New Book Day! Heat of the Harpy

Well it's been longer than I would have liked, but I finally have a new book out! Heat of the Harpy is my latest fantasy monster story, although not necessarily tied to my Temple of the Seducer books (feel free to make up your own mind about that). It's about what happens when a young man, Kev, finds himself entranced by a beautiful creature, one that's far more dangerous and lustful than she lets on. Here's an excerpt:

At last the fair man spotted Kev in the crowd and gestured for him to come forward. "And this last creature, gentles, is a true rarity, taken from the peaks of the Shattered Mountains. If you will but draw the curtain back, good lad, and keep your distance!"

Kev grinned, sure he was in no danger, and drew the curtain back. He jumped anyway when a piercing shriek sounded, and something slammed into the bars of the revealed cage with great force. Kev stumbled, and ended up falling on his backside to the amusement of the fair man. The rest of the crowd didn't seem to notice, riveted by the cage's occupant.

Kev looked at the cage, and his eyes widened. The being within appeared to be a woman, taller than any man Kev had ever met, but her skin was a bright, fiery red. She wore a sackcloth that preserved her modesty, but her bare limbs were long and well-muscled, and displayed her unnatural character fully. Her human-like legs ended just below the knee, becoming black, bird-like talons with three toes. Her hands were clenched fists gripping the bars, and the nail of each finger was a thick onyx talon, wickedly curved. 

Red and dark orange feathers sprouted from her forearms, matching the feathers that crowned her skull, giving the appearance of a thick mane of hair, and she had a pair of large wings that sprouted from her back, bound in leather straps and pinned behind her. But it was her face that drew Kev's attention.

It was human, and yet not. Her eyes were large and a luminous yellow, with inky black pupils that darted from side to side, taking in the crowd. The bones of her face were sharp, and she had a long nose that didn't quite hook at the end. Her teeth were bared in a fierce scowl, and Kev saw that her canines were long and sharply pointed.

"Behold the harpy!" the fair man shouted, raising his arms high.

The harpy's eyes fixed on Kev, and he felt his heart seize in his chest, barely hearing the fair man's patter, or the rising applause and shouts of the audience. Those luminous eyes were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and they seemed to draw him in, showing him a depth of suffering and sorrow that he'd never imagined. He thought of soaring through the sky, the beautiful sky he'd toiled under for so many years, and then felt the weight of chains and nets dragging him down, down onto the cold, unfeeling rock.

And there's a taste! I had a lot of fun writing this one. Aside from being a stand-alone story, it was nice to stretch a little bit in a new setting with a new creature.

Heat of the Harpy is free to read on Kindle Unlimited. If  you like it, please leave a review! Reviews gooooood. And hopefully my next story, a contemporary piece for a change, will be out sooner rather than later. Happy reading!

-Lea

Project Management for Smut Writers, Part 2

Welcome back, all! Last time I was here I talked about project management. I've been modifying my writing process to optimize it a bit more than not at all, using Trello to keep myself organized. Since then I've refined things quite a bit, so I figured I'd give you an update.

First of all, I've created a dedicated Writing board to track my different projects. Previously I had them listed in a list on my personal To-Do board, but that wasn't cutting it for me. Now I have things broken out into books in progress and ideas I haven't started yet. I also have a list of published books, which includes Amazon links for each book so I can do my advertising posts quickly. And I have a list of reference links in case I get time to, y'know, improve my craft.

The in progress entries are important, because that's how I'm tracking my work. Any time I manage to get some writing done or any other work, I just throw down a comment listing what I did. Easy!

So that's my writing board. I'm also still maintaining boards for each project I'm actively working on.

Disclaimer: 19+ year old farm boy.

Here I keep track of what tasks I need to do, but I also generate what is basically a scene block-out. Each card is a scene, and I write down what I want to happen in the details for each one. I'm still massaging this a bit - I can probably move to labeling scenes instead of moving them between lists. Also, I was tracking my work here, but it was too much trouble to break up my word counts between scenes, so I moved that to the Writing board.

So far I'm okay with this setup. I am getting a bit frustrated with Trello's interface - it's not as responsive as I'd like and the click-through to do what I want is a bit high. Still better than Project! (Ask me about my Project 2016 license if we ever meet in a bar. Then duck.) Once I get my system stabilized I might go looking for another solution, but for now I'm staying with it.

For the record I've completed a full 7,000 word short story draft since I got going with this system two weeks ago, and have written about 2,000 words on my next project. Some of you might think that's slow, but not me! Seriously, this is pretty speedy for me. Stop... stop laughing.

Ahem. Aside from writing I've been taking a PMP class - think I mentioned that - and it turned out to be an exam cram - didn't mention that - so basically worthless in terms of mastering the project management craft. But I am learning of a lot of things and I hope to share more with you all as I go.

Oh and once the Amazon Prime Day strike is over, remember to check out my smut. I'm hoping to get my harpy story out by the end of the month and then I've got a really steamy contemporary story in the works. Ciao!

-Lea

Project Management for Smut Writers, Part 1

Hey, check out the new author picture! I commissioned it from @monidraws on Twitter and she did a swell job on it. :-)

I'm done being on break after finishing off the Temple of the Seducer books, so I'm taking a couple of days to try and get my writing process in order before I move on to the next round of books. My process up until now has been:

1. Pick something to write.

2. Jot down notes on what I need to do.

3. Faff about.

4. It's been a month.

5. Panic, go to 3.

6. How did this story get done?

7. Wait a few more months.

8. Edit.

It's... it's not a great process. -_-"

I managed to get my butt in gear for the Seducer books (woo *confetti* woo), but now that I'm done with them I'm falling back into old bad habits I need to break.

The biggest one is that I'm super bad at making myself write when I've only got a few minutes to work in. I tend to write only after giving my brain a solid 30 minutes to an hour to sink into what I call... nothing... the point is I dawdle and then I don't get anything written.

So I'm going to follow some excellent advice I've read repeatedly and never quite properly followed! And that's to get everything down that I need to do, in advance, so when I have time to do it I can jump write in without sitting in the grip of a paralyzing fear of whitespace for two hours. And then maybe I can start setting up some deadlines and stick to them. Miracles happen!

Enter the PMP class I'm taking later this month...

If you've never dealt with Microsoft Project it's a God-awful piece of shit software program you should avoid at all costs unless someone's paying you to use it, in which case it's the super-useful industry standard. (Damn it Microsoft.) My day job is paying me to take a class on project management so I'm familiar with the basics, but I wouldn't dare use Project to try and manage my writing.

I decided to give Trello a try because it's free and it works on all my bits and bobs. I started off by making some to-do lists, found the interface acceptable, and started loading up book projects.

First step was to make a template project I could copy easily for new books. Trello sorts itself into "boards", so each project (book) is a board. Here's a screen cap of my first attempt:

Seems pretty reasonable at first glance (the color looks better live, I promise), so I copied the board and entered the info I had already for my "next" project ("next" implying I don't randomly shift focus):

Already I can see some problems. I'm going to need a reference list to keep track of any info I need that isn't tied to a scene or a task. Also I should have somewhere to put tasks I'm done with. But that ends up being a lot of lists, so I decide to use Trello's label feature to mark the difference between scenes and tasks so I can pick them out at a glance.

Now the project template looks like this:

Better! Now I don't have to break my neck browsing lists, and I can move the cards around to sort stuff that's important to the top. I'm keeping the drafted list because otherwise I'm going to have a lot of stuff lingering in to-do, but I might change that to labels a la Scrivener.

(Why am I not working in Scrivener? Because I've tried that repeatedly and it always goes fiddly on me and ends in tears. I'm resolved this time to keep the writing bit separate from the project management bit, and see if I have better luck. But for what it's worth, Scrivener does support the gist of what I'm doing natively so you're welcome to try it there.)

Now my next step is going to be getting all my current book projects listed out, then make boards for the ones I'm planning to work on, get the steps together... and get writing! As long as I can get an hour to work on it tomorrow I think I'll be fine. Plan on seeing an update by Friday this week.

-Lea

At Series End, A Free Book!

IIIIT'S OVERRR!!!

As of last week my fantasy erotica series, Temple of the Seducer, is up in full on Amazon, free to read for Kindle Unlimited members, please go ahead and check it out!

This is my first time attempting to write a series... or if I'm honest, my first attempt at writing a series that got past the first part... and my first time completing a series. Temple of the Seducer also marks my tenth (10th!) published work on Kindle, so, a lot of milestones here!

I'd like to thank everyone who gave one of the books a read. Knowing that people were reading these really helped me finish the series. Honest! Thank you.

Anyway. To belatedly mark the occasion, I'll be putting Gaze of the Gorgon, the first book in the series, up for free, today only. Go ahead and give it a read, and if you like it, check out the rest of the series! I can say stuff like that now!

And with that, I'm off to my dark rest to come up with more smut to write. Moo hoo ha ha.

-Lea

Quick Thank Yous

First, proud to announce I crossed the $20 sales mark for the first time this month. Woooo! So thank you to everyone who's been buying my smut. :-)

Second, I've got this blog linked up to my Goodreads profile now, so if you friend me there you'll automatically get kept up to date on my posts.

Speaking of, thank you to whoever's been entering my books into Goodreads! I'm pretty lazy about that stuff so I really appreciate it.

Lastly, I've come out with two new books since my last post, Lust of the Lamia and Bound by the Spider Queen. These are more parts from my Temple of the Seducer series, parts five and six respectively. Part seven will wrap the series up for now, and I'm hoping to get it out next week, so stay tuned!

-Lea

Getting Sexy with SEO

(Note: not a tutorial! But I'll throw in some links to a few tutorials I've been using.)

So I've been a bit frantic (for me) over the past week, releasing THREE (count 'em) new stories in the Temple of the Seducer series on Amazon, which are totally free to read on Kindle Unlimited. If you enjoy sexy stories featuring monsters and adventurers getting down and dirty in dungeons, you will probably enjoy these.

The first book, Gaze of the Gorgon, is still up, and I'll go ahead and link the other three right here:

The Ice Spirit's Embrace: When young alchemist Tomas and his adventuring companions seek shelter in a cave, Tomas is separated and trapped in the tomb of an icy apparition. She may be beautiful and lustful, but her touch means a quick, frozen death.

Tomas isn't a fighter, and he isn't a mage, but he does have a few concoctions up his sleeve to warm the ice spirit's frosty soul. But the ghost isn't satisfied with a simple embrace, and Tomas may not be equipped to fill her needs...

Bewitching the Abomination: Salome Spellweaver: adventurer. Mistress of the dark arts. A beauty worth dying for, with arrogance to match.

When a pitched dungeon battle goes wrong, Salome finds herself held captive. Shackled and powerless, she's locked in a cell with a flesh golem: an enormous necromantic construct, built in the form of a hulking brute of man.

Luckily, Salome knows how to handle herself around big, strong men. But even if she can charm the beast, she might find he's too much for her to handle...

The Mummy's Resurrection: Don't split the party! Oops, too late...

Pieter Goldeye, professional thief, isn't sure why he let himself get talked into this dungeon raiding nonsense in the first place. So when things turn bad, he bolts as quick as he can. Too bad he didn't see the pit trap...

Ankhanafer, ancient priestess of the Seducer God Qa'asp, has lain asleep for uncounted millennia. Now a thief has disturbed her repose. He'll be dealt with, but Ankhanafer still has a use for his life essence, and she knows exactly how to get it.

Maybe Pieter will even enjoy it. He always wanted to go out with a bang...

I'm in the middle of editing the next two books in the series, with more to come. Along the way I'll also be indulging in a bit of sexy, sexy search engine optimization (not actually sexy to me, but if it's your kink enjoy and well wishes!).

Looking over Amazon I found out about erotica keywords, which seem like kind of a big deal. (I knew about keywords :-P just not these keywords.) I've also been reading up about a few tips and tricks to make my books easier to find on Amazon, so I'll be tweaking some of my blurbs and keywords to see what happens.

I've also been looking around at new fonts that might work well for covers. Always love new fonts! Allura looks pretty nifty, as does Great Vibes . This guide also has some pretty nice fonts (shout out to Optimus Princeps!).

Beyond that I'll be reading up on the subject, but most of the books I've found so far are... a bit more technical than I'd like? If you have any good recommendations, feel free to post 'em up in the comments.

And that's about it! If you'd like to keep up to date with me, I'll be posting the releases on Twitter @leabravowriter, along with general life updates and smutty pictures from other people.

Alternatively, feel free to sign up for my mailing list! I'll be posting new releases there as they come (not more often than weekly - you don't want spam and I don't want to write spam), along with any deals I run on my work.

I do have a Tumblr page as well... it is a bit bare bones right now because I'm still learning the app, but I expect interesting stuff to start appearing there soon. I'll let you know as my grip on social media tightens. (Mua ha ha ha.)

-Lea

WTF How Do Marketing?

I'm in a weird position right now where I have a short story on Amazon that I'm not marketing at all because I wrote it for a contest, and I intend to do a full-blown marketing blitz once I know the results, but I don't know the results yet so I'm keeping my mouth shut about it until the results come out, which might happen next Monday if there aren't any more delays. Maybe. You'll be the first to hear about it, whenever something happens that qualifies as "it".

And this non-marketed book is still somehow the best-selling thing I've got on Amazon!

 If you'd like to help me rectify that last, my new story Gaze of the Gorgon is now live on Amazon as well. It's an erotic fantasy story that I'm hoping to turn into a series kick-off, although how fast that happens depends on how well this first story does, m'yeah?

In other news I am drunk and not as good as I thought I'd be at Dragon Ball FighterZ.

- Lea