Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Romance Kills! Virtual Release Party for Seducing Sarah (The Madame X School of Sex)

Well, we were supposed to wait for tomorrow to celebrate Jinx Jamison's debut book but since romance is apparently toxic to all of our minds, why wait?

Anyone who comments and tells me their favorite place to buy books AND also how they search for new books at that vendor will be entered to win a $10 giftcard to the vendor of their choice.

Oh and congratulations Jinx! You are now an accomplice to poisoning the minds of women everywhere with your dirtay sexay romance :)





Available at the following sites:

Amazon (Kindle)

B&N (Nook)
All Romance Ebooks (ARe)
Smashwords


Stay Naughty,

Minx

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Recipe for Naughty: The Conflict

The Conflict

Last week I talked about the main ingredients involved in building a series, which are the characters. This week let's look at the actual recipe itself, which in our analogy is what the characters are doing and why they're doing it.

The conflict.

When I first started writing about The Madame X School of Sex, I wasn't sure what kind of conflict could arise at a sex school. Everyone there should be pretty happy, right?

Not exactly.

The essence of conflict boils down to isolating the character's weaknesses and then forcing them into situations they aren't ready for. Sounds sadistic but it's the only way they learn anything. It's also what keeps things interesting. Who wants to read about a bunch of perfect people who always do everything right? Not me, that's for sure.

So, we have our heroine Sarah Caldwell. Her weakness is insecurity due to how her fiance treated her. Her attraction to her boss, Quinn, is something she doesn't know how to handle. He's way out of her league and she doesn't feel sexy or desirable enough to go after him. That's the basis for her conflict. She wants something but doesn't know how to get it. Her weakness (insecurity) is holding her back.

Quinn's weakness is not facing up to something that happened in his past. He wants Sarah but thinks she belongs to someone else. Then he gets a call from his old friend Madame X that changes everything.

Sarah is going to The Madame X School, the place he vowed he'd never return to.

Our hero's conflict stems from two things he wants being at odds. His desire for Sarah vs. His antipathy for The Madame X School (for reasons to be revealed later).

So, now that we understand the conflict - here's a sneak peek at things from Quinn's POV


EXCERPT FROM SEDUCING SARAH

Quinn Sanders hated to rush. He'd built his law career on attention to detail and a slow, methodical approach to research. Yet here he was throwing clothes into a suitcase as if his house was on fire. One phone call from an old friend and he'd abandoned his business and his social life. One phone call had spun his entire world on a different axis.
Sarah Caldwell was going to see Madame X.
The phone clipped to his belt vibrated. He yanked it from its holster and held it to his ear. His room looked like a mini-tornado had ripped through it but he didn't even care. He'd been lucky to book a flight at such a late date and if he didn't hurry, he'd miss the plane. He'd have to drive like a bat out of hell to get to the airport on time as it was.
"Yes?"
"I assume you've already booked your flight?" Madame X had a way of getting right to the heart of a matter. How she did this without ever being rude was something Quinn had yet to figure out.
"I had to pay an astronomical fare but I got a flight. I'll be there in the early morning. Thank you for giving me the heads up. This should be an interesting three weeks."
She made a non-committal sound on the other end of the line. Quinn braced himself for whatever it was she would say next. He'd known her long enough to know that the soft sound usually preceded bad news.
"I'm glad I was able to help you out but I must caution you. Ms. Caldwell is a guest of the Madame X School. If she doesn’t wish to work with you for any reason, then you must respect that. I've already stretched the limits of confidentiality. My first obligation has to be to my clients. Even if you are one of my oldest friends."
Quinn nodded even though she couldn't see him. "I would never do anything to make her uncomfortable. I promise you I'll leave if she doesn't want to work with me. Besides, I used to be your employee. Let's just call this a consulting gig."
Sarah would have the option to decline him as her handler but he doubted she would. Plenty of the instructors and a few of the students at the Madame X Academy wore masks so she wouldn't recognize him. He was glad now that he wasn't prone to long conversation in general. It would make it harder for her to recognize his voice. Even if something about him seemed familiar, he doubted she'd make the connection or question him.
No one questioned Master Q.
"I'm sure Ms. Caldwell will get along with my alter ego just fine. You have no cause for worry."
Silence hummed over the line for a long moment before she spoke again. "You've been out of the game for a while, Master Q. I know you had your reasons for that and I won't pry. I just hope you know what you're doing and are doing it for the right reasons."
Quinn couldn't stop the grin taking over his face. "I know what I'm doing. Sarah Caldwell will get exactly what she needs over the next three weeks."
Madame X chuckled. "I'm sure she will. Hopefully, you will too."
Quinn Sanders hated to rush. He'd built his law career on attention to detail and a slow, methodical approach to research. Yet here he was throwing clothes into a suitcase as if his house was on fire. One phone call from an old friend and he'd abandoned his business and his social life. One phone call had spun his entire world on a different axis.
Sarah Caldwell was going to see Madame X.
The phone clipped to his belt vibrated. He yanked it from its holster and held it to his ear. His room looked like a mini-tornado had ripped through it but he didn't even care. He'd been lucky to book a flight at such a late date and if he didn't hurry, he'd miss the plane. He'd have to drive like a bat out of hell to get to the airport on time as it was.
"Yes?"
"I assume you've already booked your flight?" Madame X had a way of getting right to the heart of a matter. How she did this without ever being rude was something Quinn had yet to figure out.
"I had to pay an astronomical fare but I got a flight. I'll be there in the early morning. Thank you for giving me the heads up. This should be an interesting three weeks."
She made a non-committal sound on the other end of the line. Quinn braced himself for whatever it was she would say next. He'd known her long enough to know that the soft sound usually preceded bad news.
"I'm glad I was able to help you out but I must caution you. Ms. Caldwell is a guest of the Madame X School. If she doesn’t wish to work with you for any reason, then you must respect that. I've already stretched the limits of confidentiality. My first obligation has to be to my clients. Even if you are one of my oldest friends."
Quinn nodded even though she couldn't see him. "I would never do anything to make her uncomfortable. I promise you I'll leave if she doesn't want to work with me. Besides, I used to be your employee. Let's just call this a consulting gig."
Sarah would have the option to decline him as her handler but he doubted she would. Plenty of the instructors and a few of the students at the Madame X Academy wore masks so she wouldn't recognize him. He was glad now that he wasn't prone to long conversation in general. It would make it harder for her to recognize his voice. Even if something about him seemed familiar, he doubted she'd make the connection or question him.
No one questioned Master Q.
"I'm sure Ms. Caldwell will get along with my alter ego just fine. You have no cause for worry."
Silence hummed over the line for a long moment before she spoke again. "You've been out of the game for a while, Master Q. I know you had your reasons for that and I won't pry. I just hope you know what you're doing and are doing it for the right reasons."
Quinn couldn't stop the grin taking over his face. "I know what I'm doing. Sarah Caldwell will get exactly what she needs over the next three weeks."
Madame X chuckled. "I'm sure she will. Hopefully, you will too."


The Final Product

So, we've looked at the Ingredients and the Recipe for Conflict. The only thing left is the final product.

So without further ado, here's the cover art for Seducing Sarah V.1 (The Madame X School of Sex series). The cover was done by The Naughty Girls' own Minx Malone.




By the time I blog again the book should be live! Wish me luck...



Stay Naughty,
Jinx

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Larry Kirshbaum Will Head Amazon's NYC office


In a surprising move, Amazon has taken the final step toward establishing a New York presence. They hired  literary agent and former Time-Warner CEO, Larry Kirshbaum to head their publishing house, effective July 5, 2011.

For many, Amazon has been a symbol of the "anti-publisher", the independent publishing movemement's mascot in a way. It will be interesting to see if Amazon starts to cut back on options for independent publishers and tries to refer them to one of their own imprints.  Amazon already has genre-specific imprints for romance (Montlake) and mystery/thriller (Thomas & Mercer).  No one was threatened by the original imprints Amazon Encore and AmazonCrossing. 

With RITA winner Connie Brockway as the debut athor for their Montlake imprint, it seems as if Amazon is taking over the world.

Let's just hope it's a world that indie publishers are still welcome to play in too.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Recipe for Naughty : The Ingredients

So, where to start?

When I first came up with the idea for my erotic series The Madame X School of Sex, all I had was just that: an idea. I had no idea who the characters would be, the setting or even what would happen (besides the obvious). So how does a writer go about figuring this stuff out?

Daydreaming. That's how I figured it out anyway.

First, the characters. Who is just as important as What, in a story. The characters are the ones who take us on the journey. We experience the world through their eyes, their fears, their strengths and their limitations. Plus, if I'm going to write a story about something, I had better like the person the story is about. After all, we'll be spending a lot of time together.

The Heroine: Sarah Caldwell

I decided to pick a young professional woman with some self-esteem issues. Why? Because I can relate to that and I figure a lot of others can too. Sarah is a paralegal who's always done everything she's supposed to. She goes to work every morning at 8:30 am, she always separates the whites from the colors and she pays her taxes each year by April 15th.

She's perfectly ordinary. She's also perfectly tired of her boring life and she just knows there has to be more out there.

This brings us to the What? portion of the planning stage. What can happen to our perfectly lovely, perfectly boring heroine? Well, I decided to make her do something completely crazy. Something completely out of character.

She signs herself up for the infamous sex academy : The Madame X School of Sex.

Once I figured out what naughty business our heroine could get herself into, I was able to start writing. I wrote a few scenes in Sarah's point of view to get a feel for the way she thinks.


EXCERPT FROM WORK in PROGRESS
Sarah let the artificial smile she’d been wearing for the past hour drop. Her face was stiff from holding a smile she didn’t feel, forcing laughter that wasn’t genuine. But she couldn’t let her friend see how dejected she really was. It would just invite more worry, more hovering.
And it wouldn’t sway her from her path.
She reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope that held her plane ticket. Not that she needed to see it again, she’d studied it a hundred times since that morning. A plane ticket to Nevada. One chance to find out if she was really broken or not.
The Madame X School of Sex? It’s an urban legend. Doesn’t exist.
Sarah shook her head. “Oh, it exists. In a few hours I’ll have firsthand proof.”


The Hero: Quinn Sanders

I wanted a hero that provided exactly what Sarah needed, which is contrast. He's the commanding, inventive type that can balance out her fear of change. He'll introduce her to hedonism and teach her not to be ashamed of her feelings. Quinn also just so happens to be her boss.

The conflict

Being the good girl that she is, Sarah wouldn't get involved with her boss. Luckily for her, Quinn used to be an instructor at The Madame X School. So some pretty interesting things are bound to happen when he gets a phone call from his old friend Madame X.



NEXT WEEK: I'll take a look at CONFLICT in depth. This is the meaty part where we figure out why our characters are being so difficult.

Read the next post here



Stay Naughty!
Jinx

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Recipe for Naughty

Hi everyone, I'm Jinx Jamison and I’m so excited to be doing my first post for The Naughty Girls! It took me ages to come up with a topic to write about but I finally decided. Writing and baking are two of my favorite things so I decided to combine them.

Welcome to The Recipe for Naughty, a series of posts about the creation of my new erotic series. Every Wednesday I’ll post where I am in my story along with a sneak peek at my work in progress, no matter how bad (or good!) it may be.

Now, I’m no celebrity chef, or writer in this instance but I think that can work to my advantage. I’m going to document what it’s like for a newbie writer to come up with a romance series from start to finish, planning stage to execution. Then I’ll put the final version up on Kindle and Nook and let the readers be the judge.

I hope you all will follow along as I conduct my experiment. And be gentle…

Viva la Naughty!

Jinx