My Band of Hooligans.

Today was a brainstorming and plotting day with my wonderful, amazing band of Hooligans. There are six of us, of varying ages, who all write different subgenres of romance. Everything from my sexy but dark paranormals to home/hearth to adventure to suspense.

I think every writer needs a 'family' of some sort. A group of people (or even just a person) who invest themselves in you, believe in you, and care passionately about your success.

We rarely critique each other's work, since we write such different things. After all, I'd be saying things like, "You know this scene where the heroine realizes there's no place like home? You need some Zombie Frogs in there."

And believe it or not, not everyone is into Zombie Frogs! Can you imagine???

Lack of ZF's not withstanding, together we take each other's plots to greater heights of courage and adventure.

Just like we do for each other. :)

Doing the nasty.

One of the interesting things about writing the zippy stuff is the inevitable question : "So, uh, do you DO the *ahem* activities you write about?!"

The answer is (you're going to love this one), "It depends."

Have I ever engaged in frottage with a priest against a tree?

Yuck. Just...yuck.

Have I been passionately crazy about someone that is very very bad for me?

Oh, my yes.

The great thing about the erotic imagination is you can take a feeling, an image, or a memory, and make that little snippet into something that rings so true and alive that your readers can only imagine that you've actually done something that truly wicked and pleasurable.

And that's a damn cool thing about being a writer. :)