken.

Go ahead, dominate him. He wants it.

I just told him to eat me, then I told him to get jiggy with it. He complied with both orders, sort of. (Okay, okay, "comply" might not be the right word for what he did.) If you find any particularly funny ways to order the chicken around, please post them here.

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

2006-04-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is too funny... Should I have called my book As Filthy As It Gets?

Shock and Awe

2006-04-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

Our previous talk about offending Rita judges has me wondering, should one of our main goals as writers be to offend people? I would say yes.

Since I write sex, and I write humor, I've always taken it for granted that I'm setting out to offend a large segment of my readership. I often don't succeed, because the middle ground is seductive and hard to veer off of. It's just so safe, so comfortable, so easy compared to the unexplored fringes...

If you write about sex or you write something that's supposed to be humorous, are you ever doing it right if at least half the people who read it don't want to hurl your book across the room? Aren't sex and humor by nature controversial?

The middle ground is the most traveled ground. It's where most people feel comfortable, so when you start exploring the fringes, that's where you either excite people or turn them off. That where you either make them laugh or piss them off.

One of the interesting things about writing within a genre like romance is trying to meet reader expectations while also pushing boundaries or trying something different. I think I don't nearly push enough boundaries, but I try to be conscious of the need for it--the need to keep the genre from dying by way of stagnation. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail, but I'm always secretly pleased when I get some hint that I've actually offended someone (for instance that Rita judge who said my book wasn't a romance).

Ms. Jamie, If You're Nasty

2006-04-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

I got my Rita scores back yesterday and was only mildly surprised to see that one judge deemed my Jan 2005 book, As Hot As It Gets, a story with "no strong romantic elements," AKA not a romance novel. (Please, nobody tell my editor I'm not actually writing romances!)

My books scored firmly in the lower half of all books entered. This is somehow a badge of honor. I'd rather have downright badness than ho-hum mediocrity. Right? Well, okay, I'd rather be a finalist than either of those, but it's interesting what it takes to be a finalist. You have to not offend enough judges to make them keep reading, and there aren't many people I don't offend.

Until RWA comes up with a Rita for Smut Books, I'm screwed. I have accepted that. And I should probably stop entering. Or else continue to console myself with the thought that most of my judges are people who think sex is ICKY.

In other news, I am horribly behind in finishing up a proposal I promised my editor, oh, like...last October, and also promised her at various other times including two weeks ago, so that is my excuse for not hanging around on my blog as much as I should. I will be better. I will finish my proposal today. I will blog again. Watch me!

(I'm not sure how the title of this entry relates to anything, by the way. I'm just having a Janet Jackson moment, without the nipple exposure.)

A Naked Birthday

2006-04-20T17:01:00.000-07:00

The Naked Page is officially one year old now, so I suppose I should break out the birthday cake and candles or something. I should be getting all nostalgiac and stuff, right? I mean, just one year ago, I was a blog virgin, and you, dear readers, had not yet been assaulted by my incessant barrage of dildo jokes.

So as I look back on this first year here at The Naked Page-the realm of the perpetual birthday suit--I am astounded, and amazed, and shocked...that I could spend so much time saying so very little.

In honor of this momentous date, let's all pick out our favorite moment of the past blogging year. Mine is most definitely when we crossed the panty line of propriety and never looked back...it happened some time during the great panty wars of fall 2005.

Have I Angered the Cover Gods?

2006-04-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

I just got my July Blaze cover, and, um, well. I'm not sure what to say, except what the hell is that glowing horse and cowboy doing on a book that's supposed to look sexy? And does my heroine know it's illegal to have sex with a minor?

Brace yourself:

Next Exit: Insanity 1 Mile

2006-04-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

I hope you all didn't hold your breath and pass out waiting for me to produce the other half of my last blog post. Let's see, where did I leave off...oh right, I was just talking about how you will feel when you don't win a Rita but instead find yourself sitting in the audience at the award ceremony doing the loser's smile, clap, and nod routine...

Soon after, you will decide the Rita Awards are unfairly stacked against the kind of book you write and that such a goal as winning an award is pretty shallow and fruitless anyway. You will assure yourself that there are no sour grapes involved in this change of heart, and you turn your attention to other more worthy goals. Like becoming a New York Times bestseller and stuff.

More time passes, and you sell some more books. You start thinking you should be writing "bigger" books, and maybe you attempt to write one. Or three, or five, or ten. Maybe you sell one or all of them. Maybe you decide to get an agent, or dump your current agent and get a different one, or you become paranoid thinking all agents are parasites and decide to hire your pot-bellied pig to represent you in all future book negotiations (stranger things have happened in the publishing world).

(And for the record, I do NOT think my agent is a parasite or any other sort of blood-sucking organism. She is thoroughly goddess-like in all the ways that matter and a few ways that don't.)

I should probably have a way to wrap up this entry, but I don't. Because I am only in the middle part of the beginning of my career. How the hell should I know what goals I will obsess over next? My point with all this is that I've never met an author who feels completely satisfied with his or her literary lot in life. There is always the drive to achieve more (if we weren't so driven we would never get published in the first place--it takes both delusions of grandure AND a huge drive to succeed to make it past all that rejection), and with each success comes additional pressure.

From hearing New York Times bestsellers talk, I truly believe they have more pressure on them than any other authors out there. As the stakes rise, so does the pressure to be a success, and to build on each success. There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe to learn to live in the creative moment, or something. To judge success by how happy you are with the work you've done, rather than any external factor out of your control.

Oh shit, I'm getting off topic here. The original point of this was supposed to be something about how our goals changes as our careers progress. Me, I'm probably somewhere in the middle of acheiving the "I just want to sell steadily and earn a decent living" goal.

Beyond that, there is the moon and stars--and of course let's not forget the NYT list.

Next Exit: Insanity 1.5 Miles

2006-03-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

Melissa asked on the last thread how an author's career goals change after the first sale. Or something like that. So let me explain the usual psychology/neuroses/insanity that occurs once a writer has made his or her first sale and asks, "Okay, I made it. What's next?"

(And let me say that this is not exactly, like, scientific stuff here. I didn't survey 5000 writers or anything. I'm just talking out my my ass...I hate that phrase, "talking out of my ass," but what other phrase communicates the same sort of I'm-winging-it incompetence?)

Once you've recovered from the elation that comes with selling your first book, realizing you've proven you're not a hack or a fraud, and showing all your friends and family that you are not completely deluded in your pursuit of your dreams, then you start to worry that if you don't sell your second book, you'll prove that you really are a hack and a fraud and that all your friends and family will soon be whispering among themselves about how your one sale was a fluke and that you really should have gone back to school to study accounting after all. And then you worry that you really WILL have to go back to school to study accounting after all, and your first book advance isn't even enough to pay the tuition for one semester.

A year or so passes, and if you are diligent and lucky, you've made your second sale and maybe a few more. You have a small altar to your editor erected in your bedroom, complete with a photo of you standing next to her at a writer's conference, and a hair of hers that you found on your sweater after the photo was taken. For a brief while (like, ten minutes), you are blissful. You have something resembling the start of a writing career.

But then you get your first royalty statement, you do a little math in your head about your future income, and you feel the horror of knowing that if you ever want to live above the poverty line, you should have gone back to school to study accounting. You have an intimate night alone with a bottle of Wild Turkey.

After you recover from your hangover, this is when you really get serious about writing as fast as possible. Partly because you do not want to be an accountant, and partly because you are starting to go insane. You sit down with your calendar and do complicated calculations about how many hours per night you need to sleep, how many pages per hour you can write, how many years of your life you could claim back if you stopped watching TV, and how many pages per year you need to produce to write as fast as Nora Roberts.

You realize that if you shake the reality TV addiction and develop a nighttime coffee habit, you can write 6 books per year just like Nora. For a couple of months--or a couple of years if you are as obsessive as I am--you spin your wheels trying to live by this schedule. You only manage to get three books per year written, because you keep getting pregnant and having babies and moving to different countries and your hair is falling out and stuff.

At the same time, you become obsessed with winning a Rita, and your over-inflated ego expands further when you actually final in the Ritas. You find yourself saying over and over again, "It's an honor just to be nominated." And when you look around at your competition, you realize it's actually true--it IS an honor just to be nominated--but that doesn't make you sound any less cheesy for saying it all the time. When you don't win, you are both disappointed and relieved, and actually happy JUST TO BE NOMINATED, but everyone treats you like an important family member has just died when you tell them you didn't win.

Okay, and this entry is getting way long, so I'm going to stop here. A cliffhanger! You must tune in again to learn the rest of the story. You must come back again to read Part II in this rambling and self-serving essay on my--er, I mean, every writer's--journey from one set of career goals to the next.

The Literary Rat Race

2006-03-27T15:58:00.000-08:00

I've been working on new book proposals in recent months, which gets me thinking about how much I want to be writing in any given year. How many books do I want to sell, versus how much of a sane life I want to have. How outwardly successful do I want to be, and does that have any bearing at all on my happiness? From a survival standpoint, selling more is always better than selling less, but from a sanity standpoint, we all need to have a life that doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer 24/7.

If you write outside the romance genre, you probably will not experience the same push to be prolific that romance authors get. It's one of the few genres where writing 3 or more books a year is considered normal, even desirable, and if you're one of those super-prolific authors who can write fast enough and generate enough publisher interest to write 4-6 books per year, you'll probably find yourself with lots of happy fans who can't get enough of your work. Plus you'll be earning a decent living.

I hear my writer friends discussing this issue pretty often, and it seems nearly impossible to strike a balance. Either you write less and accept that your career might not be as stellar as it could be, or you write more and accept that your life might not be as sane as it could be.

What are your goals as a writer? How do you measure your success? In monitary terms, in terms of accolades and professional respect, or by standards you set for yourself?

In the Groove

2006-03-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

Do you find that when you do your work for the day, other good stuff follows? Whenever I have a creative day, a productive writing day, I can then get a ton of other stuff done too, but if I have a day where it's just me glaring at the page, creatively constipated, that frustration carries through in everything else too. Nothing happens.

A certain blog member suggested in the last thread that her sex life improves when she's had a good writing day. While I have not personally observed this, I'm thinking if more men hear about this phenomenon, they are going to fall all over themselves trying to give their significant others time to be creative, no?

My theory is, positive energy breeds more positive energy. So when you get that feeling of rightness and accomplishment that comes with getting your creative work done, you feel like you can conquer the world, and you do. Or you get laid.

Low Flow Days

2006-03-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

(No, not that kind of low flow day! We're not that naked here at the Naked Page. Ahem.)

Cindy wrote to me yesterday and told me about her problem with writer's block, and she has plenty going on in her life to keep any sane person from writing. But the problem is, like most writers, Cindy is not sane.

So she keeps trying in spite of the fact that her muse is lying battered and bloody in the gutter, begging for mercy or perhaps a Snickers bar. And my muse is right there with her. Life stress does have a way of getting in the way of our creative efforts. For me, even the slightest change in routine makes it hard for me to write, and significant upheaval can wipe months away from my writing schedule.

So what do we do? There is no cure-all for writer's block. There isn't one fix or even several fixes to recommend. There is just you and the naked page, or maybe the very badly dressed page, staring at each other and making no progress.

The first step is realizing the problem, and the second is just making yourself do something different. If you show up at the page every day, with the same routine, and nothing happens, you have to change things up. Change the place where you write, or if you are writing on the computer get out the paper and pen, or if you are working on Chapter One leave it alone and work on Chapter Fifteen, or do all of those things, or two of them, or something else entirely.

Just don't keep banging your head against the same spot on the wall. Now I'm off to follow my own advice and find a new spot on which to bang. Maybe one with a nice view.

Just As Hot in Spanish

2006-03-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

I just noticed on amazon.com that As Hot As It Gets is being released for Harlequin's North American Spanish imprint in May, with the cover art reversed:

Why did they reverse it and zoom in? Here's the original cover:

I think I like the Spanish cover a little better, though it looks like they did something a little weird with the sun rays and her face. While her swimsuit is cute in the original cover, it's so trendy it has the danger of looking "so five minutes ago," and maybe that's partly why they zoomed in, to cut out the swimsuit.

Oh and I just noticed too that zooming in cut out the hero's nipple. Was it too obscene for a Spanish-speaking audience? The mind boggles. It looks like they went to some effort to hide the nipple with the Fuego logo. This seems like a mistake to me. Studies show that a well-formed nipple or two on a well-formed male chest sells books.

Okay, so there is no study, but if there was, I'm sure it would support my assertion. Those Blazes that have nothing but a bare male chest on the cover are top-sellers for a reason.

Have Dildo, Will Travel

2006-03-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

And now we return to our regularly titillating programming.

I lived in Germany for 5 years, traveled around quite a bit there, and always found it endlessly amusing that sex shops can be found in pretty much every airport in Europe. I mean, when you think about what you will need on any given trip, isn't a nice big turbo-powered vibrator the first thing that pops into your mind?

Yes? (Sex hound!)

No? (Me either. I mean, imagine the airport security questions... "No, really, it's a back massager!" Not that one should be ashamed of one's need for battery powered stimulation, but still, I'd just rather not have that conversation with a security guy sorting through my undies.)

Better yet, imagine sex toy shops in every American airport. Imagine the fun protests that would slow travel. If we can get riled up as a nation of a nipple revealed for a split second on TV, then imagine what we could do over a XXX Boutique right next to the Cinnabon and the Burger King.

I don't actually have a point here. That's the fun thing about having my own blog. I don't need to make any sense. No one is paying me to write this crap.

Speaking of travel, I am getting ready for a weekend trip and just got out my new iPod Nano and have been trying to load audiobooks on it. Imagine my confusion. The damn thing doesn't have an on-off button. It doesn't have any buttons at all. I think I'm just supposed to stare really hard at it and it will figure out what I want it to do. Well, that hasn't actually worked yet, but neither has cursing and throwing it down.

Here are the audiobooks I have loaded: A Fine Balance (I know, I know, I'm years behind in my reading), The Kite Runner, and Never Let Me Go by, um...that author who wrote Remains of the Day.

But there will be no dildos in my suitcase. Not even a "back massager." Just me, my iPod (which I will try not to throw out the window), and the open road.

My Brain Hurts

2006-03-07T14:48:00.000-08:00

Okay you Naked Page people. Tell me what you want to talk about. Life stress has shriveled up my brain and made me unable to come up with new blog topics. Help!

The Latest Girl Talk

2006-03-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

Girl Talk has just been updated with a new conversation between me and Cindy about chasing trends in the publishing industry. So if the question has ever loomed in your head--should you write to the latest trends or follow your own path?--hop on over to the Girl Talk page to hear our rambling and possibly useful musings on the subject.

Promo Whore Strikes Again

2006-03-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

Promo Whore here, doing a guest blog post so Jamie can take the night off.

It's the moment you've been waiting for--Once Upon a Seduction is officially in stores as of today. And thanks to the astonishingly short shelf lives of Harlequin books, if you blink, it will be gone.

In other words, if you want the book, get your ass over to Borders or Barnes and Noble or Target or wherever, like, right now, and buy the damn thing! Some stores remove them from the shelves two weeks after the release date. And a kindly few places still let them stay on the shelves for a month or until they sell out, whichever comes first.

If you've been hanging out here for long, you've probably heard that explanation before. But I feel compelled to repeat myself over and over again because Jamie get comments like every other week from people saying they went looking for her books at the store and couldn't find them. That's because the release month has passed, people. Get a clue. Harlequin's are released and shelved a lot like magazines--here and gone in a month. Thanks to the internet, you can still buy a lot of Jamie's books on www.amazon.com and other online bookstores, because they keep them stocked until they sell out.

Anyway, because Jamie really hates it when, I, Promo Whore, do a guest blog post, she insists I offer a productive topic of discussion as well. So here is your chance to ask Jamie anything you've ever wondered about how the whole book production thing works. From how she writes the book, to what the process of working with an editor is like, to the various stages of editing, to the cover concept, to seeing the book in stores. Ask away. She'll make her appearance here as soon as she knows I'm gone.

Ask the Romance Writer Girl

2006-02-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

Here's the big chance you've been waiting for--the chance to ask me any question you want. Dirty, dirty questions...oh, sorry, (ahem) wrong blog. Anyway, writing questions, non-writing questions, questions about panty preferences, etc.

Okay, so we've already covered every topic imaginable. That's the problem. I need you people to tell me what you want to know. Ask the romance writer girl. She will answer.

So You Think You Can Write

2006-02-24T15:33:00.000-08:00

The big gigantic secret no one ever speaks of in the publishing industry is that very few manuscripts submitted to publishers are actually publishable. We like to believe that all our brilliant tomes clamoring for the attention of editors are so top-notch, editors must agonize over which books to buy, torn between a vast array of great stories.

Ask any editor when was the last time they had too many good manuscripts to choose from. They will probably roll their eyes or laugh maniacally.

The truth, plain and simple, is it's so hard to sell a book because it's so hard to write a sellable one. Add on top of that the task of getting your sellable book in front of an editor or agent whose taste it meshes with, and you have a recipe for how to become an alcoholic.

So why persist? Because it's the persistent ones who sell. Most people look at the odds against selling a book and don't even try. Some people try for a while, can't stand the constant rejection, and then give up. And then there are the weathered few. The ones with the dark circles under their eyes, the file full of rejection letters, and the emergency stash of hard liquor tucked behind the rejection file.

It's almost inevitable that if you keep writing, your writing will improve. If you keep improving, your writing will become sellable. And if you keep submitting, you will eventually find the editor who loves your work enough to buy it.

Of Blogs and Men

2006-02-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

You thought I'd OD'd on Valentine's Day candy, didn't you? The last thing you hear from me is a post about chocolate and sex, and you really let your mind run wild, didn't you?

Well the truth isn't nearly so fun as that. Sorry to disappoint. I'm just busy with stuff. Lots of stuff. And am slacking on my blog. But I would never let my blog become one of those sad places that hasn't been updated since back when everyone was announcing "green is the new black." (By the way, in case you haven't heard, orange is the new green.)

So in grand Naked Page fashion, I suggest that what we need here is a good discussion about one of our favorite hot button topics. Like men. So tell me, if you had to choose three stars to be your cook (that says cook, not cock!), your maid, and your personal (ahem) assistant, which three would you choose and why? Also, what would their uniforms look like?

(I know, this topic probably sounds all sexist and stuff. But really, it's all in good fun! You don't even have to choose men if you don't want to. You could choose Hollywood starlets or Hollywood dog stars or whatever!)

Beyond the Hearts and Flowers

2006-02-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

How can you not love a holiday that celebrates sex, romance, and chocolate? Valentine's Day covers all the good stuff. (And Cindy, please don't sully my blog with your rant about how dumb and commercialized Valentine's Day is.)

Maybe it is dumb and commercial, but only if you allow it to be. You can pretty much make a case for everything being hopelessly sullied by commericialism if you really want to. But I digress.

I'm supposed to be talking about sex or romance or chocolate or something. Um, right. What do you really find romantic? When you go beyond the heart-shaped box of chocolates and the dozen roses, what do you wish your significant other would do for you as a romantic gesture?

Okay, now spill. We want all the dirty details. And then go tell your partner what to do so they can get a clue and do it (you get bonus points if they already know what you want and have done it for you).

Oh, and don't forget to ask them what they want, if you don't already know, so you can return the favor.

The Depths of Human Ingenuity

2006-02-12T20:02:00.000-08:00

In the grand tradition of discussing dildos on this blog, I give you a look at what is certainly a most perplexing device. But wait! Before you click on that link, let me say that it contains possibly offensive material, namely some X-rated illustrations of ways one might, ahem, use the Jack Hammer Johnson.

If you are a little squeamish, or just do not wish to have the URL for a sex toy store appearing in your internet browser's history, I will describe the thing as best I can. It's like a dildo on a pogo stick, sort of. Now, you're going to click the link, aren't you? Go ahead. It's worth possible future embarrassment. It's that funny.

I personally would not attempt to use such a device. I'm pretty sure I'd injure myself somehow.

Once Upon a Seduction

2006-02-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

My website has been updated with the back cover copy and an excerpt of my latest Blaze novel, Once Upon a Seduction. Check it out, admire the snazzy cover, and pre-order a copy if you want to support your favorite starving writer.

The book hits store shelves no later than March 1st and starts to disappear by the middle of the month. But don't worry--I will remind you yet again when the release date is here. I am nothing if not a promotional whore.

Seducing the Muse

2006-02-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

I finished my book last week, and now I have 500 things to do that were put off thanks to deadline mania. But really, as creative people, we have to think about more than the to-do list when we are balancing our work schedules with our lives. The creative muse is very subtle in her demands, but when neglected, she can be a bitch to win back.

So while I know it's important that I tackle all these tasks waiting to be done, I also know I have to find some time to refill my creative well just by relaxing and having fun, reading books and watching movies and going outside for walks and staring at the sky. Easier said than done. But if I don't make time for the fun stuff, my writing will become stale and dry, or worse, it will stall out--there will be no writing at all.

So, do you make time to seduce your muse regularly? Do you??? Tell the truth. I'll admit I do it less often than I should. I should make time for a little muse seduction every day. And for the next week or so, I will make it a priority to have a little fun and not let the un-fun stuff overwhelm me.

What are your favorite muse seduction techniques? What do you do that really gets you excited about being creative again?

Losing It

2006-02-05T07:31:00.000-08:00

I'm having major Blogger problems. I have tried all weekend to post an entry I composed Friday night and Blogger keeps eating it. It also ate responses I posted on the previous entry. I'm not sure what to do about this, but I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still around, and that my blog is freaking out. I think it's possessed. Anyone know how to perform exorcisms?

Let's see if this post works...

Pimp My Website

2006-02-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

My website desperately needs a new look. I wish someone would just come along and volunteer to trick it out for me, add hydrolic suspension, paint some flames on the sides, install a minibar...oh wait, that's for my car, not my website.

Okay, okay, so what I want to ask is, when you visit authors' websites, what information do you really find useful? Which parts of the site do you use, and which parts do you think are a waste?

Go to http://www.jamiesobrato.com and tell me what you find useful about it, if you're feeling all helpful and stuff today. Do you think that welcome page is really necessary? I mean, the main one when you get to the website. I'm thinking of making a blog the main page of the site, so in other words, the main page would be something like this page you are on now, only a little more polished looking. Check out http://www.alisonkent.com to see what I mean. Her main page is a blog.

Do you visit FAQ pages? Contest pages? Bio pages? How much information about my books do you really care to see?

Are you embarrassed at all to visit bright red and pink websites? LOL. I'm thinking this is probably more of an issue for people who web-surf at work. I have thought about making the background black, and the the red/orange/pink/whatever secondary colors would be in the details. The text would probably be on a light field, because I don't like light text on dark fields.

At One With the White Space

2006-01-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

Should I change the name of this blog from The Naked Page to The Boring Page?

Is everyone as stressed out as I am? Or are you all glued to your televisions watching the new season of American Idol? Do you have a favorite yet? (And could all the staged stuff on that show get any more cheesy? What percentage of the bad singers showed up just to make it on TV as part of the "worst of" clips?)

And perhaps most importantly, will I ever stop asking annoying questions and provide some actual content for this blog?

Ummmm... No.

Providing useful content would require expenditure of brain power, of which I have none at this point.

Do you see a trend in the paragraphing above?

Notice how I'm making each paragraph, like, one sentence long, then inserting a space? This is what I do when deadlines loom (3 more nights and counting) and I have many pages left to write.

I embrace white space.

White space is not only kind to me, it is kind to readers.

It is restful on their eyes.

See what I mean? Don't your eyes want to fall asleep already? (Oh, wait, that's my boring content, isn' t it?)

Ummm... Since I can't afford to use up any brain power, tell me what your favorite prime time TV show is this season.

Mine's American Idol, of course. Why? Currently, I'm enjoying watching Randy's various buggy-eyed looks and distressed noises when he doesn't know what to say. He's being more entertaining than usual.

Phantom of the Blog

2006-01-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

I have a book deadline January 31st, so I am in the final throes of deadline hell, hence my rather phantom-like blog activity, here one day, gone the next.

But on a completely unrelated note, the title for this entry makes me think of Phantom of the Opera (duh!) and I have to ask, am I the only one who was really pissed off that the heroine didn't go live in the basement with the phantom at the end?

Anyway, I know my whining about Phantom of the Opera isn't the most interesting topic in the world, but it does make me think about story endings. There are the expected endings, the unexpected endings, and the in-between ones. What makes a disappointing story ending, and what makes a satisfying one?

In the romance genre, there is only one acceptable story ending--happily ever after. But as the genre evolves, that boundary can be pushed a bit, and in my own stories I find myself moving more toward just the promise of a happy ending rather than a very concrete one. I think that's only a natural evolution as we live in a post-modern world with a post-modern sense of happiness.

And if that's all too boring, tell me what you're working on now. Or send me some motivational thoughts as I bust my ass for the next week.

When the Vibrator Speaks

2006-01-17T14:53:00.000-08:00

I was just reading about the latest technological developments in, um, personal pleasure devices. Someone actually manufactures a vibrator that has a little camera attached to it. I just don't know what to say about that other than...huh. Or maybe, "huh?"

There's also one that allows you to record a voice on the vibrator to be played back...when? Right at the most opportune moment, I suppose? Like, you've just about reached climax, and you hit the little playback button with the voice of your lover saying...what? I suppose I'm lacking in imagination, because I just can't think what I'd want a vibrator to say to me.

I'm sure the girls at The Naked Page can come up with some good suggestions though. So spill it. What would your recordable vibrator say to you?

A Reputation to Uphold

2006-01-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

So I've killed the blog with my octopus testicles story? I'm feeling the pressure now. I have a reputation for lewdness to uphold, and I've gone and bored everyone to sleep with my little octopus anecdote.

Okay, so what does it take to wake up the girls on The Naked Page? Conversations about men, sex, and panties seem to be the big winners here. Or really, anything controversial, like Brad Pitt dumping Jen.

I was just thinking about the whole Angelina Jolie thing and how some writer friends of mine said they'd rather sleep with her than Brad. I thought that was pretty open-minded of them, and after I thought about it for a while I realized I'd have to agree.

So. This begs the question, if you were a lesbian, or just wanted to experiment a bit, who would you want to sleep with? (And no, you don't have to pick a lesbian star...unless you want to.)

My answer? Hmm... I've always had a thing for Selma Hayek. Though, um, since she played Frida Kahlo, I have to admit the unibrow kind of killed my lust a bit (note to starlets: if you're going to do a quality role, you still have to say NO to the unibrow).

Another option would be the red-headed chick on That Seventies Show, Laura Prepon. I was horrified to see that she dyed her hair blond, but in her natural color she's pretty hot. You know, for a girl.

I'll Take Testicles On My Octopus

2006-01-09T18:27:00.000-08:00

Although this isn't nearly as good a story as the tale of the six-inch sirloin, this blog is just about the only place I can tell a "testicle" anecdote with a straight face.

We were at a restaurant recently and my son wanted a dish with octopus in it, and he wanted to make sure they had tentacles on them. Of course. What's an octopus without tentacles, right? If only all foods could have tentacles!

So we were questioning the waitress about the dish that contained octopus, and she informed us that, "Yes, I think they do still have the testicles on them."

English was not her first language.

I laughed. "Did you just say testicles?" I asked, and my mother-in-law, who'd been puzzling over what didn't sound quite right about the waitress's statement, burst out laughing. The waitress blushed and stammered something about how she was afraid she'd been saying testicles all along.

"Tentacles," I informed her, thoroughly pleased with myself for catching the slip-up. "They're called tentacles."

But can anything top the six-inch sirloin story? What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever said?

In the Pink

2006-01-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

What can I say? I love color. Subliminally, pink and red suggest all sorts of fun, feminine and not-so-proper things. And so I'm back to pink and red. The black and white were good while they lasted, but The Naked Page needs to be in the pink. It's only appropriate.

For those of you who've been avoiding emailing me out of respect for my looming deadline, you should know that the deadline has been extended to the end of the month by my gracious and goddess-like editor. I now worship at an altar with her image on it. And you don't have to keep avoiding me. I'm sane again. Sort of.

I have been suffering from tension headaches lately, writing a lot, and have nothing interesting to suggest we discuss. So what's on everyone's mind? What do you want to talk about? Suggest away. I'm all out of ideas.

Cover Art Orgasm

2006-01-04T11:55:00.000-08:00

If you've been hanging out here for long, you probably already know how I feel about the cover art on my last two books. So you will have a deeper insight into the nearly orgasmic reaction I have when the cover is good. I'm QUITE pleased with the art I just found on Amazon for my upcoming March book, ONCE UPON A SEDUCTION (yeah, weird, I know, that Amazon got my cover before I did):

This is the first non-people cover I've gotten, and the red bra is a major part of the story, so I'm thrilled it's on the cover. It's a funny element, not a sexy one, by the way. That's why she's stepping on it.

I'm surprised that the Blaze logo at the top has not changed. I saw an updated version of the logo that looks a little smaller and cuter that I thought was going to be used starting this year, but who knows now.

Also, note the "chick lit flash." That is a new sub-line for Blaze, which indicates books written in a younger, hipper voice....or something like that. It's the first time I've been fit into one of Harlequin's marketing niches, other than the broader category of sensual romance.

So what do you think of the cover? Harlequin's marketing niches? Do you have a preference as far as covers with people on them versus no people? I think the vast majority of people prefer non-people covers, but it's interesting, as the author, to see what the artist comes up with, regardless of whether there are people or not. As long as the cover looks good, I'm happy. But I'm LOVING the red bra and silver (or are they white?) heels.

New Year's Revolution

2006-01-03T10:55:00.000-08:00

It's a revolution here at The Naked Page. Out with the red, pink and orange--in with the black. Well, for now. Actually I'm going to redesign my whole website soon and was just getting sick of looking at that screwed up little white gap that used to be to the right of the header on this page. It was starting to make my eye tick, so I decided to just play around with my blog colors until I settle on a look I dig for the new site.

Although, honestly, it will still probably end up being...red, pink, and orange. What can I say? Those are my colors.

But let's get back to this whole New Year's Revolution thing.

Resolutions never work. You know that, right? You didn't just make a list, did you, including things like:

1. write 10 pages a day
2. exercise 5 days a week
3. stop eating Snickers bars for breakfast
4. be nicer

Please tell me you didn't do that.

The only way resolutions work is if you pick something easy and painless that can be done in a short time like, "Catch up on the sixth season of Sex and the City DVDs by next Monday." But you were going to do stuff like that anyway, so you don't have to make it an item on a to-do list, do you?

Maybe when we're thinking about what we want to accomplish in the new year, we should think of fun things instead of torturous ones. Maybe we should start a revolution, decide that life is not about forcing ourselves to do things that bring us no joy, but instead is about finding the things we cannot live without and pursuing them wholeheartedly.

So who's enlisting for the revolution?

True Lies

2005-12-31T12:17:00.000-08:00

Why are we drawn to fiction? (Okay, I know, I know, this is one of those topics that is going to make everyone yawn and click away to their next favorite blog...but read on anyway.)

I was talking to a friend recently about nonfiction and how it often seems to me to be too gimmicky and profit-driven to be believable. It's all about finding some topic or angle on a topic that hasn't been exploited lately, and exploiting it. It's all about promoting a platform that may or may not be useful to anyone, but will sound convincing enough to seem useful at least at first.

And that made me think about how for me, fiction is a way of exploring truths about life without being bound by facts.

Why do you read fiction? What does it do for you?

I believe the books I write provide a mental escape from harsh reality. That's their main purpose. They're stress relief in paperback format. They are meant to entertain. On another level, they reinforce ideals we believe in, and if I were a sociologist I would say they reinforce certain societal norms.

And if this topic is just too boring for words, then let's discuss lies from another angle. The husband was watching a Chris Rock stand-up routine last night while I was in the next room working, and I overheard this rant he does about how everything about women is a lie. Makeup allows us to "lie" about how our faces look, hair weaves (and dyes, and perms, etc) allow us to lie about how our hair looks. And then there are push-up bras, high heels, etc.

I think of all those things as adornments rather than lies. But he does have a point. It's all an illusion. So should I feel guilty next time I put on some eyeliner?

The Panty Wars Rage On

2005-12-30T15:06:00.000-08:00

After extensive research, I have come to a conclusion about the state of panties in America. We are at a design low point. We will look back in twenty years and roll our eyes at the panty trends of today.

For those of you who claim boy cut panties are the shit, you really need to rethink your position. Maybe I have a defective ass or something, but I don't enjoy the fit of the boy cuts I have tried, nor do I like the weird sensation of having that extra unnecessary fabric under my pants. It also seems to add a bit of extra bulk where none should be.

But I will not limit my dissing to the boy cuts. No, I have found panties far worse--the ultra low rise hip hugger. What the hell are these panty makers thinking? Not only do they look bad, but they're uncomfortable too.

And dare I even mention the tanga? No, I won't go there, because really no one should wear them. Say NO to the tanga!

After all my research, I still maintain that the lowly thong is the best panty for wearing under pants. The low-rise thong is a great option too, and surprisingly comfortable, for pants that have a low-cut waist.

And for those occasions when no pants are required, I say the most flattering cut for most body types is the classic bikini.

And now after all my hard work for the underwear needs of women everywhere, I hope you all can appreciate the contribution I've made to society. Think of me every time you see an ass free of panty lines.

Santa Baby

2005-12-25T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'm really sick of hearing that Santa Baby song. And I didn't ask for diamonds or yachts or anything that extravagent anyway, but Santa was overly generous nonetheless.

My favorite gift was a one-year subscription to www.audible.com, along with a sexy little red Creative Zen MP3 player to listen to audiobooks. I was really tempted by the pink one, but after much angst, red won out in the end.

I also got an Escada Magnetism cologne gift set, a pretty white cardigan sweater, a new purse, and a secure digital storage card for backing up files. Oh, and some cute new pjs, Madonna's latest CD, a new necklace, and a photography book I've been pining after for years. I know I'm forgetting some things...

What did Santa bring you this year? Which gift was your favorite?