Saturday Art - Summoned and Bound

There's something very naughty and very pretty over at my erotica blog today. It's a bit of artwork I did yesterday, a male nude. You can find it here. Enjoy!

Latest releases - Mundania e-books are now on sale!

Last month, I podcasted four unusual stories for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. These were the Mundania stories, the only stories ever to appear on Heat Flash that were not science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Yes, I actually wrote four, count them, FOUR contemporary erotica stories, and they were just released for sale today in e-book format from Logical Lust Publications.

You can buy the stories here at Logical Lust, either individually for $1.99 or the entire set of four for $4.99. Not sure if you want to buy these lovely, lusty, scorching tales? Then listen to them here first on the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast! The stories are:

A Man in a Kilt - Jimmy's a rough and tumble Scotsman who thinks he can handle any woman. Then he meets Nan, a friendly domme who teaches him otherwise... (Fem domme; BDSM)

Rapacious Mrs. Horner - Diane Horner is a forty-something divorcee with a serious addiction to gay porn and painful broken heart. When her son's best friend comes onto her, what will she turn him away or eat him alive? (F/m; older woman/younger man)

Diablo - Spoiled rich kid Randall wants one thing and one thing only - Pony Boy, the hired hand at Polk's Stables, down on his knees and ready to please. When Pony Boy refuses to be tamed, will Randall break him instead? (M/m; warning - scorching hot m/m erotica but also controversial)

A Room with a View - With the economy in the toilet, Darcy Daniels has lost her job, her car, her apartment, and now her pride as she's forced to move back in with her parents. Then she discovers her old bedroom window looks right into the window of the boy next door. Is he watching her at night? Is she going to watch him? And if their fathers hate each other, do they even have a chance at getting together? (Older woman/younger man; voyeurism; sex toys; even a touch of romance in this one!)

A note about these stories: if you're looking for humor, definitely check out A Man in a Kilt and A Room with a View. If you like your erotica edgy and dangers, then go for broke with Rapacious Mrs. Horner and Diablo. And remember, you can also get all four books together in one collection, and listen to them on the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast before you buy!

The Good Parts

Did I ever mention the OTHER podcast I work on, the Good Parts?

You can find it at the Write Threesome blog, at www.thewritethreesome.blogspot.com. We talk about what it's really like to be an erotica writer.

This month's free erotica reads!

I've got four, count 'em, FOUR free reads up this month at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association! All of these stories are from the Random Words theme I did for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast. If you've never listened to Heat Flash, and you're wondering what the heck it's all about, you can read the stories, or listen to the MP3s. Here's the run down on the stories:

• Wildorf the Merciless - a man half the time, a wombat the other, Wildorf the Merciless is cursed to switch between these forms unless a beautiful courtesan can break the spell. Read it here or listen to the podcast here!


• Best In Show - a dog girl and her dominatrix are out to become The Galaxy's Top Dom! But when the competition plays dirty, do our ladies still have a chance? Read it here or listen to the podcast here!


• The Ransom - imagine waking up and finding a very important piece of yourself has somehow managed to walk off! That's what happens to Martin Schuller, and the price he has to pay to get it back is very interesting indeed. Read the story here or listen to the podcast here.


• Into the Woods - a flash fiction about what can happen when you go wandering late at night to answer nature's call. Read the story here or listen to it here.

By the way, I'm running a contest for the Heat Flash Erotica Podcast this month. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on the Heat Flash blog, or e-mail me feedback about the show. Prizes include t-shirts, boxers and thongs, and print copies of "Future Perfect: A Collection of Fantastic Erotica." Details are here!

Coming Together: Al Fresco - Availabe April 22nd, 2009!

If you love erotica and the great outdoors, here's your chance to enjoy the two combined! Coming Together: Al Fresco, edited by Alessia Brio, will be out on Earth Day, April 22nd, through All Romance e-Books. Yes, your's truly is in this one, with an m/m erotic tale entitled 'Afternoon of a Faun.' This book will be in e-format only, in keeping with the conservation theme. You can pre-order Al Fresco now, and remember, all proceeds benefit Conservation International. GREEN is the new black!

Episode 24 - Happy Holidays, You Perverts

It's 12:30AM, Christmas day. I've been up since 5AM, and refused to go to sleep until this sucker was finished and posted. That's how much I love all of you. Really!

Aside from the web comic and the book I'm currently editing (Future Perfect, due out in February 2009 from Logical Lust Publications), I decided to take it easy this week. My parents are here, along with my sister. I had one day where I buried myself in editing, and I missed out on making the gingerbread house, so that was the end of my daytime work hours. Since then, I've played Twister, made fudge with the kids, gone book shopping (our extended family overwhelmed the cafe in Barnes & Nobles!), wrapped presents, gone to church (yes, my family dragged the only Buddhist they know to church, and I had to stand through the whole mass, it was so dang crowded), and tossed naughty story ideas back and forth with my good friend Kathleen Bradean. We want to write something super-naughty, kind of like that cartoon up there.

Anyway, I need to hit the hay, because I know the kids are going to yank me out of bed at any minute, screaming, "Santa came! Santa came! And he left presents!" Here's hoping Santa hits your house too and leaves you something fun.

Merry Christmas and happy Boddhi Day ;)

Cartoon for 8 August 2008!

I'm sorry this was late. It was actually done on Friday, but everything went all screwy that day and I never got around to posting the cartoon here. Many other places, yes, but not here or on my erotica blog. Michael has been out of town most of the last two weeks. Sam was sick all last week, and I didn't feel so hot myself. In fact, I just dragged last week. Now I'm suffering from insomnia and Twitter addiction. I am so screwed up. But you don't care about that, do you? You just want your damned cartoon. Well fine. Here it is!



And you have no idea how true this one really is...

And here's another cartoon...

Does this sort of thing really happen to me? Yes and no. I've done the stand up and announce I'm an erotica writer bit, but most people don't seem to want to confront me about it. Apparently I intimidate a lot of folks. I have no idea why. I'm a really nice person. I am. Stop laughing. I know where you live.

I noticed today that Google's Picassa will not put these toons in order, so if I'm doing a series, like I am right now, they're going to be all jumbled up. But that's okay. I've taken steps toward getting a web comic account set up, and by next week, I should have a page dedicated to just the comic strips. I'll link to that page from here and from my erotica website, and probably from my podcast, so that wherever people find me, they can go look for the comics as well and find them all in one place. The web comic page should have a nice archiving function that will let people scroll through the comics by calendar dates. But that will happen next week. For now, enjoy the mixed up mish-mash on Picassa!

Demon By Day now available from Mojocastle.com

Huge news. My first book, Demon By Day is now available from Mojocastle Press. Here's the blurb:

In the twilight realm of Daeva Shudra, there dwells an ancient race of demons. Once the most powerful beings on earth, the Daeva must hide in their underground city or be burned to ashes by the sun. The world above belongs to mortals now, inferior creatures with limited abilities for magic, easy prey for demonkind.

Between the two races comes Orziel, a half-breed struggling to survive the deadly schemes of his immortal kin. His only weapons are his vicious beauty and ruthless cunning. Otherwise, he is powerless and despised. But lack of power doesn’t check Orziel’s pride or ambition. All his life he’s lied, seduced, and betrayed to get whatever he’s wanted, including his lover, the demon prince Asheru. When Empress Shebazael claims Asheru as her own, Orziel swears he’ll do whatever it takes to take back what’s his, regardless of the consequences.

The half-demon travels to the surface, in search of a mortal sorcerer to aid him in his quest. But things go awry when Orziel seduces Jarresh, a beautiful youth with no magic beyond his capacity for love. Will Orziel stand by the only person who’s ever truly cared for him, or will he betray Jarresh to carry out his revenge?

I'll be selling print copies of the book at Balticon. If you're there and you want one, just grab me by the arm and let me know. And if you're interested in hearing the audio promo I put together for the book, check out this week's episode of the Heat Flash podcast. Heat Flash is my free weekly podcast of erotic short fiction. There's a new story every Friday. The promo for Demon By Day is at the end of this week's episode, so take a listen!
That's all I've got for now. I've got to get some sleep so I can drive up to Balticon tomorrow morning. I'll try to post a few entries while I'm there.

I Was Interviewed For The Balticon Podcast!

On the writing/podcasting/would-be professional front, I was interviewed this past weekend by Paul Fischer of the Balticon Podcast. The interview is here.

Paul talked to myself and fellow erotica writer Nobilis about erotica podcasting, writing sexy stories, family values for erotica writers, and everything in between. We also talked a bit about what we'll be doing at Balticon this coming Memorial Day weekend, where Nobilis and I will both be guests working on the adults' new media track for the convention. We had a great time discussing all the naughtiness we plan to get into, so take a listen to the interview and check out some of the rest of the Balticon podcast. Also stop by and listen to Paul's podcast (one of my all time favorites), the ADD Cast.

Keep in mind, we are talking about erotica here, and the talk naturually gets rather explicit, so don't listen to this any place where you might get into trouble, like say... church or work?

The Mad Month Of June In Review

Usually, when I don't post much, it means there's so much going on I don't have time to sit down and breathe, let alone blog. This past month has been just such a case. So to quote Innago Montoya, "Let me explain... No, no that would take too long. Let me sum up..."

2 June - Sam's first birthday.

9 June - Michael's birthday (all I gave him was a CD because...)

9 June - the same day as Michael's birthday is also the deadline for the Erotica Readers and Writers Association theme week this month. And the theme was speculative fiction erotica, and there's no way in hell I'm missing that particular theme (they liked my story, by the way, and will be publishing it on their website next month. More details later). Of course, the writing came in the midst of...

24 April to present - picked up some actual paying work that is eating up all my free time!

15 June - Cassie's first karate belt test. She was so cute! Hiya! Pictures later, I promise.

17 June - Father's day. Michael got a picnic, my Dad got nothing, nadda, zip (see note above about having paying work which eats up all my free time).

19 June - our 14th wedding anniversary. I spent the evening at home feeding dinner to the kids. Michael spent the evening at the dojo getting ready for...

21 June - our 2nd degree black belt test! Which left us so exhausted that we barely made it to...

23 June - our next door neighbor's wedding, which was followed by...

24 June - Sam and Cassie come down with a cold.

25 June - I come down with a cold. One of my cats is also very, very ill, so I take him to the vet. Now I have to keep him in the garage and feed him food with crushed up pills in it six times a day, which is a lot of work, but it beats cleaning up cat diarrhea six off the carpet six times a day.

27 June - my cold is now a sinus infection. I am so dead tired...

And that is a quick review of the month of June in the Madden household. Now you know everything, so go to bed!

I Have A New Blog On Writing Erotica

Just because I don't have enough to do with my time...

Actually, it's because I need a proper venue for discussing erotica writing and art. I added a blog to my erotica website HelenEHMadden.com. I'll be using this blog to discuss what's going on with my writing and artwork, plus as a place to discuss what I see going on in the world with regards to sex and erotica. The rest of the site includes an art gallery (mostly male nudes) and will have a story gallery up by the end of this month. Stop by for a visit if you're so inclined!

Book Lust vs. Writing Lust

A month or so ago, I bought a book reading journal. It's very cool. The title of the journal is Book Lust, and it's full of blank entries for me to record all the books I read. Each entry has a space for the title, the author, and the date I read the book, and then a page of space for my comments on what I thought of the book. I was really excited about this idea of recording what I’ve been reading, because lately I’ve changed interests. I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy. In the last few years I’ve added horror and historical mystery to that as well. But very recently I’ve dropped all that for more "literary" stuff. By literary I mean I’ve been picking books that show up either on the NY Times bestseller list or on the “What’s New” shelf at the library and book store.

It’s quite a change, like suddenly going from eating meat to being a vegetarian. But I like it. I was getting tired of reading a lot of the same stuff over and over again, to the point where I had quit reading all together because I couldn’t bring myself to pick up another sci-fi book. Of course, I don’t always like what I pick up in the “literary” section either, but then I made a deal with myself. If I don’t take a shine to a book within the first two chapters, I don’t have to keep reading. This means I’m getting most of my books from the library, because I can’t afford to buy a bunch of books and then put them down after two chapters, but my local library does keep a pretty good selection, so I'm good.

One of the things I’m most interested in reading right now are books put out by the major publishing houses that are billed as “erotic.” Now you know I write erotica, so I have very particular ideas about what is and isn’t erotic. To me, an erotic story means a tale with sexually explicit writing whose purpose is to arouse the reader. There is no “fade to black” when the sex takes place. There are also no veiled euphemisms or purple prose used to describe sex acts and genitalia. Things like that only smother what’s erotic. They don’t add any value at all.

So I’m reading what the big wigs in the publishing industry consider to be erotic. And my conclusion is these guys have no frikkin’ clue about what’s erotic. I’m not saying the books I’ve read are bad. One book I read, Vertigo by Lauren Baratz-Logsted, was actually quite good. Vertigo is the story of Emma, a Victorian housewife, who makes a resolution one year to be a better person. Her husband, a novelist working on a book about prisons, suggests Emma write letters to a prisoner he’s met during his research, to boost the man's morale and act as a friend. Of course, Emma falls in love the prisoner, named Chance Wood, and the rest of the story focuses on their affair and Emma’s discovery of her sexuality. The book was interesting, thrilling and suspenseful in fact. I do not think it was erotic though. There were sex scenes in the book, and to Ms. Baratz-Logsted’s credit, she covered sex acts that most folks won’t discuss even in the privacy of their own bedroom. But the way she wrote those scenes made them seem wooden and dull. Again, I blame the use of euphemism and purple prose. She came close to going into detail about what was going on, but never really hit the target. It was like watching ants mate - biologically interesting perhaps, but in no way arousing to me.

I have this fear that all the “erotic” big sellers I intend to read are going to be like that, and it annoys the hell out of me. Why won’t people write about sex in a way that shows how exciting it can really be? We write about murder and violence with so much abandon, but sex? No, we can’t do that. Or maybe I should say, they can’t do that. You know I can. I do it all the time. In fact, I’ll be busting my ass today to finish up a short story I intend to submit to Best Women’s Erotica 2008. An older woman with a porn addiction seduces a much younger man. Hot stuff. And you better believe that the sex scenes are explicit. In fact, I have more sex scenes in this one 7,000 word short story than Lauren Baratz-Logsted had in her entire book, a fact I find to be quite funny. And once I’m done writing this short story, I’ll be starting on another erotica book. I’ve been e-mailing my editor at Mojocastle Press about some ideas I have and she’s very gung-ho, so I’m feeling pretty good these days. In fact, I’m feeling like a professional writer, which feels better than I ever possibly imagined it could feel.

I love reading. I love writing. I may never get published by a big printing house like some folks, but that’s okay. I love getting up each morning and knowing that I’m going to be doing the stuff I want to do. So life is good, folks. Life is very good.

Must Have Been Something I Said

We went to the pediatrician on Wednesday for a follow up appointment for Cassie. That makes seven visits in two weeks. The pediatrician joked that she was going to start charging me rent, I spent so much time there. I said I was just going to find an empty office space nearby and set up shop there. That way I could write between doctor visits. That led to her asking how my writing was going, and she was overjoyed when I told her I had a contract for my pornographic novel.

“Is that what you write?” she exclaimed. When I said yes, she grinned and asked if I wrote from experience.

“Oh god no,” I replied. “I’m not a gay man.”

She laughed so hard she almost couldn’t walk out of the examining room.

The Queen Of Porn Rides Again!

I got some great news last night. My erotica novel, Demon By Day, is being picked up by an e-publisher. I won’t divulge too many details, but I’ve got a contract to sign and mail in so I’m feeling very good. Demon By Day (originally titled “Helen’s Very Gay Fantasy Novel”) is a work of lus- er, love, for me. I spent ten months writing the first draft, another three doing the second draft, and another two putting together synopses and query letters for publishers. I think I came out lucky on this one, as it found a publisher far more quickly than I had any right to expect.

In other erotica writing news, the Erotica Readers and Writers Association is pleased to announce the release of
CREAM, an anthology of the best of ERWA’s story galleries. Yours truly has a piece in there that will curl your hair and probably kill the faint of heart. “A Man In A Kilt” is another work of lus- er, love, and I’m very proud of it.
Winter is coming folks, so if you’re looking for something to read AND keep you warm at the same time, you know who to come to.

YEEHAW!!