Sunday Snippet: Eyekeeper

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erotica, eyekeeper, fantasy, short story, snippet sunday, sword and sorcery

Mitzi Szerato’s Thrones of Desire is coming out later this month, Sept. 18, a collection of erotic sword-and-sorcery fantasy stories.

My contribution, “Eyekeeper,” revolves around a pragmatic, power-hungry enchantress whose alliance with a prison warden she seduced into helping her steal her talisman back from a rival sorcerer backfires, since said prison warden was in the rival’s pocket the whole time. Never fuck with an enchantress. They don’t die easily, and they have no issues with blackmailing a closet case and his lover.

I love morally gray characters, and Lydia is most assured gray. It would be easy to paint her as a wicked witch, but she really isn’t. She’s powerful, ambitious, and perhaps a bit of a sociopath, but she isn’t evil. Which means following in her footsteps a lot more fun, since she doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘scruples.’

“Really, Lydia. What did you think you were going to do with the treasure? Bribe the ferryman to take you the other direction?” Hann asked. Slowly, he slid the bodice down and loosened the final ties so that the material of her dress slid down her legs. There was a heavy clink as the full pocket-lined skirts fell to the stone floor.

Lydia said nothing, nor did her smile falter. She could see sweat forming above his lip as his gaze travelled from the ridge of her collarbone down to the shapes of her breasts under the thin chemise. Her remaining clothing was silent as he moved his hands over the full arms, down the back, against the skirts, now pressing against her firm thighs.

Snippet Sunday: Calling the Dragons Home

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calling the dragons home, erotica, fantasy, short story, snippet sunday, sword and sorcery

It’s happening, folks. My first story with Total-E-Bound, “Calling the Dragons Home” is coming out tomorrow. A story about the dangers of repression, a totalitarian state set in sword-and-sorcery fantasy medieval times, with magic, magicians, a dance, dreams, and dragons, of course. And in the midst of that, a figurehead Queen learning the power of her sexuality and the need for passions. It was a pleasure to write – a style that permitted a little bit of melodrama, which was fun – and I hope that you enjoy it as well. Here’s an early bit of steam from the story.

He did not wait for her to adjust to such a new experience. Syra – who had never kissed any man, and who would have only had one chaste kiss in her life, had she ever married – found herself drowning in him, opening her mouth to accept him as he sank into her, tasting her with strong, deliberate thrusts of his tongue. But although she felt as though she melted beneath him, she could not help but taste him as well, tangle with him until she swept her hands around the shape of his skull to bring him still closer. Quite unintentionally, her teeth closed on his lower lip in a rush of hunger, and she sucked on the flesh she caught until, again, he groaned.

… “Ever since you were born,” he murmured against her lips, “I sensed the deep reservoir of magic within you. To see it so restrained, first by the Edicts and then by the additional requirements of your position as Queen… You were the first person in three lifetimes with the potential to return Dragonsong to its former glory.”

Snippet Sunday: Calling the Dragons Home

Tags

fantasy, short story, snippet sunday, sword and sorcery

Holy crap, I can’t believe it’s only two weeks before I’m officially a Total-E-Bound author and the long short story “Calling the Dragons Home” becomes available. Note on the cover: TEB has a narrow selection of covers for their Lust Bites (long short stories), which means I couldn’t get a personalized one for the story. Hence the modern underwear in the pic. However, Winter Howl will have a more appropriate cover, and I’m looking forward to that.

In other news, I got paid for “Eyekeeper” in the Thrones of Desire anthology, which comes out early September. Especially this year, I’ve done a lot of novel work, which means I haven’t submitted to any anthologies. With anthologies, things go a little more quickly than novels, and I had kind of forgotten what it felt like to be paid for my fiction writing services. It was nice to be reminded that I’m a paid writer.

Here’s the next “Calling the Dragons Home” snippet. It’s less steamy – I’ll save that for next week. For sword-and-sorcery stories, I have to do something I rarely have to do in modern fantasy (rarely, but not never), and that is world-build. I built the State as a repressive regime, as a dystopia of the past rather than the future, and it was kind of fun to have some of the more modern totalitarian terms set to the past. They fit just fine.

But the price of safety is the denial of passions. To have peace, one must forgo the things that make life a pleasurable journey. Things are no longer pleasurable — they are simply pleasant. The rules were applied first by the monks, then by the sisters, then by the Court. But the merchants — who had very little dealings with dragons, magicians, witches, and sorcerers and who had always been imminently practical – eventually took the rules and applied them to such efficacy that their coffers swelled and they wrested power from the nobility, which to this day still only survives by the weight of their names. The Court yielded to the Council, and the Council set the laws of the State to those Edicts of Detan.

Pre-Order: Calling the Dragons Home

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calling the dragons home, ebook, erotica, fantasy, pre-order, short story, sword and sorcery, total-e-bound

The State laws ensure peace, but at the price of passion. How can a figurehead Queen and a simple magician bring magic and passion back?

My long short story “Calling the Dragons Home” is available for pre-order at Total-E-Bound. The e-book comes out Aug. 6, 2012.

Description:

Syra is Queen of the State, bound like every citizen by the Edicts of Detan – laws that ensure peace, but at the price of passion. Every aspect of life is controlled by these laws, encouraging moderation and repressing any excess of emotion. Magic, too, is forbidden except for simple parlor tricks.

The court magician, Gilian, reveals to her in secret that the State was once Dragonsong – a land of dragons and full of magic. The dragons were exiled and disappeared, and the magic was wiped out of the State, and with them all the accompanying pains and pleasures that make life worth living. Syra realises that the State has lasted too long in its lifeless existence; an existence that she knows is not enough.

With the help of Gilian, she vows to break free from the stifling State and rediscover the magic of passion in order to call the dragons home and resurrect Dragonsong.

A Few Little Things

Tags

anthology, erotica, eyekeeper, harvest, links, short story

I have good news but have to hold back for a little while longer. I’ve worn a groove in my tongue where I’ve been biting it. I’ve been busy with other writing projects and work-like things, so there just has not been a lot going on in the erotic realm this summer. I tend to in a more amorous slant, as the song says, when the temperature is low.

In other news, Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist, and Fire is available for pre-order and has its own website up and running, featuring an excerpt by yours truly from my short story “Eyekeeper.” Its release date is September 11.

Also, Seductress: Erotic Tales of Immortal Desire, which my short story “Harvest” is a part of, is available for pre-order. Its publication date is Oct. 6.

Here There Be Dragons

Tags

accepted, calling the dragons home, ebook, erotica, fantasy, long, short story, sword and sorcery, total-e-bound

I’m very pleased to share that my long short story “Calling the Dragons Home” has been accepted by Total-E-Bound for e-book publication. It’s release date is Aug. 6, which means I’ll have stories coming out August, September, and October, so that’s a good publishing year for me. :)

I’ve moaned about being a long story writer a couple of times on this blog. Even my short stories tend toward around 8k and up to 15k, if I give them all the room to breathe that I find appropriate. I originally started writing CTDH for the Thrones of Desire call for submissions. When it crossed 10k and I was still writing, I knew I had no hope of editing it down without losing very important parts of the story. In fact, working with my TEB editor, CTDH ended up growing rather than shrinking, which was a new experience for me.

Given its state as a long story around 13-14k words, it ended up in the limbo area of too long for a short story and too short for a novella, which meant that the odds of it ever being printed were limited. That was when I first started seriously looking into e-books.

Total-E-Bound has been wonderful to me so far, completely professional, answering all my questions and dealing with me as I navigated some of the aspects of publishing that I was worried about (since my only experience has been in anthologies thus far). I am really looking forward to working with them now with CTDH and possibly in the future. For novel-length stories, they do offer print books on occasion in addition to their e-books, which also encourages me, as I like both options.

As far as CTDH itself, I’ll cover the story more when we get closer to the release date. So, this fall is going to be a busy one for me, but it will probably also get more interesting for everyone involved. :) It’s a story that I’m proud of and that I enjoyed writing. Sword-and-sorcery fantasy doesn’t come naturally to me – so it’s kind of funny I’ve got two S&S fantasy short stories coming out this year – but I especially enjoyed the experience of world-building that it requires.

I recently finished all the edits with my editor – and she caught a couple truly hilarious mistypes I managed to miss during my read-throughs – so now we wait for the publishing side of things to work its magic. When I get a cover, I’ll be sure to share it.

Succubus

Tags

accepted, erotica, harvest, short story, succubus

Oh, hells to the yeah. I get to share with everybody that my short story “Harvest” was accepted into Seductress: Tales of Immortal Desire, a succubus anthology edited by D. L. King. And apparently my story is the first one in the book, which is a bit daunting. Take a look at the Table of Contents below.

No cover or pre-order available yet. I’ll share them as they come, and I’ll share more about “Harvest” closer to when the anthology comes out in October 2012.

Table of Contents

1      Harvest by Aurelia T. Evans

2      A Surprising Summons by Kaysee Renee Robichaud

3      Succubus, Inc. by Elizabeth Brooks

4      In the Service of Hell by Michael M. Jones

5      Before a Fall by Kannan Feng

6      Street Hustle by V. K. Foxe

7      Star Crossed by Evan Mora

8      Zach’s Last Ride by Sasha Bukova

9      Deliverance by Jay Lawrence

10  Minions Have Needs Too by Anya Richards

11  Sweet Tooth by Nan Andrews

12  The Girl on the Egyptian Escalator by NJ Streitberger

13  The Sorcerer’s Catch by Angela Caperton

14  The Chapel by J.S. Wayne

15  The Lonely Huntress by Mina Murray

16  Neither Love Nor Money by Giselle Renarde

17  Textual by Robin Tiergarten

18  Succumb by Cynthia Rayne

19  Moon Like a Sickle, Wind Like a Knife by Jean Roberta

20  Phone Hex by Elizabeth Thorne

21  Soaring by Kate Dominic

Is that a sword sheathed at your side, or…

Tags

anthology, erotica, fantasy, short story, sword and sorcery

It has been One of Those Weeks. (Actually, it’s been two of those weeks, but that doesn’t have the same impact.) I am tired and looking forward to sleeping in. But I just couldn’t wait until next Wednesday to share this.

You can preorder THRONES OF DESIRE: EROTIC TALES OF SWORDS, MIST AND FIRE, edited by Mitzi Szereto, on Amazon already. It’s coming out in Sept. 2012. Isn’t the title and the cover and the description epic?

“Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire is a place where lust and legend abound, and adventure, passion and danger entwine. Think mystical lands and creatures, kings and queens, knights and renegades, heroes and villains, warlords, maidens and princesses. Think battles and danger, honor and dishonor, good and evil. Most of all, think hearts filled with passion and secret desire. This is a place where romantic chivalry is alive and well, but so too is romantic wickedness. This is a place where the good do not always win, and the bad are often more captivating and desirable than their altruistic counterparts. In these lush and timeless landscapes, the battle for flesh can be as important as the battle for power. Intrigue, sorcery, revenge, lawlessness, dark secrets and mysterious elixirs; entanglements with supernatural beings – everything is possible in these magical mythical landscapes. Inspired by Game of Thrones these imaginative steamy tales transport the reader to fantastical realms.”

And here’s the Table of Contents and the wonderful authors with whom I’m sharing the honor of being a part of this erotic fantasy anthology:

Hot as a Dragon’s Blood – Eric Del Carlo

Of High Renown – Janine Ashbless

At the Sorcerer’s Command – Kim Knox

Silver – Anna Meadows

In the Kingdom of Roz – Madeline Moore

Key to the Queen’s Elixir – Jo Wu

Here There Be Dragons – Ashley Lister

Flesh and Stone – Sacchi Green

Saints and Heroes – M. H. Crane

Escape – Mitzi Szereto

Eyekeeper – Aurelia T. Evans (It’s me!)

The Widow’s Man – Nyla Nox

Jericho – Megan Arkenberg

The Last Sacrifice – Zander Vyne

Short Story Accepted

Tags

accepted, erotica, fantasy, short story, thrones of desire

ETA: If you’ve seen this twice, I apologize. Now I can share the good news.

I’ve been sitting this good news for awhile, waiting for the publisher to confirm. My sword-and-sorcery short story (say that five times fast) “Eyekeeper” was accepted to editor Mitzi Szereto‘s fantasy anthology Thrones of Desire, available for pre-order. It’s scheduled for release this autumn quarter. I’m hella excited to be a part of it! I’ll have more information about the story and the anthology when it comes out.

2011 Submissions in Review

Tags

end of year, erotica, short story, submissions, writing

In retrospect, I wrote a lot but didn’t get very far. I do hope that FRIGID BITCH finds a home sometime next year, and I intend to do an intensive edit of WOLF GIRL, which is this close to being finished (two more chapters left, hope to finish before the end of the year, or just after). WOLF GIRL will probably be short novel length after edits, I’m thinking around 80-90k, whereas FRIGID BITCH is still over 100k.

2011 short story submissions:

“Crumbs”     June     Fairy tale     F/M, 4431 words     Rejected
“Wood and Bone”     June     Queer horror     M/M, 10765 words     Waiting
“Jaded”     July     Shapeshifter     F/F, 4486 words     Rejected
“Harvest”     Aug     Succubus     F/M, 2998 words     Waiting
“Irresistible”     Sept     Enchantments     F/M, 4453 words     Rejected
“Eyekeeper”     Nov     Sword and sorcery     F/M, M/M, 5989 words     Accepted

I’m not sure if this list is short or long. It felt like a lot of short stories until I looked at the list. I have a few shorts I wrote this year that ended up too long and so never got submitted, and I have a few partials that I hope to finish if I get inspired by an anthology submission call or if I’m feeling industrious. “Calling the Dragons Home” (F/M) was intended for the same anthology as “Eyekeeper,” but clocked in at 12k words before edits, and the max was 6k. I wrote a fairy tale short for the same anthology as “Crumbs” that ended up too long, but I intend to repurpose it for a general rather than erotic audience. “Ooze” is a partial erotic horror short (F/M), and “Minou” is a fairy tale retelling I’ve been working on for about two years, but I’ve just never been able to finish it. It’ll probably be over 10k by the time I am finished.