The M/M Romance group at Goodreads has selected Hemovore as the co-book of the month for October, along with Ally Blue's Love, Like Ghosts which is coming out 10/13.

Sweet Oblivion 5: Elixir
by Jordan Castillo Price
available now at Changeling Press

Summary
Wild Bill and Michael might have thought they made it out of the subterranean vampire nest unscathed, but in her anger, Silk left Michael a taste of her wrath that's impossible to shake. Read an excerpt

Buy the ebook at Changeling Press
http://changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1240

Find out more about Michael and Wild Bill at ChanngelingMorpehus.com

______

Jordan Castillo Price
Beautiful • Mysterious • Bizarre
http://jordancastilloprice.com

..New Comment on Packing Heat 073: Romance vs Porn at Packing Heat: Erotica Writing Tips and Techniques..

---

Packing Heat 073: Romance vs Porn

Listener Question

Merry was curious what qualified in Amazon's terms of service for the Kindle as too porny. I couldn't find anything in their legal section in regards to content -- but definitely be careful to know what you're doing, do it deliberately, and figure out how you're going to explain yourself if anyone points the finger at you. "Everyone else is doing it" is a pretty flimsy legal excuse.

Yay!

I found Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary available in Japan and India!

Then I digress into some thoughts about how hard it is to give or receive advice.

Theme

For a sex scene to really rock, multiple things should be happening aside from just the physical. What is your theme? Theme is a great silent partner to weave through the action. Maybe your theme is something different than you thought it was at the outset. That's fine! You'll know that's happening to you when you start needing to "reach" to make your story fit your predetermined theme.

Your Assignment

What's your theme? Write it down! Even if you didn't consciously sit down with a theme in mind (and your plot is this person meets this other hot person and they get it on) maybe you can retroactively detect a theme. It's critical in both your editing process and in your marketing to have a solid handle on your theme!

Here's my example novelette, Sympathy.
Media

---

Comment on this entry.
Subscribe to future comments on this entry.

		JCP News • Issue 21 • September 2009 Beautiful, Mysterious and Bizarre: M/M Horror & Urban Fantasy by Jordan Castillo Price		JCP News Issue 21 - September 15, 2009 C O N T E N T S Channeling Morpheus news Sweet Sorrow Pimp Me! Exclusive Serialized Story: Zero Hour Jordan's Fiction SOCIAL DISEASE Ha ha, the punk band I was in at 17 had a song called "social disease" -- like we knew anything about anything! I'm so glad I'm not young anymore. I don't know where I got it Or who I gave it to It doesn't really matter, does it? As long as it's not you Anyway, diseases aside, I'm going to be co-teaching a class on social networking for beginners next week, and I'm seeing that social networking is a difficult thing to explain to someone who's never done it -- someone who sees no use for it. (I also just had a co-worker tell me with a vapid and condescending smile that she just doesn't "get" Twitter. Obviously, some of us do -- so don't talk down to us, girly-girl.) I think I'm on the low-to-middle end of social networking. I've joined stuff, but I don't post daily. I tend to follow a few friends, but if people post too often, I might de-friend them because my time is extremely limited and I can't keep up. Some flavors of social networking hold my interest more than others. I've never liked MySpace much, but I do mirror-post my LiveJournal entries there because some of my readers prefer that interface -- and I will say, they've made some changes at MySpace that make it feel more like an email program, so I am liking the new features. I noticed when going over my stats that someone had come in from Goodreads and bought one of everything at JCP Books, so of course that piqued my interest and I decided to take a look. Weirder still, when I got there, an identity was already sitting there waiting for me, that I suppose readers had set up. (Thank you, o anonymous social networking elves, whoever you are. I do appreciate it!) Rest assured, it is actually me who stepped into the spot, and not some greasy older man with a mustache who's messing with your heads. If you do look me up on Goodreads, you will probably be surprised that I mainly read business and marketing nonfiction. Y'know, all the stuff I was too "cool" to care about when I was young. I am leaving reviews as I go, though. The m/m community there is really warm and welcoming. So feel free to friend, follow, or whatever. As an incentive to sign up for Goodreads, check out the lovely copy of Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary you can win! Jordan on the Web JCP Books Catch-all Site: JordanCastilloPrice. com Previous Issues of JCP News Official PsyCop Site Official Channeling Morpheus Site Packing Heat: Erotica Writing Tips and Techniques Jordan on Twitter Jordan on Goodreads Jordan's LiveJournal Jordan on MySpace Jordan's Yahoo Group     From Zero Hour "Get the strong one." The leader's voice grew hoarse from shouting. "I have this puny one under control."   read chapter 21	Damn it, summer's over. It didn't seem long enough. It never does. But lately it seems like the days have been flashing by at the speed of light. We did get a fantabulous day on the Mississippi River yesterday -- yay, here's a photo -- and I'm really not prepared to let summer go, but no doubt it will be snowing here before I know it. On a recent trip I discovered there's a free Amazon Kindle app available for iPhone/iPod touch that I've fallen in love with. And I can see how frighteningly easy it is to buy books now. I'd better watch my checking account! The cool part about it is that you can "sample" any Amazon Kindle title, which will give you the first chapter or so. I've got several Kindle titles out there -- Striking Sparks, Hemovore, Verdant, The Voice...go ahead and "sample" them! It's fun! At the moment it only works in the US, but I have hope that international support isn't too far off in the future. In other news, I added a Coming Soon page to jordancastilloprice.com, I finished writing the Channeling Morpheus/Sweet Oblivion series (today!), I had a really popular Packing Heat episode on choosing what you want, I upgraded the memory on my iMac myself, I'm plugging away on PsyCop 6, and I lost a hubcap last weekend. More on Wild Bill and Michael below.... xxoo Jordan In Gorgeous Paperback Channeling Morpheus ebooks 1 through 5 are now available in one gorgeous paperback. There was definitely a learning curve involved with working with this printer, but I'm really pleased with the quality and will be excited to embark on future projects with them. To celebrate the release of Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary, I have freebies and giveaways! US residents can enter to win a copy of Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary on Goodreads through the end of September. Everybody (and their brother) can download a free wallpaper for computer or iPod touch/iPhone at my Channeling Morpheus page. Click here for links to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and JCP Books (where flat-rate shipping might be cheaper than you think -- and the books are autographed!) back to table of contents   Such Sweet Sorrow I finally finished edits on Sweet Oblivion 5: Elixir literally today. This story was a bitch to write. I'm not kidding. Pages and pages of longhand notes and freewriting. Stuff I wrote, then threw away. False starts. False everything. I even threw my boyfriend out and covered the living room in brown paper so I could mind-map all over it and see what the heck the deal was. The deal was, I didn't want to stop writing about Michael and Wild Bill. I love 'em both too much. But I had a deadline, I had a commitment, and I needed to get the story out. I did...eventually. It was hard for me, though. I do have another Michael/Wild Bill idea in me, but I also have some other projects I'm looking to launch early next year, and readers have been getting antsy for PsyCop 6, so I still don't know if a third Michael/Bill saga will ever get beyond my own imagination. If it doesn't, I think the end of Elixir is a deeply and surprisingly satisfying note for the story to end on. Elixir - coming October 2 at Changeling Press - sign up for Quick Links at JCP News if you haven't already so you don't miss it! (If you normally get a short email newsletter from me with a only book release in it, then you are already signed up.) back to table of contents I would LOVE a Review! Val Kovalin from Obsidian Bookshelf wrote a killer review for Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary on Amazon.com. I love how she talks about the cohesion of the paperback itself as a whole. If you've read and enjoyed the series, I'd be so grateful if you could give me some review-love at Amazon. Lack of reviews, or stinky reviews from crotchety readers like I seem to be getting lately, are not conducive to me getting the books sold that will allow me to write full-time someday and get more of this stuff out of my head and onto your ereaders or in your little brown corrugated care packages from Amazon! There are no reviews at all on Amazon.co.uk. Your reviews make a huge difference -- really! The Channeling Morpheus page at Amazon (with Val's Killer review!) back to table of contents Zero Hour - Chapter 21 (click here for whole story starting at chapter 1) The security ops' smudged white uniforms stood out pale against the green foliage. Two of them, both taller than Will, emerged silently from the undergrowth with Tasers raised and ready. Ernest pointed and Will turned, careful not to spill what was left of the water. His caution snapped off like a servomechanism when he saw the ops, and he swung the sawed-off POD roof in a wide, strong arc that took the security op by surprise. It hit the op's head with a dull thud that seemed disproportionately quiet, since the blow knocked the man to his knees. Leaves rustled and branches snapped as the attackers had no more need of stealth. A deep voice bellowed, "Stand down!" Ernest whirled. Three more ops approached from behind, all of them tall and muscled, with shaved heads, square jaws and hard eyes. One of the ops--probably the one who'd yelled--had a W3 link at his temple. It wasn't blinking. They were too far from the grid to pick up a signal.   click here for the rest of chapter 21 (worksafe) back to table of contents PsyCop Paperbacks: PsyCop: Property (Paperback, contains Body & Soul and Secrets) PsyCop: Partners (Paperback, contains Among the Living and Criss Cross) Camp Hell: A PsyCop Novel (Paperback) PsyCop Ebooks: Among the Living - PsyCop Book 1(multi-format ebook) Criss Cross - PsyCop Book 2 (multi-format ebook) Body & Soul - PsyCop Book 3 (multi-format ebook) Secrets - PsyCop Book 4 (multi-format ebook) Camp Hell - PsyCop Book 5 (multi-format ebook) Many Happy Returns (PsyCop Short - PDF ebook) Thaw (PsyCop Short - PDF ebook, or multi-format ebook, FREE!) Mind Reader (PsyCop Short - PDF ebook, FREE!) Striking Sparks PsyCop Novelette (multi-format ebook) Channeling Morpheus Ebooks: Payback (multi-format ebook) Vertigo (multi-format ebook) Manikin (multi-format ebook) Tainted (multi-format ebook) Rebirth (multi-format ebook) Heaven Sent: a Channeling Morpheus Short (multi-format ebook) Sweet Oblivion Ebooks: Brazen (multi-format ebook) Snare (multi-format ebook) Fluid (multi-format ebook) Swarm (multi-format ebook) Elixir (multi-format ebook) Channeling Morpheus Paperbacks: Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary (Paperback, contains Payback, Vertigo, Manikin, Tainted and Rebirth) - Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk Other Stories: Hemovore a vampire thriller - novel The Art of Dying paperback - novella anthology with Josh Lanyon The Art of Dying ebook - novella anthology with Josh Lanyon The Serpent in the Garden - m/f short Starlight (PDF ebook short) more formats at Smashwords Verdant (multi-format ebook short) more formats at Smashwords The Voice (multi-format ebook short) more formats at Smashwords Kindred Spirits (PDF ebook short) more formats at Smashwords Kindle Editions: Many Happy Returns (Kindle Edition) Starlight (Kindle Edition) Kindred Spirits (Kindle Edition) Striking Sparks (Kindle Edition) Verdant (Kindle Edition) The Voice (Kindle Edition) Any of the mobi ebooks on JCPBooks.com will also work on the Kindle! back to table of contents	Email me at jordan (at) psycop (dot) com Click here to subscribe or change to plain text or mobile emails JCP News • Jordan Castillo Price • PO Box 153 • Barneveld, WI 53507

Kindleless Kindle

I discovered the Kindle app for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Dang, no wonder sales of my Kindle ebooks have been getting better and better. It's only in the U.S. at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if it went international within the next couple of years.
Info at Amazon

Yay!

Yay to Sam Bradley -- the book in which her short story appears is an Amazon best seller! Go check it out:

To The Rescue

Brain Exercise

I'm reading a book about brain stuff and was surprised to find that the first chapter is all about physical exercise. I've noticed for a long time that I work through writing issues easily when I do repetitive, mindless exercise -- so why don't I do it consistently? Maybe it's one of those things, mental blocks, like wanting to write but somehow never finding the time.

Brain Rules

Your Assignment: if you're sedentary like me, work in 3 exercise sessions of 20-30 minutes over the next week. You're looking for something mindless and repetitive, like walking, jogging, or riding a stationary bike.

If you already exercise regularly, begin your workout by posing some sort of question to yourself about the current project you're working on -- or do some "what if?" meandering if you're looking for ideas in general. Bring a note pad with you to capture those ideas!

http://packingheat.net/2009/09/08/packing-heat-070-brain-exercise.aspx

It's here...it's physical...the Channeling Morpheus series (ebooks 1-5) in paperback!

Michael is a waif in eyeliner who's determined to wipe vampires off the face of the earth. Wild Bill's got the hots for Michael, and will stop at nothing to go home with him.

Forget about moonlit castles and windswept moors. These bad boys haunt all-night diners and cheap motels, cut-rate department stores and long, lonely stretches of the Interstate.

Ride along with Wild Bill and Michael as the twists and turns of Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary unfold in America's heartland.

Here's info on ordering from Amazon, Amazon UK, or JCP Books.
 
Have you read the series? I'd be ecstatic if you left a review on Amazon/Amazon UK!

But wait, there's more! Free Channeling Morpheus Wallpaper for your computer or iPhone, iPod Touch.

YAY
We have some new yays this week.
Yay to Jessica for selling her first piece to Associated Content
Yay to Nobilis for his podcast The Good Parts

Search Party
It ain't no party when you can't find your story!

It happens to the best of us...we're writing along and suddenly the story goes blah. What happened? Where did the story go? And most importantly, how do you get it back?

Here's a snapshot of the "big piece o' paper" method I mention:


Your Assignment

Make a plan, according to your work methods, of what you'll do the next time you get stuck. Write your plan on a sticky note and stick it under your keyboard.

Click here to listen!

Decisions, Decisions
Our lives are a series of choices. How to we choose to spend our time, mental energy, and resources?

Time, Money
If we say we "can't afford" to do something, or we "don't have time" to do something, don't we really mean that it's not our priority, not our focus? Maybe it's a sort of shorthand to say you can't afford or don't have time for something. But wouldn't it be more empowering to say, "I'm not doing X because Y is my priority and I'd like to focus on Y."

Do you see how that takes you from a place of playing a victim role to being empowered to shape your own life?

As always, I also talk about word count.

Your Assignment
If you find yourself saying, "I have to..." see if you can shift that to "I choose to..." and see how it feels!

Permalink: packingheat.net/2009/08/25/packing-heat-068-choo-choo-choose.aspx

Yay, hooray, it's my day today at the Rainbow Reviews Blog. August is Author Extravaganza month with a post by a different guest author every day. Today I talk about how having a high level of reality in paranormal fiction makes the weird elements even weirder.

View the post here:
http://rainbow-reviews.blogspot.com/2009/0..8/author-extravaganza-jordan-castillo.ht..ml

There's also a question you can answer to win a free ebook from me! Go -- read -- win!

Thanks for reading along so far. This is the final installment of Hemovore Under the Hood, also known as "how to cheat on settings..."

I lived in various Chicago neighborhoods, from Pilsen to Humboldt Park to Lincoln Square, for fourteen years. Hemovore is specifically Chicago. Several of the settings that were prominent in the book couldn't have been anywhere else in the world.

The bridge over the Chicago river with the El running past, and Merchandise Mart overlooking it - particularly how slippery it gets in the winter, how "dead" the traffic becomes in the middle of the night, and the white lights they put in all the trees in the winter
Grant Park abutting Michigan Avenue - with the commuter railroad station below street level - we used to shoot photos down there in undergrad
The strip of 1950's motels between Chicago and Lincolnwood on Lincoln Avenue - I rode a bus past them for a job I held a few months and was always fascinated by them
The Currency Exchange - these seem indigenous to inner city Chicago, suburban Chicago and northern Indiana, especially in poor neighborhoods where people don't have bank accounts
The old access tunnels alongside the subway - the coolest setting ever!

The old access tunnels were especially dear to me. I learned they existed one year when a hole opened up in the tunnel wall—on my birthday—and the Chicago river flooded them. I was in grad school and I was supposed to give a lecture, and the city shut down all the trains, the downtown businesses and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and that was that. I was off the hook for a whole week!

I learned that Marshall Fields and Carson's and all the old department stores had sub-sub basements that were connected. Made you wonder what was in those subterranean rooms! Luckily there were websites that detailed the history of these bizarre tunnels, which were turn-of-the-century delivery systems, so I could research them. The bomb shelter Mark and Jonathan find is real! I would never have been bold enough to put one there so serendipitously if it wasn't real.

Better yet, when I researched the types of things that would be stored in a bomb shelter—especially an 80's-era abandoned bomb shelter—I was able to fill the tunnels with all sorts of weird, iodine-laced supplies.

Having all of these specific settings would seem to indicate that you can't write with confidence about any city unless you either live there or do a ton of research and then travel there to see the various points of interest with your own eyes.

However, when I considered other parts of the story, they certainly did fit into Chicago, but they were also ripe for improvisation.

- The Russian bakery - this was set in a neighborhood that I remember vividly, mostly Polish with some Spanish, some Russian and some Greek. But the bakery itself was pure invention, and you could set something like it in any city that you knew to have an ethnic population.

- The Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center - a real place, but I've never been inside. They have a website and a visitor's manual available for download, which was really helpful in Camp Hell when Vic went to see Roger Burke! In Hemovore, I have the prison totally "re-vamped" with plastic rooms and a special V-Positive ward, so it's pure invention.

- Jonathan's Studio - Whenever I pictured his studio in my head, it was on the corner of Adams and Wabash in an old 13-floor high rise where I used to work. Always. Not the specific apartment, and not even the underground garage, just the building itself. So it was grounded in a real place, but really, it could have been anywhere. Placing the studio where I did simply helped me to see it in my mind's eye. We can all imagine a lobby, a disused set of cement stairs, or a hallway in which we can hear our neighbors' TV sets playing.

Eventually even Chicago, with all its character and diversity, began to feel old for me after I set both Hemovore and the PsyCop series there. I didn't want it to seem like I was unable to write about any other place. And besides, I've been living in rural Wisconsin almost nine years now. Chicago's not even exactly the same as I remember it!

Lately I've tried to spread out my writing a little more and focus on specific details to give my stories a memorable sense of place. My thought is that if you get a building really right and you make sure the correct type of foliage and weather's outside, your readers will be willing to believe they're in whatever city you say they're in!

The key is getting detail, good detail, and really picturing the place in your mind's eye. Can you set something in the Louvre without having been there? Why not? Go to a local museum and see what details you might have taken for granted if you hadn't been looking specifically for them. On my latest trip to a local museum I saw little machines in the corners of the rooms measuring temperature and humidity, and I noticed the way all the guards lounged around the security monitors chatting with each other and not really watching the screens. The air smelled cool, dry and processed.

Take the details you've found locally, combine them with a few facts from the real place's website (so you're not putting in a basement where one doesn't exist, for instance, or you're not setting the building on the wrong side of town) and you've got yourself a location that feels real! Be sure not to over-explain. Just because you've seen the layout on a map doesn't mean you have to walk the reader through it step by step. Include the details that are relevant to your story and make them really good ones, and I doubt anyone will question the layout of the parking lot.

Of course, if you can finagle a "fact-finding" trip to the Louvre, that's even better....

Hemovore is available at My Bookstore and More and many other ebook sellers

Find Hemovore cutting room floor scenes at JordanCastilloPrice.com