Speaking of book covers…

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Sherri

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The company I edit for does videos of their monthly releases, and this month’s is out. My friend Jayden Chelsee/Tabitha Shay’s western romance is the first book you see in the video, but I didn’t work on that one.

No, both of the ones I worked on are erotica short stories, and I’ve just seen the covers for the first time. They are fantastic! Jezebel’s Article is a vampire fantasy, and Ink Me is set in a tattoo shop. I edited these at the same time, switching off (hm, reminds me of Jezebel’s Article…) and though the protagonists have similar voices, the stories are very different. If you’re into such literature, go check ‘em out!

Today’s post is rated PG-13

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Sherri

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Yesterday I went through the printed scenes of my WIP, assessed each one’s viability, and inserted placeholder pages for scenes which were missing. I got about halfway through. By the time I’m finished I hope to have every major plot point mapped in, with plenty of room for fun extras like backstory and worldbuilding. The underworld where my story is set has mushy time, and to convey that uncertain, disjointed time I’m inserting random flashbacks. A lot of those have already been written, but there’s lots of room to be creative there, still. I’m excited.

I mentioned earlier that my editing projects this time are both erotica stories. Now, I’m not a prude by any means, but I am demure. Sex and sexy things are mostly private for me, and while I don’t care if others feel comfortable talking about them, I was interested to see how I would react. It’s funny how un-erotic erotica can be when you’re looking for punctuation errors. I knew I would be fine when I made this note without blushing: “You said where Guy #1’s ____ is, but what about Guy #2’s _____?”

What language to use in my notes is something I’ve wondered about. Do I mirror the language of the story in notes like the one above? It sounds too dirty for a professional. So do I use the correct terminology? Well, that sounds too stiff and uptight (puns intended). So I think it’s cute to use nicknames, like you-know-what and hoo-ha, but that’s not precise enough. I guess I’ll go with correct terminology, since I am a professional, after all, and you can’t go wrong with penis and vulva.

Weekend happenings

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Sherri

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My mind is sort of a blank this morning, but I feel like connecting with the world so I’m posting anyway. I apologize in advance for any inanity which may follow.

Over the weekend a couple of my first readers got back to me with comments on my long synopsis. Their advice was right on and exactly what I needed, pointing out things I am too close to see. Really invaluable. I’m sure the rest of my readers will have just as much insight. I’ll do an in-depth report once it’s a done deal, probably by the end of the week.

While I’m waiting to finish my synopsis, I have my editing job to do. Last week I received my next two assignments from Eternal Press. To my surprise, they are both classified as erotica. Now, I’ve never edited erotica before, although I did go through a time when I thought I might be able to write some. (Not.) By the way, the link goes to my old blog because the comments somehow didn’t get imported over here on my older posts. The comments are funny.

So anyway, yeah, I’m editing erotica. So far it’s been very–ahem–interesting. It’s smashing my preconceived notions of erotic literature and bringing to light some personal attitudes which have always operated unseen. Eye-opening, in a number of ways.

On the health front, I found out toothpaste irritates my skin and is probably why my tongue always feels burny. On the other hand, the knuckle on my broken finger popped and I regained some range of motion. I hope this bodes well for having a full recovery.

I pulled all my WIP files to one location and started organizing them. Cuts, backstory, notes, different chunks of chapters, the working doc, 3 different synopses, etc. I’m a very sloppy saver, so my file names are not nearly descriptive enough to immediately know what they are, and also they are saved to two different computers and a backup hard drive. I have the same file name 10 times on 4 different documents. It’s atrocious. If anybody has any thoughts on a better way to organize and evaluate what to save and what to delete, please let me know. If nobody has a better idea, I’ll import all the files into Page Four, see how that works.

Have a great week.