Jaci – What’s good about writing a novella for anthology? That’s easy. It’s so much fun to write a novella and know that you’re going to be paired with other authors. I’m very lucky in that the Unlaced anthology I knew one of the authors very well–Joey Hill. I was familiar with her writing and her style and knew it would be awesome having a story in an anthology with her. The other two–Jasmine Haynes and Denise Rossetti–I didn’t know but had heard great things about. During our promotional efforts for this anthology I got to know Jasmine and Denise and we all worked so well together I had the best time ever promoting this book. Writing is such a solitary endeavor, that promoting an anthology is like getting together with a fun group of women for cocktails and having some fun. And we had an absolute blast together on UNLACED. The bad part of writing a novella for an anthology? Trying to make sure your story meets the guidelines, and hoping it meshes well with the stories the other writers have done. Because contrary to what some might think, the writers in an anthology don’t meet to discuss our storylines in advance. You might be given a general theme, then everyone goes off and does their own thing. Which could end up in disaster if you end up with a mish mash of stories that don’t blend well together. Fortunately, we’ve heard some great feedback about our novellas in UNLACED, so I think we did well!

Jasmine – The best thing about writing an anthology is working with other wonderful writers. I was familiar with both Jaci and Joey’s work, but I hadn’t read any of Denise’s. Needless to say I’ve been thrilled working with all these ladies. I love their writing. The promotion we’ve done together has been tons of fun rather than a tedious chore. Dare I say I feel that I’ve made new friends!? This whole experience has been so wonderful that I’m looking forward to working on the second anthology with great anticipation. The ugly about anthologies? When you have more than common theme, where the story lines actually intersect. That can become a coordination nightmare. UNLACED worked so well because though we had a common thread, the corset, we didn’t have to actually connect the stories through plot or characters.

Joey – The ladies have hit the pros and cons well. I’m always amazed to be asked to do an anthology, because I write 120k plus books. And the term “word limit” just goes into my muse’s one ear and out the other. But the others are dead on as to why it’s fun to do anthologies. Writing is a very solitary pursuit. Don’t get me wrong – I love solitary, otherwise I wouldn’t do this as a profession. But interacting with others who are in the same creative process is a rush. As they noted, we don’t really collaborate on the novellas in an anthology, but it’s great to work shoulder to shoulder with authors to get the word out to readers about our stories through blogs like this. The cocktail visual is perfect, because we joke, tease back and forth, and give each other encouragement and reinforcement as the reviews come out. And being women, we typically fork off onto totally unrelated topics as well! In short, there has been some goofing off, but hey, gotta have fun sometimes, right? Seriously, it’s also true that the synergy of working together helps us open up more, making for more entertaining and interactive events with our readers. For instance, we just did a great cross blog tour where we talked about our romantic firsts – first kiss, first date, first love, and first breakup. It was the perfect topic to chew on with romance readers – we all did some laughing, crying, and remembering how wonderful – and how painful – it can be to fall in love. Which in turn reminds us why all four of us love writing the kind of stories we can share with you in Unlaced.

Denise – Hey, you J-girls snagged all the best lines! Hmm, let’s see, where to start… There are so many “up” sides in writing for an anthology. For me, the first thrill was actually having story alongside Joey. Not only do I admire her work enormously, but she’s my invaluable critique partner (also agony aunt, slave driver and cheerleader). I think I did a literal happy dance when I received the email – or a happy wriggle anyway. And the icing on the cake was discovering that Jaci and Jasmine were the other two authors. Funnily enough, I haven’t met either Joey or Jaci in the flesh – I live in Australia – but I made the trip to San Francisco for the RWA conference this year and it was a delight to have a coffee with Jasmine there.

I’ve always loved working in a team – and if the other players have similar lifestyles, similar obsessions and similar senses of humour, it’s a pure joy. When it comes to ideas for promoting Unlaced, the email discussions are a total hoot, except I tend to be late, my excuse being the different time zones. (Don’t tell the J’s that Oz is about 14 hours ahead of the US. heh heh)

And the “down” side of anthologies? Oh heavens, fitting myself into the word limit. I must have a complicated mind, because my plots usually end up being kind of curly. It’s great discipline, but I sometimes feel like I’m sitting at the dinner table trying not to flap my elbows. On the other hand, the different and sexy things four creative women can do with a corset are, um, absolutely mindboggling. Boy, it’s been fun.

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As Jasmine mentioned, we’ve been contracted to do another corset-themed anthology, since our current one is doing so well – hit the Barnes and Noble list bestseller list the other day – yea! It will be called Unbound, and we’re looking forward to coming up with a whole new set of stories for you.

For today, however, we’ll be giving away a signed copy of Unlaced to the winner of a random drawing from comments posted here. So tell us something about corsets – what you enjoy, don’t enjoy about them, a fond memory you have involving one…if you dare (wink). Okay, so if you know nothing, don’t care or have no memories (fond or otherwise) or corsets, you can also ask us a question or make a comment related to our discussion here.

ETA: Links to the excerpts –

The Ties That Bind by Jaci Burton here.
Undone by Jasmine Haynes here.
Controlled Response by Joey W. Hill here.
Rubies and Black Velvet by Denise Rossetti here.