The road to erotica is paved with...comedy

Oh, you all are in for a treat today. Please join me in welcoming Crystal Jordan, my lovely fab friend and conference roomie. Her books are hawt, fun, hawt, exciting, and… did I mention hawt?! Her book, Treasured, comes out Tuesday from Samhain Publishing and I highly recommend you all rush out and buy it. I know I will! So, take it away, Crystal...


I started out a chick lit writer two years ago. If anyone (all two of you) has read one of my currently published books, that might surprise you--because I am unrepentantly (I think I just made that word up) erotic in my writing now.

I came up with an amazingly fresh and wonderful new concept (or so I thought) of a paranormal chick lit novel about a 20-something witch in Manhattan. Witch lit--I liked it. Yeah. Then I read Candace Havens, MaryJanice Davidson, and Shanna Swendson.

Well, there really is no such thing as an original idea is there?

So, I stalled with that book and came up with another idea. This one was naughty. Titillating. Totally daring. And one I was never letting see the light of day, because, I, Crystal Jordan, was a chick lit author, thank you very much. That's just how I roll. But I needed something to kick start my writing while my witchy lit book percolated at the back of my twisted little mind. The wild hair up my you-know-what idea was erotic science fiction romance.

Keep in mind, I'd read maybe three or four erotic romance novels in my more-than-a-decade of romance readership. But I was never letting anyone see it anyway, so why not give it a try? It couldn't hurt. I didn't have to know anything about the genre if I wasn't going to do anything with the book, right? Right. Totally.

After I finished the first three chapters of that book, I went back and read what I, chick lit writer extraordinaire, had written. It was actually pretty good. Maybe even better than my witch lit. And I'd even kind of...liked it.

Oh, snap.

Now what was I going to do? I was a pornographic witch lit writer! A failure! A disgrace! (A minor mental meltdown combined with a slight identity crises ensued, but I've heard that's pretty normal for those still in the 20-somethings)

Yeah, then I slapped some sense into myself and started doing some research. This erotic thing was not a bad place to be in the market at that time, apparently. I wrote emotional, deep, a little dark...erotic romance.

And it sold.

On the first try.

Whoa, didn't see that coming.

Score! (Thus ensued a booty dance that registered on the Richter scale--I won't reenact. Trust me, it's for your own good.)

But...but...I loved my comedy. I missed it. Deep, dark, and emotionally contorted was all well and good, but there's nothing like a little snark to make the writing snap a bit. So, I sat down and wrote a viciously sarcastic heroine and her studly sex-muffin (and equally sarcastic) hero. They were dark, kinky, twisted, kinky, scarred, kinky, and funny as hell.

Ah, now that's that's what I'm talking about.

I can't say I'm always able to write funny, but there's always some humor in my books. It's like a nervous tick--I just can't help myself. Life is freaking ridiculous. And if the world is going to get a laugh at my expense, I might as well join in, right?

How else would I have ended up going from witch lit to erotica in two-point-five seconds?

That's just how I roll.

~Crystal Jordan
http://www.crystaljordan.com