Category Archives: writing

Introducing Liliana Lee

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

It’s been a while since my last blog — mostly because I’ve been wrestling with my previous spam filter which decided I received enough traffic to try to start charging me. I don’t–not even close. But hopefully I have a reasonable replacement in place now. On top of that, I’ve been writing!

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Gunpowder Alchemy released last month. This was a big change for me working with a new publisher and jumping into a new genre. Thank you so much for your continued support! The book is available in ebook from all the major retailers:

This month, I’m excited to introduce my alter ego, Liliana Lee, who has just released her “debut” historical erotica novel. For the last six months, I’ve been working on an indie project based on the infamous Princess Shanyin who had a harem of thirty male concubines at her command. There’s more information about the hows and whys of my other identity in the Q & A section below.

Princess Shanyin: The Complete Obsession Saga

Though Princess Shanyin has a harem of male concubines to serve her every sexual fantasy, from the moment she sees the handsome Chu Yuan, she has to have him. At her request, the Emperor gives the aristocrat over to Shanyin for her pleasure, setting off a power play of sensual torment and dominance between them.
Reader advisory: This is an erotic novel and contains steamy and explicit menage scenes.

BUY:Amazon | B&N |All Romance eBooks | Kobo | iTunes

FREE: The Obsession
If you’d like to try Liliana Lee out, the first installment, The Obsession, is currently free for download at all major online retailers.

Q & A : What’s up with this new pen name?

Q: Will there still be Jeannie Lin books?
A: Yes! Liliana Lee will only be used for my erotic works. I’ll be continuing to write as Jeannie Lin for everything else. I’ll be continuing with the Gunpowder Chronicles steampunk series and I have A Dance with Danger (Rebels and Lovers #2), the sequel to The Sword Dancer, out May 1, 2015.  Also look for first contemporary release: This Wedding is Doomed!, a continuity with three other authors, out in June.

Q: What about the Lotus Palace series?
A: Many readers have asked me about the Lotus Palace series and the character of Wei-wei in particular. I always planned for her to eventually have her own story, but currently it’s not coming in clear to me what that story will be. After A Dance with Danger is released, I don’t have any other Tang Dynasty romances planned in the near future. I’m not saying I won’t ever come back to the world of the pleasure quarter — I loved writing these two books so much — but right now the timing doesn’t feel right for the series.

Q: Why erotica? Are you trying to jump on the erotic romance bandwagon with the FSOG movie coming out? *wink* *wink*
A: If I wanted to follow any market trend, I should have chosen a setting besides imperial China (I can’t quit you!!).

The story behind this project is that I had come across the historical account of Princess Shanyin while researching Chinese beds. The story immediately captured my attention–a harem of 30 concubines. A decadent and ruthless dynasty. And above all that, a story of seduction involving a handsome aristocrat. A story that survived a thousand years! I felt in my gut, however, that this story wouldn’t work as a historical romance like the ones I had written before. It had to be a sex story to really explore its full potential. So that’s how I wrote it.

Q: So is the Princess Shanyin saga just a Jeannie Lin historical romance with steamier love scenes or what?
A: I would categorize Princess Shanyin as romantic erotica. Emphasis on the erotica. To quote Tiffany Reisz’s The Siren, “Romance is sex plus love. Erotica is sex plus fear.”

Yes, there is a central romance in the book. I’ll leave it at that.

Q: Why a serialized novel?
A: Since I’ve never done a serial before, I decided to wait until the entire saga was available before announcing as most of my readers likely prefer full-length novels.

Along with playing with the characters and plot, I wanted to experiment with the storytelling. Given my busy schedule, I was able to conceptualize, schedule and execute three serially linked novellas more effectively than I would have been able to do one novel straight through. On a more business oriented note, I was still on contract with a publisher and wanted to make certain that there was no gray area as to whether this book should be submitted to them or not. Based on length, subject matter, characterizations, genre — what I’m trying to say is that this is definitely not a Harlequin novel — so I was able to move fast on it without question.

Q: Will there be more Liliana Lee stories?
A: Yes. I am planning to split my time between writing as Liliana and Jeannie. The follow-up to Princess Shanyin will be coming out early 2015. There’s a teaser short story in the bundle. 🙂

Q: Is there a print version available?
A: Yes, there is a print version available through Createspace. I’m making a few tweaks so the book is not currently available, however I hope to fix that soon!

On Writing Strike…

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Stop the presses, Jeannie is writing a blog post!

Hmmm….will there come a time in the near future when peeps won’t know what “stop the presses” even means? There are no presses to stop in the digital media world.

I just got off of my first writing strike, though my writing buddy and talker-off-of-ledges Bria Quinlan claims it was not a writing strike and more like a break between books. But I tell you that it WAS a writing strike and the best thing ever.

I didn’t write for TEN whole days. More to the point, I refused to write for ten days. There was no nagging feeling of “I should be writing” or “I have to write, this next book is due in February” or worst, “OMG, I have to write, but I have no time, energy, brain cells left.”

You see, after turning in the last book, I stoically opened the next WIP and started writing the next book. Just like a career writer does. Just like Stephen King describes in On Writing. Just like a gal who has three more books on contract needs to do. Everything I was writing felt like crap, but that’s okay. It always feels like crap and I’m a reviser anyways. I’ll fix it in revisions.

But something felt different. I could feel it in my fingers…I felt it in my toes. And writing or the drive to write is such a psychological, angsty and neuroses-filled endeavor that you have to trust your feelings. My feeling inside that I just couldn’t shake was that I was empty and every word that I touched would come out bland because you just can’t pretend to be creative and clever when you’re not. (Wow, this last story was uninspired, but maybe no one will notice….)

The writer I am with every new book needs to be at least a little stronger, wiser, riskier or something more than the last and it wasn’t happening. And the reason was because I had been listening to nothing but my own stories, stuck in my own head too long. There were no outside outputs to feed it. Heck, I don’t even watch TV outside of The Walking Dead, Top Chef and Cardinals baseball. (*sigh* Cards. We had a good go of it this year.)

So I took writing off the table and just read. I started picking through my TBR, all the books I wanted to read for so long, but just couldn’t find the time. I needed to enjoy someone else’s ideas, be in someone else’s head, savor someone else’s words so my head wasn’t so boringly me anymore.

Here was my awesome reading list. I just finished my last one — Horde by Ann Aguirre which I pre-bought and planned to read at the end of my strike. I loved reading these stories and I highly recommend going on writing strike if the words aren’t coming.

And to Bria — I know ten days isn’t a lot, but writing strike is a state of mind. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. It’s my head, I’ll mess with it the way that I want. 🙂

My writing strike reading list with my one line reviews:

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

This book clicked on so many levels: delicious prose, breathtaking worldbuilding, amazing characters–I hate you Laini Taylor because I loved this book so hard.

The Angel by Tiffany Reisz

Mistress Nora said in Book 1 that erotica is sex plus fear and I definitely agree with this book which pushed boundaries for even a hardcore erotic reader like me.

Outpost by Ann Aguirre

I loved revisiting Deuce and Fade in Topside as they learn how to adapt to civilization and this book is shaping the series up to be EPIC.

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

A novel of courtesan houses and Westerners immersed in Chinese culture instead of vice versa which went through several story-telling perspectives and devices, some which worked and some that didn’t for me. But it’s Amy Tan so I cried buckets and hugged my daughter and missed my mum.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

A twisted little tale that had me so hooked by the time things started going a bit crazy and left me very unsettled.

Horde by Ann Aguirre

Ms. Aguirre, you promised an epic and YOU DELIVERED BIG TIME as I was completely riveted by this conclusion which tied everything up and made me weep and worry and sigh at the end.

So even though it’s November and NanoWriMo time, if the writing isn’t coming, I highly recommend going on strike. As Stephen King states in On Writing: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”