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Most people do not realize how much work is involved after the author's book has been contracted. After spending all those hours writing and submitting the manuscript, there is much more work to be done. I had two books release just two months apart so I am a blurry eyed zombie right now, plus I am trying to finish a manuscript, and somehow I managed to squeeze in a short story. Not sure how I did it all.

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The Muse is every creative artist's best friend. Some authors even give their Muse a name. I have not officially named mine, but when my Muse is cooperative her name should be Lady Sunshine and Blue Skies and when she eludes me her name should be Mistress Lazybutt Pants. She is in one of her moods right now where she just comes and goes in spurts, which drives me crazy. In fact, if I did not have to post this blog, I would still be lying on the couch watching Charmed reruns. I am so close to finishing this manuscript and my Muse thinks it is funny to play games with me.

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Sex scenes are the hardest for me to write because I want to make it sensual while keeping to my regular prose style throughout the book. This is harder than it seems and I have struggled with it with my last two releases. I think I finally found a way to write tasteful sex scenes without resorting to 'purple prose.' I think the key is keeping with the characters' personalities and writing sex scenes that fit each character. I also use sex scenes to reveal things about a certain character. Sometimes it might be as subtle as a character enjoying being tied up.

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It is strange how a story can start one way and then go in a totally different direction. That is how it happened with White Rose of Avalon. First off, this story idea just hit me after listening to a song by Blackmore's Night called Ghost of a Rose. I had no plans to write anything on the Arthurian legends and then it just hit me. My first idea for this story was as an erotic novella for a new erotic line my publisher had started. The word count was around 25,000. But before the novella was set to release my publisher decided to close down this erotic site, and concentrate on their regular line of romance books. They still wanted to publish this story under the regular romance line so I softened the sex scenes so that they would be more sensual rather than erotic. I edited the manuscript and sent it in to my publisher, thinking all I would have to do was some minor editing.

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This is a subject that coincides with the release of White Rose of Avalon on 11/16/07. White Rose of Avalon is a new twist on the Arthurian legends. Influenced by Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon, I decided to tell the tale from the point of views of Lancelot, Morgaine and Nimue, focusing on the romances and the fall of Avalon. I realize that some people will not like this story because it is not told from Arthur's point of view and it does not revolve around Merlin and Arthur's relationship. I have read way too many great novels detailing this relationship so I decided to do something different and tell a different, and more sensual tale. Why fix something that is not broken?

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I apologize for the MIA yesterday. We had a situation here at home that sort of took over everything else.

So onto discussing two of my characters, John Hunter and Mila Simmons. They are the hero and heroine of Hunting Mila, which will be rereleasing from Ellora's Cave sometime in 2008. John made his first appearance in the book Seducing the Saint(which is also coming from EC) where he helps friend Brady St James(Saint) and helps save the day. But even then you have an idea that he is hiding more behind his rude and antisocial behavior. Even though Robbie Masters, his friend and coworker, intrigued me, Hunter called me to because he personality and his background. So, I sat down to get to know him and learned some interesting things about his background:

The last time there was a writer's strike, "Star Trek the Next Generation" came up with a script using a Deaf Actor, Howie Seago. Many people derided the episode as pitiful, stupid and other names I won't print here. It was said if the writers had not gone on strike, it would have never been made. They are most probably correct. Which brings me this point.

Will this strike bring about some more Deaf, Blind, Disabled actors to earn their pay in the sunny lights of the acting studio? It is no falsehood to say that Science Fiction Fans tends to attract those that society deems social freaks. While social PC would frown upon saying that those who are disabled are looked upon any differently, that PC is out of touch with reality. Disabled often feel as if they are aliens on their own home world. Writers who write Science Fiction have in large part due to various reason, have some reason to feel the same. Not all of course, but many.

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Morning, everyone! I'm Melissa Schroeder and I am hosting this week's Behind the Scenes and I will be chatting about character development. I'll focus on particular characters later this week, but for today, I want to chat about how I get under the skin of a character.

The Little Red-Haired Chick

For Devyn, with love and appreciation

Agnes the little red-haired chick was a poor but industrious woman. With her husband away at war she had their brood of young children to raise all by herself. What money her husband could send home paid the bills but there was none left over for any luxuries or niceties. Agnes and her children were yet happy for they loved one another very much, and looked forward to the day the man of the house was home again. And despite the current hardship, Agnes was determined to be hopeful.

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Hollywood movie writers went on strike today. They walked off the job, demanding...

Okay, I didn't really care what they were demanding. It was better everything, I'm sure. No one goes on strike to demand worse. It made me realize, though, as I was stuffing another load of laundry into the washer machine at 5:30 in the morning, then hurrying to unload the dishwasher so I'd have my favorite coffee cup to start my day, that there's just no way I could go on strike.

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The reader question that makes me laugh the most is the one about my workday. I think that a lot of people assume writers have some kind of regular schedule. Maybe most do. This one doesn't. I try my best; don't me wrong. I really do set out EVERY day with the best of intentions. But inevitably, something comes up. My website crashes and I have to deal with that calamity. My kids forget something crucial for school and I have to run out and deliver it, eating up precious time. Or we run out of a critical dinner ingredient and I find myself wasting two hours at the grocery store (you and I both know that you can never go to the grocery store and get just ONE thing!).

As comfortable as I've always been about sex, as much as I have enjoyed reading and writing erotic fiction, as cool as I am with activities like going topless at parties and watching "those movies" with my husband...okay well, maybe I'm a prude.

What instigated this "prude awakening"? As I do every year at this time, I'm helping with the judging in the Eppie Awards (aka the Oscars of ebooks). Due to a clerical error, I was initially assigned four books entered in the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transvestite category, aka GLBT, or in Eppie-speak, Category K. While I waited to hear if I might be excused to judge another category, I skimmed through the books. I am sworn to secrecy as an Eppie judge, and of course I wouldn't share details anyway, but this skimming experience was, for me personally, not a pleasant one.

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The second question I get asked about my books is whether they are based on real people. 99% of the time, the answer is no. The characters are always drawn from my own imagination, people who pop into my head as real as the people next door, the relatives at the family reunion, etc. But sometimes, I get an idea for a story that comes from real life people.

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Everyone always asks me how a book comes about. Every book has a slightly different story behind it, but most of them start and end the same way--with an idea, and then me, the author, jumping off the writing cliff with no idea how I'm going to end the story until I actually get there.

MIRACLE ON CHRISTMAS EVE, my latest release from Harlequin Romance, was no different. I had the idea of a Mrs. Claus who has given up on Christmas and is running away from the holiday. And that was all I had :-). From there, I had to create a book.

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Good afternoon, and welcome to day #5 of my week hosting Behind the Scenes here at Novelspot. Sorry to be so late posting today ~ internet access can be a tad spotty out here on the prairie!

How will it end? That’s a silly question, in the world of erotic romance. Boy meets girl (or girl meets two boys, or girl meets girl, or...you get the gist), they fall in love, they have lots of sex along the way, and they decide to stay together. End of story.