Name Change

Howdy everyone.

Just a quick update to let you know I am in the process of changing my penname. All the Lusha Lovelace stuff will now be listed under Jenna McCormick. I'm amazed at how much I spread myself around *giggle*under the Lusha persona in only a few months. So far I've updated twitter, facebook, goodreads and my website. All the accounts are the same so if you've friended me there, nothing has changed.


I'd appreciate it if you all kept an eye out for any other bits of Lusha that might still be floating in the cyber ether and let me know. My blogger profile here will remain the same, as I can't chage it without deleting everything and my lusha gmail addy is still active.

As to the reason for the change, well, believe me when I say I can not WAIT to tell you. But I sort of have to anyway.

I have an agent!

Break out the Rosa Regale and the Chocolatinis everyone! Jessica Faust from BookEnds LLC has taken my troublesome self on. And to think, I almost deleted No Limits! Rachel and Sara, you are soooooo getting a shout out in the book for stopping me before I did that!

Wahooo!!! 

What this means, for you non writerly types, is that a bunch of new doors just opened up for my writing. Having a quality agent means I will get professional feedback before books are submitted to publishers, and most of the bigger New York houses only take on agented submissions. BookEnds is one of the best agencies, and I'm not just saying that because she likes my voice ;-)

And yes, she's representing the other me as well, so I better knock back my wine and get cracking on Andy's story!

Naked New Year

December 31, 1998: (Names changed to protect the guilty)

            Being a homebody with no social skills to speak of has its disadvantages when it comes to New Year’s Eve invites. Dick Clark aside, I had nothing to do.  See, I was one of the boring, brainy, Start Trek watching clever people with a great deal of emotional turmoil thrown in the mix. One thing about the teenage hierarchy, if you are unlikely to strip on the tabletop, the invitations thin out.

            Hey, even drama queens need love.

            So my friend Karen announced we were going to a club. And she decided to bring her mentally ill friend, Juan, along for the ride.  With all the elements of a great night in place, we piled into my two-door red Honda civic— the Flaming Moe— and were off.  Juan was fully equipped with a bottle of peppermint schnapps and Karen had big plans to get trashed out of her little blonde head, so I was DD.

            And that my friends, is where good sense bailed for the night.

            Well, being the little overachievers that we were, we made it to downtown Poughkeepsie about two hours before anyone else.  Juan settled his goofy ass out in the parking lot with his schnapps and we girls moseyed into the club. We listened to some techno and chained smoked for about an hour before Juan made the scene, and then he partied out on the dance floor, all alone, while we smoked and snarked.

            Yeah, I know, I'm going to hell.

            Eventually other people started to show, and we decided to dance. Being girls, we could dance with each other, no questions asked. I was content to do that, figuring my soul mate wasn't into the techno scene. I'm more a metal gal at heart. But this one guy kept bumping and grinding his way in between us.  It could have been the atmosphere, but it seemed like this guy had eight arms, because whenever I pulled one off my ass, two more took its place.

            I wiggled my way into the corner, leaving Karen at the mercy of grabby octopus. Juan was face down in our booth, partied out by 9:43.  He probably shouldn't have finished the whole frigging bottle; I doubt it mixed well with his antipsychotic meds.

             Karen and the grabby octopus sashayed over.

            "Hey, this guy's having a party at his place, wanna go?"

            "What about Juan?" I stalled.  I really didn't want to go home with some guy and see his bowl of severed fingers. If there's a lunatic in a five mile radius, he'll sense a kindred spirit and zero in on me.

            But Karen insisted, mostly because grabby octopus had bribed her with thoughts of a well stocked bar.

            So we dragged Juan and tossed him into Moe and the whole way down route nine, we're making contingency plans.

            "So, okay, if these guys seem off, we'll fake the Technicolor yawn and bee-line for the stairs."

            "And we do have a guy with us." Karen pointed to Juan who was drooling on my upholstery.

            Yup. That was the plan. 

            We parked, shook Juan awake and trundled upstairs.

            So we get to this apartment and follow the grabby octopus and his silent side-kick upstairs. There were three other people, but they made enough noise for twenty. Grabby announces he's a bartender and he keeps his place well stocked, so he can practice his trade on his roommates.

            His roommates turn out to be this hyper little bleach blonde, who could not shut up, and her boyfriend, who wasn't able to do more than grunt, and another guy, who was practically salivating over Karen. The radio was cranking and apparently that was enough to give Juan his second wind.  He was up and grooving while Miss Hyper USA cheered and the no-neck guy glowered.

            "How about some sex on the beach?"  Grabby had latched onto me, doing a very repulsive eyebrow wiggle. I was practically intoxicated by the fumes coming off of him.

            "I'm good."  I smiled thinly and handed the drink to Juan.

           "Hey guys!  Let's play the mug game!"  The blonde shrieked at us and all the guys, including Juan, start chanting, "mug, mug, mug."

            I cut my gaze to Karen, who was busy tossing back beers. The only other person in the room was Mr. Taciturn, who hadn't said a thing.

            "What's the mug game?" I asked him.  I'd led a somewhat repressed life and there are some things I just don't know, I figured the mug game was one of the holes in my social knowledge.

            "It's this game Bryan made up."

            I had no idea who Bryan was, but the game consisted of a bunch of little pieces of paper folded in half with instructions on them. The mug was passed around, and we each picked a paper. 

            The quite guy next to me started.  "Name your favorite sexual position." He looked up.  "Well I don't know what it's called…"

            Three sets of hands lunge for the coffee table and whip out the largest version of the Karma Sutra I'd ever seen. It was bigger than the 22 inch TV.

             Mr. Taciturn flips through, points to his fave (Congress of Crow) and then it's my turn.

            So there I sat, thinking, Hey, this isn't so bad. There's been no blood shed, everyone else is drunk, but they're all happy drunk, what the hell? And I open my little scrap of paper.

            "Masturbate with a beer bottle." I read.  I started sputtering.

            "Ooooohhhhhhh Angie!"

            "Don't worry," Mr. Taciturn was the only one who noticed I'd lost the smidgen of color I usually had. "Only Angie has to do this one."

            Angie, the bubbly blonde, staggered into the kitchen to rinse a beer bottle.

            "She's really gonna do this?" Karen was almost through a six pack and I could see she was looking forward to the upcoming entertainment.

            I was pretty sure I wasn't and my face showed it.

            "What's the matter, girl?" Grabby Octopus slurred at me. "There ain't nothing wrong with the human body."

            And to prove his point he started stripping.  Before you could say Caligula, everyone else, including the traitorous Juan, joined him.

            I'm not a prude.  I am, however full of inhibitions and getting naked with a group of strangers is not my idea of a rockin’ time.  Someone could at least buy me dinner first.

            So there's little old sober and fully clothed  me, slightly less sober Mr. Taciturn, who had thankfully left his pants on, Juan with one holey sock on his left foot, and drunk and naked everyone else.  

            A lesser woman would have run.  A smarter woman wouldn't have ended up there in the first place. I sat there biting my lip and smoking like there was no tomorrow. 

            Angie returned with her sanitized beer bottle, but the clock struck midnight and the radio announced 1999 and started blaring Prince's 1999. Everyone was on his or her feet, naked and moshing. The beer bottle was knocked over in all the excitement and smashed to the floor. The blonde started to cry and her boyfriend shouted at her.  I think it must have been Divine intervention.

             Karen had vanished with the guy who'd been lusting over her so I fixed my attention on Juan's one sock.  I was tempted to ask him about it, but I was worried he'd put it somewhere else. Angie and her boyfriend disappeared into a bedroom, probably to have wild monkey sex.

            The song ended and the coaxing started.  Let me tell you, if you've never been the only person dressed in a room full of the nude and inebriated, there is a major push to conform.  Grabby Octopus ushered me into the kitchen and proceeded to stick his tongue down my throat. A moment later, he rushed for the bathroom.  Not my finest hour. 

            Karen, who was down to just an unbuttoned flannel shirt, was evicted from the bathroom with a goofy grin.  "I love you, Jenna."

            I really fucking hate when someone tells me they love me when they're drunk and I'm sober.  It usually means I have hours of grief and baby-sitting ahead of me. 

            "Why aren't you naked?" Karen seemed genuinely surprised.  I may have been in Rome but the Romans could kiss my fully covered backside. I blew air between my teeth before lighting another smoke.

            Juan was passed out yet again and Karen was atypically quite. I'd sought out Mr. Taciturn, since he was at least semi-sober and tried to talk with him, about anything that didn't involve the words naked and drunk.  Unfortunately, Grabby Octopus had other ideas.  Before I knew what had happened, he made his presence known by standing on the coffee table, beating his chest and overtly challenging Mr. Taciturn.

            I gathered my wayward chicks and their discarded feathers, and beat a hasty retreat. There was a crash and a thump as we hit the landing.

            "Oh my God," Karen was coming around. "Oh my God!"

            I shoved Juan into the backseat, threw a pile of clothes on top of him and roared off down route nine.

            "Those guys just got in a fight!" Karen eyes were bloodshot.  "They got in a fight, over you!"

            "No they didn't."  My voice sounded so calm.  "They got in a fight because they were idiots."

            Karen turned to look out the windshield. "We will never speak of this night again."

But of course, we told everyone. Hey, it’s a good story.

So that was my wildest night evah! Probably the night that inspired my book, No Limits. Because although I have very obvious limits, I always wondered what it would be like to have none, to just go with the flow, wherverer it might take you. 

One random commenter will win a copy of my futuristic erotic romance, No Limits.

BAM!

Happy New Year to me!


Space Invasion won the Nov/ Dec erotic stories and toys contest! 2011, you are looking mighty fine! You can read the short featuring Zan the Space Pirate either here

Or on my website.

Thanks so much for reading, my friends! Wishing you love and fantasy in the new year!

B Cubed

Behold, the cover for my now completed manuscript, B Cubed!

Need some feedback on my blurb. Is it compelling enough?

From the moment he spies her silhouette cast by the bonfire, Cormack understands what it is to yearn for something he will never possess. Breds are made to provide for the natural born humans, dig their homes deep beneath the surface of the earth and to protect them from the ever-present cyborg threat.  A bred who reaches beyond his station will be recycled immediately, yet Cormack cannot get her visage out of his mind.  Until he unearths a box, buried long before the earth stopped spinning. 

Task Mistress Allora has no wish to brutalize the bred soldier she finds hoarding treasure, but as a servant of the colony that raised her from infancy, she is duty bound to report anything unusual to the overlord, even if it costs the blue-eyed man his life. Yet something about the way Cormack watches her forces Allora to reevaluate her understanding of right and wrong. For this genetically engineered soldier is her only protection against the cyborgs who seek what they have discovered, a journal written by the prophetess Cassandra and a way to end the warring between the factions forever.

Thoughts? Hints? Suggestions?

Guest Spotlight Jennifer L Hart and Redeeming Characters Blog Tour!

LL: Okay, so as you may or may not know, I'm actually the other side of an already established author. Please welcome my stick-in-the-mud half, Jennifer L Hart

Jenn: The milk of human kindness flows through your veins, Lusha. Is it any wonder I hide you like a dirty secret?

LL: Kay, so what do you suppose is the fundamental difference between your persona and mine?

Jenn: Several things.  You write fantasy erotica to my more reality based romances and mysteries.

LL: You once swore up down and sideways that you would never have a pen name. What changed your mind?

Jenn: Honestly, I was pretty ignorant about why having a pseudonym might be important. I wrote contemporary romance and mystery as myself for years, sweet and steamy. But the pen name has more to do with my readers than with me.  You're not for everyone and I can't write with the same level of freedom and intensity as you do. You're the specialist to my general practitioner.

LL:*snicker* So am I the gyno or the proctologist?

Jenn: Next question.

LL: Let's talk about sex, baby.

Jenn: With myself? Sounds like a typical Thursday morning.

LL: Why do some of your books have no open door love scenes and others, like Redeeming Characters  have several?



Jenn: The story and the characters dictate the amount of intimacy that needs to be revealed. In my Laundry Hag mysteries, the primary couple is married and already emotionally connected. Doing an open door love scene for them would just be the equivalent of writing porn. Sometimes what you don't say is just as important as what you do.


Redeeming Characters is different because I believed the reader needed to witness the emotional bonding between Drue and Dakota.And then my editor got a hold of it and said it could use even more! The encounter on the balcony scene was not in the original draft, but I absolutely love it.

LL: You've mentioned that it took you three years to write this book. Did you work on it exclusively?

Jenn: Nope. I started it in April of '06. We moved in May of the same year and I abandoned it while I wrote the first Misadventures of the Laundry Hag book.  Then came "Worth the Wait", River Rats and Hag 2, plus a little dabbling with other stories. If my mind went in a straight line instead of whirling around the infinity symbol, I'd be dangerous.

LL: You're claiming Stellar Timing, even though outer space is clearly my domain. Any thoughts on handing it over?

Jenn: Nope, even though its fantasy, it's my break out sci-fi fantasy.The sexual tension adds to the story but it isn't the foundation for it like it your stuff. Deal is you get one book and one short story a year while I get the hag mysteries and the stellarverse.

LL*pouts* I want to play with Talenforth.

Jenn: Maybe I'll let you do a guest short, but you need to cooperate.

LL: So back to Redeeming Characters. Where did the name come from?

Jenn: The dark orifice where all my story titles come from. ;-) Granted this one took longer to work its way out than most. I had to consider themes within the story and narrowed it down to two. The decision was made the way all m tough calls are made. 

"Hey, Scott. Which do you like better, Redeeming Characters or Character Redemption?"
"Character Redemption."
"Redeeming Characters it is."

LL:You did something sneaky with the story, making it a contemporary romance about writers creating a sci-fi/futuristic world. Did you plan on heading into outer space from the start?

Jenn: Nope. I've always loved science fiction but I never thought I could write it, Honestly I didn't believe I was that creative. 

LL: What are some of your favorite science fiction stories?

Jenn: Star Trek TNG, Star Wars, Farscape, LEXX, but my all time favorite is Firefly and Serenity. It's how Sci Fi should be done, with the setting and special effects enhancing the story, not carrying it.  

LL: Well, this talking to myself business has gone on long enough, so any final statements?

Jenn: Giving away a PDF copy of one of my stories to a random commenter. Read up on the choices here:

http://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-L.-Hart/e/B003MAFV4A/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

And I'm giving away a fifty dollar Amazon.com giftcard to the faithful on Saturday. For full details please visit www.jenniferlhart.com.

LL: Oh I got a great way to pick the winner! Eniy meany miney mick, catch a shifter by the--

Jenn: And I'm out!

Let this be a lesson, always back it up!

I wrote over 5,000 words yesterday, more than doubling my typical 2,500 words in one day and accomplishing the 50,000 word count goal for National Novel Writing Month.  No Limits is far from complete, but it'll get there eventually. I was planning on launching right into my cyberpunk short B Cubed but about three hours later, my laptop started acting up. It wouldn't retrieve my user profile, and was running(crawling) very slowly. Though I was dead tired, I staied up and backed up all of my writing files to thumb drive. Good thing too, because by this morning, all that is left is the blue screen of death.

I'm taking that as a sign I need to slow down a little. maybe go outside for a spell, snag some Vitamin D. After I blog, of course. The home computer is ancient in PC terms, about 5 years old and very slow, so don't worry if you don't see too much of me in the coming weeks. Just means that I'm making things explode again.  Ain't technology grand?