The New Sensuality Launch Party--Prizes!

The New Sensuality is now officially active, and I’m giving away some prizes to celebrate.

Here’s the deal: Visit this site between now and April 1 and add yourself to the list of blog followers, and you’ll be eligible to win one of three signed paperback copies of The Darkness and the Night: Blood and Coffee along with a The Darkness and the Night trilogy bookmark, or a $25.00 Amazon gift certificate. Already following? Then you’re already eligible to win. Make sure that I have some way of contacting you, either through your website or an e-mail address.

If you’re interested in increasing the odds in your favor, you can—in addition to the above—do one or more of the following for additional entries:

Readers

Go to my home website, at http://www.cerebralwriter.com/, find the page on which my novel, Love in Space, can be found, and then send me the link through my contact page: http://www.cerebralwriter.com/contact.html.

Read my free short story, “One Night Stand,” which can be found at http://www.cerebralwriter.com/erotic.html, and then (at the same above contact page) send me the answer to the following question: What does each vampire dress up as for Halloween?

Sign up to review any of my published books or short stories. For a list of what I have available, you can go here: http://www.cerebralwriter.com/erotic.html and here: http://www.cerebralwriter.com/new-releases.html

Authors, Artists, Etc.

Sign up to guest blog at this site (erotica and romance), or at the Cerebral Writer (literary, horror, and speculative science fiction). Send all guest blog inquiries to contests@cerebralwriter.com.

Add the Cerebral Writer and/or the New Sensuality to your blog roll (one entry for each link added, up to two entries max).

Anyone

Share the link to this contest at your blog, website, and/or social networking venues (one entry per venue, up to five entries max); make sure to let me know where I can find the shared links by leaving them below.

Thanks for stopping by—and good luck!

Lisa

Loving My New Poster!

Recently, I won a contest at Fangtastic Books, the prize being a free poster of my design, courtesy of onlineposterprinting.com. I had long fantasized about the prospect of decorating one or more of my walls with posters of my novel covers, and after much consideration I decided to send in a copy of the cover for The Darkness and the Night: Blood and Coffee. The website was easy to navigate, very professional, and I received my order two days after completing the form. I am delighted with the result, and might just buy posters for the rest of the trilogy. My thanks to both Roxanne at Fangtastic Books and onlineposterprinting.com. You rock!

Interview at the Galaxy Express

I will be at the Galaxy Express on Tuesday, March 4, where Heather has invited me to talk about my HSN exclusive sci-fi romance, Love in Space, and its kinky and erotic sister novel, Lust in Space.

http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/

In the interview, I will offer insights into both novels, a little about my writing background, and updates on Lust in Space's long-awaited sequel, Pandora's Hope.

Hope to see you there!

Join Me Today at Lana Griffin's!

Stop by the blog of Lana Griffin, NYT bestseller and author of Dusk, to chat about the allure of vampires in fiction. While you're there, leave a comment for a chance at a copy of The Darkness and the Night: Blood and Coffee, the first book in my erotic horror series that takes vampires to a darkly new level.

http://lanagriffin.blogspot.com/2010/03/allure-of-vampires-with-lisa-lane-win.html

See you there!

Win a Copy of Lana Griffin's DUSK

Stop by Sidhe Vicious Reviews for a chance to win DUSK, written by bestselling author, Lana Griffin!

http://sidhevicious.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/lana-griffin-guest-blog-giveaway/

See you there!

On Building Tension

In response to an article I recently wrote for the Guide to Literary Agents Editor’s Blog, Miss S. stated, “Perhaps you could have a follow-up with more detail about building tension--and how?” I thought Miss S.’s suggestion was a good one, definitely worth the follow-up, so today I dedicate my blog to the subject of building tension in erotic and romantic works.

Good tension begins with good character dynamics.

In both erotic and romantic writing, it is important to consider the way the characters are going to interact. Ask yourself, “What is it that attracts your protagonists to one another? What could potentially keep them apart?” You want the romance to build gradually, waxing and waning in a natural progression, while also creating obstacles that threaten to destroy the relationship before it has a chance to climax. Don’t be afraid to tease your audience; you want your readers to crave satisfaction just as desperately as you want your characters to crave one another. If you give in too quickly, you might make later interactions less satisfying—but if you hold off for too long, you’ll lose your readers’ interest.

Balance is the key.

Just like any good story should be divided into three “acts,” a good erotic romance should be divided into a number of “episodes.” In a typical plotline, Act I introduces the characters and whatever initial dilemma they are to overcome, Act II brings added intensity to that dilemma (often with the overcoming of the first dilemma, only for a larger one to arise in its place), and Act III moves the story to its climax and conclusion. With romantic and erotic “episodes,” the romantic and/or sexual tension should rise and fall around every thirty to fifty pages. Just like with the necessary resolution and additional dilemma found in the transition between acts, one should strive for romantic or sexual dilemmas between these episodes, offering resolution—or even some kind of minor release—only to build the tension even higher than before. Mistaken identity, misconstrued words and/or actions, quarrels and reconciliations, and love triangles all work well to add to the building and dropping of romantic and sexual tension.


Think of the building of romantic tension as written foreplay.

Words are powerful tools; use them to your best advantage. Play with your readers’ senses. Use words or phrases that appeal to the body or further arouse the imagination. Your wordplay need not be overtly sexual to be sensual.

Consider the following poem:

A gently laced chain of words
awakens every sense;
colorful, sweet, musky, hard,
and symphonic offering, aching, needing.

The hot, dew-wet red rose
smells the fragrant hard wood
that penetrates deep into the earth,
expanding, tasting her soil,
and dancing to the sonata in the wind.

The above words use imagery in slow, sensual steps to build its readers. If the poem were to continue, it is safe to say that the sexual tension would rise and fall through a series of several more stanzas, with the final lines bringing both the natural figures and their audience to climactic release. Give your readers prose that takes them beyond their own bodies, while at the same time offering a holistic, full-body experience. Tantalize their minds, make their bodies tingle, and then tease them with a twist of heartache or disappointment, only to build them and their expectations even higher than before.

And then, around the same time you’ve reached the climax of Act III, give your readers what they’ve been waiting for—sweet, beautiful, sensual release.