new review and new mug

When I talked about my novels with Andy and The Rev on their podcast, they generously offered to send me a “Cocktail Hour” mug. And it arrived at just the right time, because I had smashed my favorite writing mug into a thousand little pieces just a few days before (accidentally; I’m not prone to temper tantrums *g*).

I also wanted to direct your attention toward a website called “Bosom Friends,” which lists and reviews historical fiction with lesbian characters and themes. Nan Hawthorne recently reviewed Backwards to Oregon.

If you like historical fiction, check out the site.

Cocktail Hour

I’ve been a guest on the Cocktail Hour last night (well, evening for me, but early afternoon for Andy & The Rev).

In their fun podcast, they discuss lesbian fiction and fanfiction. Sometimes, they have the author of the book they discuss on the show. And they always have a cocktail (or two, or three ). This show’s cocktail was the Sweet Tight Pussy– okay, this blog is now rated NC-17 because of a cocktail

My own cocktail was much more tame in alcohol content and name. It’s called “Police Control” (pineapple juice, cream, coconut syrup, grenadine, and chocolate sauce).

We talked about Hidden Truths, my other novels, and future projects.

Check it out. And while you’re at it, you might also want to listen to a few of their other episodes. They already discussed a few of my old favorites.

And if you send them an e-mail and answer a question or two correctly, you have a chance of winning a free signed copy of one of my books. You can find the questions here

Signed copy of “Hidden Truths”

To celebrate the publication of Hidden Truths, I’m giving away two signed copies of Hidden Truths, and one signed copy of its prequel, Backwards to Oregon.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this blog or send me an e-mail (jae_s1978 AT yahoo.de), and I’ll enter you into the drawing.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone!

Hidden Truths

Wooohooo! My fifth novel, Hidden Truths, has finally been published!

Hidden Truths is a sequel to Backwards to Oregon, taking place 17 years after the journey to Oregon. You’ll meet Luke and Nora again and get to know their daughters as adults, and you’ll also meet new characters.

“Luke” Hamilton has been living as a husband and father for the past seventeen years. No one but her wife, Nora, knows she is not the man she appears to be. They have raised their daughters to become honest and hard-working young women. But even with their loving foundation, a few fears and insecurities have Amy and Nattie hiding their own secrets.

Just as Luke sets out on a dangerous trip to Fort Boise, a newcomer arrives on the ranch — Rika Aaldenberg, who traveled to Oregon as a mail-order bride, hiding that she’s not the woman in the letters.

When hidden truths are revealed, will their lives and their family fall apart or will love keep them together?

Hidden Truths is available as a paperback, e-book (e.g., Mobipocket, Adobe, epub, etc.), and L-book (audio) through my publisher, L-Book, and through Amazon.

If you haven’t read Backwards to Oregon yet, L-Book also offers a bundle set with Backwards and Hidden Truths.

There’s also a new free short story available that offers some insight into Luke’s life before Backwards to Oregon and Hidden Truths. You can find The Blue Hour here.

I hope you’ll enjoy my newest novel!

story question II

The first and most basic thing you learn as a psychologist is: People are different (from each other). If there’s one thing the test reading process taught me is that readers are different and want different things from a novel. That’s why a 140,000-word novel can still feel rushed to some readers in the end, while others are perfectly content.

You might have read my blog post on story questions.

For some readers, the story question is “Will the two main characters get together?”

But for other readers, the story question is “Will they overcome the obstacles of society and their own fears to not only get together, but to build a solid relationship?”

Some readers love reading about established relationships others prefer the suspense of the first meeting and falling in love.

Take Backwards to Oregon, for example.

At the end of the novel, Luke and Nora had reached Oregon, declared their love for each other, and made love. But their journey together was only just beginning. They were just starting to accept their love for another woman and Luke was only just starting to accept herself. They hadn’t yet built the kind of deep, unshakeable trust they share in Hidden Truths, after 17 years together. They built the foundation for that kind of love on the journey to Oregon, and I was happy to leave the rest up to the readers’ imagination.

For me, the novel ended with them getting together, taking the first of many obstacles on their road to a life together. I provided a glimpse of the future to let readers know there’s a happy end, but left it up to the reader’s imagination how they overcame the other obstacles.

And that’s perfectly fine for the readers who read with the first story question in mind, but not for the readers who read with the second story question.

So I’m learning not to wrap up my novels too soon to provide a satisfying end for all readers.

Story question

How do we as writers get readers to keep turning the pages of our books?

Well, there are a lot of answers to that question, but for now, I’m going to focus on one aspect of it: readers read our books and keep turning the pages to find out how it’s all going to end. They read to find the answer to the story question: Will the main character reach her goal? Will the girl get the girl? Will the detective catch the killer? Will the heroine save humankind from attacking aliens?

Okay, truth be told, we all know the answer to those questions. In most cases, yes, the girl will get the girl, the detective will catch the killer, and the heroine will beat E.T.’s evil cousins. But readers are willing to pretend they don’t already know.

So the story really starts when the story question is raised in the reader’s mind, and the story ends when the story question is answered.

To write a tight story that keeps readers interested, it might be a good idea to raise the story question early in the book (and that includes keeping backstory out of the first chapter). The story should start with or close to the scene when the heroine meets her love interest or first hears about her, when the first murder is committed or the detective is assigned to the case, or when the heroine sees alien spaceships show up in the earth orbit.

Also, wrap up the story soon after the story question is answered. Don’t drag it out for too long afterward.

It’s possible for a novel to have more than one story question — it might have one for every subplot.

For example, the story questions for Backwards to Oregon might be: Will they safely reach Oregon? Will Luke be able to hide her secret? Will Luke and Nora get together?

Usually, story questions should be clear (they have a yes/no answer), and the main character’s story goal needs to be achievable (the answer might be yes), but difficult to achieve (the answer could be no).

Every scene of the story should in some way relate to one of the story questions. If it doesn’t, you might want to lose the scene.

Golden Crown Literary Society Awards

The Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS) held its annual conference last weekend, and the GCLS awards (“Goldies”) were presented on Saturday.

I woke up to an inbox full of e-mails, telling me “congratulations,” but giving me no clue as to what I had won since three of my novels had been shortlisted. The GCLS hadn’t posted the award winners yet, so I clicked through all e-mails until I got to messages from Jeanine Hoffman, a fellow L-Book author who attended the conference.

She e-mailed me on her iPhone during the award presentation, telling me Backwards to Oregon had just won a Goldie for historical romance. Her second e-mail told me that Next of Kin won in the category romantic suspense. By the time I got to her third e-mail, which let me know that Second Nature had won an award for best speculative fiction, I was in shock. A very pleasant shock, of course

I can only say thank you to all the people who made this possible — my beta readers, test readers, editors, and my publisher, Roxanne Jones from L-Book, who accepted the awards on my behalf.

Here’s a list of all Goldie winners:

Anthology — non-erotica
And Baby Makes More — eds. Goldberg/C. Rose
Year’s Best Lesbian Fiction ’08 — ed. Fran Walker

Debut Author:
Keile’s Chance-Dillion Watson
October’s Promise-Marianne Garver
Waltzing at Midnight-Robbi McCoy

Dramatic/general fiction:
Detours-Jane Vollbrecht
Family Affair-Saxon Bennett
Gemini-Geonn Cannon

Erotica:
Attractions of the Heart-Cheri Crystal
Nights Kiss- Catherine Lundoff

Historical Romance:
Backwards to Oregon-Jae
Kicker’s Journey Loic Cloarec Hart

Mystery/Thriller:
Possessing Morgan-Erical Lawson
Veritas-Anne Laughlin
Who’ll Be Dead For Christmas-Kate Sweeney

Paranormal Romance:
Barking at the Moon-Nene Adams
Everafter-Nell Stark/Trinity Tam

Poetry:
Bird Eating Bird-Kristen Naca
In Praise of Falling-Cheryl Dumesnil
The Heart’s Traffic-Ching-in Chen

Romantic suspense/intrigue/adventure:
Next of Kin-Jae
The Scorpion-Gerri Hill
Thief of Always-Kim Baldwin/Xenia Alexiou

Short Story/Essay/Collections Non-erotica
Mean Little Deaf Queer-Terry Galloway
My Sweet Wild Dance-Mikaya Heart
Outsiders-K. Sweeney/ JD Glass/L Ames/S Smith/G Beers

Speculative Fiction:
Forever Mine-KD Williamson
Second Nature-Jae
The Veil of Sorrow-Crystal Michallet-Romero

Traditional Contemporary Romance
Keile’s Chance-Dillion Watson
Stranded-Blayne Cooper
Worth Every Step-KG MacGregor

Ann Bannon Popular Choice Award:
Beggar of Love-Lee Lynch

Director’s Award:
Rosa Moran

Trailblazer Award:
Ellen Hart

Congratulations to all Goldie winners!

writing process: plotting

2. Plotting:

Step two in my writing process is plotting. When it comes to plotting, there are two kinds of writers: “plotters” and “pantsers.”

Plotters write some kind of outline or maybe a synopsis or character sketches. Some plot with index cards, filling out one card for each scene.

Pantsers write “by the seat of their pants,” with little plotting. They have an idea where the story is going, but they don’t write down a sequence of scenes that will happen in the story. For them, the story seems to take on a life of itself. Sarah Ettritch blogged about the advantages of being an “organic writer.”

There is no right or wrong way. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.

Plotting allows you to catch plot holes before you write yourself into a corner. You can foreshadow important events that you know are coming and write with the ending in mind.

Writing by the seat of your pants allows you to keep your writing fresh and spontaneous because you’re not confined by a planned-out structure.

Personally, I’m somewhere between a plotter and a pantser, but more on the plotting side of the continuum. When I start writing, I don’t know every little detail of every scene, but I know my important plot points and some of the scenes that will happen along the way. I have an ending in mind, and I have a more detailed plan for the first few chapters. I also do character sketches that often include facts that will never make it into the story. For Second Nature, I wrote a twenty-page concept of my shape-shifters, their biology, religion, language, and culture.

In the past, I have plotted more intensely – when I wrote Backwards to Oregon, I had the sequence of scenes all worked out. I don’t do that anymore. But I need an overall structure before I can start writing. If I know where I’m going, I’m more productive. I never had writer’s block.

But I’m certainly not married to my outline. I get to know the characters as I write, so I’ll often adjust the outline, add new scenes, change others.

Some people wonder whether there’s a connection between plotting style and hemispheric dominance.

When I’m using the terms “right-brained” and “left-brained,” keep in mind that we, of course, all have and use both sides of the brain. None of us is totally right-brained or totally left-brained, but most of us lean one way or the other.


Left-brained people tend to be logical. They are detail-oriented and work in a linear fashion. It’s easy to imagine that most left-brained people are plotters.

Right-brained people depend more on feelings and imagination. They see the big picture and might not work linearly. Most right-brained people might be pantsers.

Here’s a link to a program that assesses your cognitive style (left-brained vs. right-brained, auditory vs. visual). Instead of your name, enter “50″ so that you get fifty questions instead of twenty. It increases the validity of your results. My results look like this:

Or take a hemispheric dominance test.

Let me know how your cognitive style corresponds with your plotting style.

Puzzled by reader feedback

Recently, I’ve been puzzled by some of the feedback from readers that I got.

But before I start explaining, let me say that this is not about a writer whining about negative or critical feedback. I appreciate constructive criticism, and I try to learn from it. In fact, if sites such as Amazon provided e-mail addresses I’d contact readers who pointed out flaws in my books and ask them to test read my works in progress.

So let me explain what’s so puzzling about the feedback I got.

I stumbled across a review of Conflict of Interest on Amazon. One reader titled her review “Too Bi-Sexual,” and complained that the book is predominantly about bisexual women.

And a reader review of Backwards to Oregon on Amazon (not by the same reader) said that there’s too much “implied (short of graphic) m/f intimacy.” The reader suggested I should have cut the first thirty pages of Backwards to Oregon — that’s the part that shows Nora’s life in the brothel.

Another reader sent me feedback, saying she enjoyed Conflict of Interest “despite the hetero sex” in it. I asked the reader to what she was referring, but she never answered, so I’m left wondering. Is she referring to the fact that a few of the characters were in relationships with men before? Or — and I hope that’s not what she meant — does she see being raped at gunpoint as “hetero sex”?

I also had one e-mail from a reader who said she would have enjoyed Second Nature more without the heterosexual romance.

All of that made me wonder if someone is adding hetero sex scenes / romances to my books while I’m not looking   There are no heterosexual love scenes in any of my books. None.

So, I have two separate issues with that kind of feedback:

Exploitation of women (Nora’s work in a brothel) and rape should never be confused with sex. Sex always includes a choice. If a woman is raped or forced to work as a prostitute, she has no choice — not if she wants to survive. It’s in no way “hetero sex,” and it’s not an indication of her sexual orientation.

I’m aware that I chose to write about sensitive subjects, and I can understand if readers don’t want to have any mention of rape or prostitution in their romance novels. Many of us read to escape the hard reality of life, after all. But if a reader reads the back cover blurb and buys the story, she (or he) knows that my characters’ lives are touched by that kind of violence and hardship.

Should I have cut the first thirty pages of Backwards to Oregon and merely mentioned that Nora had worked in the brothel?

My answer is no. I wanted to SHOW her life in the brothel, not just TELL the reader about it. In my opinion, it was needed to explain her motivation for marrying Luke. If Nora hadn’t been desperate to change her life, she never would have agreed to marry a perfect stranger.

So, there is no “hetero sex” in any of my stories.

But yes, there are men in my books, and there are bisexual women, and sometimes I have heterosexual couples in my books.

There aren’t as many bisexual women as the “too bi-sexual” review implies, though. If it takes a character a while to figure out that she’s gay, does that make her bisexual? In my opinion, the answer is clearly no. Personally, I see Dawn, Aiden, and Jorie as lesbians, even though they’ve been with men. Just because they’re not gold-star lesbians doesn’t mean they’re any less lesbian than Del, Griffin, or Luke.

Kade and Tess are clearly bisexual, though, and Nora might be bisexual too. I don’t see anything “wrong” with that. Isn’t there a place for bisexual women falling in love with a woman in lesbian fiction?

And why shouldn’t lesbian romances have male supporting characters? Or heterosexual couples? I assume that most lesbians have male and/or heterosexual friends and family members. We’re surrounded by at least 90% straight people. Good people, if they are there by our choice. So why should I write a book about just lesbians, with not even one straight acquaintance? And why do all the straight characters need to be either single or in unhappy relationships? Why can’t I at least mention happy straight relationships? It makes no sense to me.

In Second Nature, I have one of Griffin’s sisters be gay and in love with a wonderful woman. So what’s so wrong about showing that her other, straight sister is in a happy relationship too, as long as neither of the subplots takes over the novel?

I also don’t want to portray men as the bad guys in my novels. Yes, there might be villains or antagonists who are men, but I always try to have some good guys too.

So while I know it won’t please some readers, Hidden Truths will have all of that too: men who are great friends, bisexual or lesbian characters who have been with men before, and heterosexual couples who pick flowers for each other after thirty years of marriage.

Readers, how do you pick the books you read? Does it matter to you if there are male / straight / bisexual characters in the book?

Fellow writers, what kind of characters do you choose for your novels? Have you ever had similar reactions from readers?

“Goldie” short list

The GCLS (Golden Crown Literary Society) is beginning to post the short lists for the 2010 “Goldie” awards. Not all categories are up, but Second Nature (speculative fiction) and Backwards to Oregon (historical romance) are both on the short list for their category.

Congrats to all other authors whose novels were shortlisted.