Why is Writing so Hard? Jane Leopold Quinn – New Erotic Romance – ANCIENT TIES

I’d like to welcome Jane Leopold Quinn and her new release, ANCIENT TIES – An Erotic Time Travel Romance – http://amzn.com/B00WFTJYPG

Thanks so much for hosting Ancient Ties and me today, Alicia.

My pleasure! 

WRITING IS HARD! 

Why is writing fiction so hard?

Why is writing romance so hard?

Why is writing erotic romance so hard? 

I don’t know except maybe anything that’s creative should be hard. I don’t want to live in a garret. I don’t want to be a “starving artist.” But I’d like to have somewhat less angst about my writing. Even after several years, I still feel unsure about a finished project. While I’m working on it, I’m constantly revising, changing sentence structure, varying the first word of the sentences, putting in commas, taking them out. 

I write erotic romance and have from the minute I first put pen to paper because that’s how I wrote in the beginning. Others write hotter, others write more PG so I’m kind of in the middle. Then the question becomes is it hot enough for the hot lovers? Do readers consider the love scenes ordinary which isn’t my intention at all? I can spend hours on one or two paragraphs in love scenes to get the wording, movements, and most importantly the emotion right. Even after years, it doesn’t get any easier. 

Critics say it’s putting “slot A into slot B”. It’s not! At least it’s not if you write it properly. The slots are the least important component. They’re important, but the road to the slots is what’s lastingly memorable. The road is what makes the reader forget her living room, her bus or train ride, what she’s eating for lunch, because the scene she’s living through her reading is so powerful. Words matter, phrases matter. Putting them together so they flow and make the reader close her eyes and sigh in pleasure is what matters. 

And I’ll admit that sometimes I get tired of writing a hot love scene. That’s a bit discouraging. I consider myself a writer of good, hot love scenes but sometimes you just have to change your focus to a good murder or shoot out or just a simple walk down the street with your characters so they can get to know each other better through conversation. 

I guess writing is hard because we’re constantly challenging ourselves to be better, to go the extra mile to give a scene even more of a lasting impression on the reader. I know I’ve done a good job when the scene turns me on. I also know I’ve done a good job if I make myself cry because I’ve written an effective scene for my character. Thirty years of being a secretary and I don’t need to look at the keyboard most of the time. So when I’m deep into a scene, I close my eyes, sway in my desk chair, and type. 

More than a dozen books – novels, novellas, short stories – later and I’m here to talk about my latest release, Ancient Ties, an erotic time travel to 2nd Century Roman Britain. This book was first published in 2005, then with a different publisher in 2008, and now I’ve self published it. I’m very proud of the cover. I bought the top picture from http://romancenovelcovers.com. The two lower photos are ones I took on my trips to England and show scenes from the book.

 

Blurb:

Nursing a broken heart, Janney Forrester flies to England for a much needed vacation. She gets one—and much more. A drive through the countryside and the sight of a mysterious heavy gold bracelet found nestled against ruined walls draw her across the crumbling stone threshold of an ancient villa where she beholds a Roman room in perfect historical detail. To add to the unreality, there’s the most gorgeous, masculine man she’s ever seen, her every sensual fantasy personified. Confusion by what’s happening to her vies with attraction when Janney is thrust two thousand years into the past. 

Roman soldier Marek Benin Verus considers the woman suddenly appearing before him as a gift from the gods. Zeus knows he needs one! Battle fatigued and emotionally scarred after fifteen years in the army, he’s on a leave of absence and has all the time in the world to devote to seducing this beautiful woman into his bed. He doesn’t plan on the powerful and dangerous emotions she inspires in him. 

Marek’s hard, muscular body is too luscious to resist. Janney decides to risk the comfort of her safe life and carpe diem—seize the day. Marek seizes her body and takes her to the edge—and over—to an ecstasy she never knew existed. Can a new world for her, timeless desire, and a loving exploration of each other’s bodies forge a passion that survives centuries of separation? 

Excerpt – PG:

Setting the scene:  Janney visits the baths in ancient Aquae Sulis,

the same baths she saw in her own time just a few days before… 

Raising her gaze to the temple’s pediment, the Gorgon’s wildly flowing mane of hair and mustache, his wide surprised and sad eyes were familiar. “He’s the most well-known symbol of the baths. Anyone who’s ever visited them recognizes this carving. Don’t you think it’s amazing it lasted two thousand years?”

“Yes, it is.” Augusta said thoughtfully. “That’s the way I feel when I see the ancient stones near Marek’s villa.”

“Stones? What kind?”

“Tall, in a circle. Some sort of Druid religious site.”

“Stonehenge? Marek has a villa near Stonehenge?” She had to see it. Her heart thumped excitedly. A sexual-like ecstasy heated her from the inside out.

Stonehenge.

She forced her mind back to where she was right now. The baths.

One miracle at a time.

“Augusta,” she tried to keep her voice steady. “I saw a lot of this.” She closed her eyes. “There were enough fragments to piece together to get the idea of what it must have looked like.” She sought the other woman’s gaze. She could handle all these new experiences but needed to know someone else knew who she really was and where she came from.

“Janney, let’s go inside and bathe. I’m sure you’ll be delighted to see the baths as they were originally intended. And we’ll meet my husband and Marek,” Augusta added in encouragement.

She nodded, then stopped, her gaze following Augusta’s retreating back. She sucked in a quick breath, heat roiling in places he’d touched last night. Was he in there now? Naked?

Whew! Now that would be a sight.

“Janney,” Augusta called. “Come on.”

People jostled her to pass on either side. All this was so strange and yet not. She’d read about the baths and had studied their layout. Now, incredibly here was her chance to see them as the Roman’s saw them.

The history was incredible. But every time she told herself it was the history that fascinated her, the truth slammed into her. He fascinated her.

Augusta had to come back and tug her along. “Let’s go. I’m looking forward to a massage. I imagine you are too.”

“I’m coming.” She closed her eyes a moment and took a deep breath. Whatever was going on here, Augusta was her lifeline. Just follow her, do what she does, learn how to live here in the second century. You don’t have any other choice at the moment.

Strolling past the sacred spring, she could only gawk at the statues surrounding the pool like eerie specters rising from the swirling mist of the hot water. “I don’t have anything to offer the gods.”

“You know about this?”

She laughed aloud shocking the people crowding around her. “I’m sorry,” she giggled, delighted that she struck Augusta speechless. “Yes, I do. We know a lot about your time, this time.”

Sensual fantasies were locked in my mind for years until a friend said, “Why don’t you write them down?” Why not, indeed? One spiral notebook, a pen and the unleashing of my imagination later, and here I am with more than a dozen books published. The craft of writing erotic romance has become my passion and my niche in life. I love every part of the creative process—developing characters, designing the plot, even drawing the layout of physical spaces from my stories. My careers have been varied—third grade school teacher, bookkeeper, secretary—none of which gave me a bit of inspiration. But now I’m lucky enough to write romance full time—the best job in the universe! And I’m fortunate enough to have found my own happily ever after husband.

Jane Leopold Quinn

My Romance:  Love With a Scorching Sensuality

http://janeleopoldquinn.BlogSpot.com

https://twitter.com/jelquinnauthor

Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/1DfiXkP

 

I have several more blog posts scheduled to celebrate the re-release of Ancient Ties and to continue the conversation. Please feel free to go to any posts. There are several different topics:

May 28, Sabrina York –  http://thedecadentdivas.blogspot.com/2015/04/ancient-ties-erotic-time-travel-romance.html

May 28, my blog –

http://janeleopoldquinn.blogspot.com/p/ancient-ties-erotic-time-travel-romance.html  ~~~

http://janeleopoldquinn.blogspot.com/p/the-tower-of-london-1999-jane-leopold.html

June 3, Anna Markland – http://www.annamarkland.com/

June 4, Kryssie Fortune – http://kryssiefortune.wordpress.com

June 5, Tina Donahue – http://www.tinadonahue.com/

June 10, Romance Lives Forever – http://romancelivesforever.blogspot.com

June 12, Delilah Devlin – http://www.delilahdevlin.com/blog/

June 19, Jessie Clever – http://jessieclever.com/blog/