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A Question…
Sunday, August 5th, 2012

Quick note! Two Wild for Teacher is up for July’s Book of the Month at Long and Short Reviews! I’d really appreciate your votes!
The contest ends tonight!

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Today, I’m headin’ due south—before the rooster crows! The Red-Headed Hellion (daughter), my sister Myla Jackson and I are driving to south Louisiana, following Highway 1 ’til we reach the end on Grand Isle. We’ll only spend a night in a dive, er, modest motel then start making our way northeast toward New Orleans. We have to be there by Wednesday for the start of the Authors After Dark conference.

Have good thoughts for our journey. I hope to soak up atmosphere, listen to the cadence of the language, and take tons of pics—all in the name of research. Let’s just hope my journey isn’t like one I’d write. Good thoughts, remember—nice and easy. No stress.

I have guests lined up for the week. Be sure to drop in and say hello.

I’ll leave you with a question…

If, for the rest of your life, you had to wake up every morning to one song
playing in your head, which song would you choose?

Question courtesy of The Question Guys

Guest Blogger: Melanie Atkins
Friday, August 3rd, 2012

The Heat is On

Wow! I live down south, and we’re expecting the temperature today to reach at least 98 degrees, with a heat index of 108-110. And no, this is not “dry heat” like one would find out west or even in Texas. This is sultry, stifling, breath-sucking, Deep South heat. The kind that makes you want to get nekkid, turn up the AC, and drink lemonade. Seriously.

My solution? Stay inside. My cats agree. Usually by 5:30 a.m., they’re clamoring to go out, and they might for just a little while. Then they return to the door, ready to come back in and sleep for most of the day, and scratch until I get up and bow to their feline pleasure. Cats that actually want to stay inside when they can chase varmint outside? You know it’s got to be hot.

I feel for everyone who has to work out in this heat. My sons both do. One is an electrician and has to go into attics on a frequent basis. I worry about him. The other one works for a freight company on the docks. At least he works mostly in the evening and not in the heat of the day. Still, I hope he drinks enough water.

Last Sunday, I went to a swimming party. The heat nearly melted me even though the pool water was relatively cool. The water in the pool where I take water aerobics in the early a.m. two days a week isn’t that refreshing during a heat wave like this. It’s more like bath water. Hot bath water. Jumping in takes my breath away, and not in a good way. Swimming, even that early, just makes me hotter.

I’m stuck inside writing when the weather’s like this. I usually love to write out on my deck in the late afternoon once shade covers it, but not right now. I’d die, even with my fan blowing right in my face. Staying inside makes for more distractions, but I just put in my headphones and plow on. Then I get to a steamy scene, and the heat builds again… Ack! Heat, heat, and more heat.

What do you do to keep cool when the outside furnace cranks up? Do you go swimming? Wallow in the AC like I do? Make cool drinks? Take off your clothes? Sit on an ice block? Okay, I’m laughing at that visual.

Reading—inside, of course—is always a good outlet. And speaking of reading… I have a new novella out this week! (How do you like that segue? Pretty cool, huh? lol) Hope you’ll check out this stand alone story… and just for the record, you might want to have some tissues handy; not to mop sweat, but to dry your tears. Just sayin’… it’s an emotional story.

EMILY’S NIGHTMARE is now available at Desert Breeze Publishing: http://bit.ly/MLaT31
**And at many other online outlets, including Amazon, B&N, the iTunes store, Sony, etc.

 

Detective Emily Rawson doesn’t want children; she’s too focused on her career to give a family the time required. That is, until she falls in love with fellow detective John Cutter, forgets to take precautions, and winds up pregnant. She fights the idea tooth and nail before finally deciding that having a baby is exactly what she wants—as long as the child is Cutter’s. Then tragedy strikes. Will it bring them together or tear them apart?

Fear pummeled Emily. She gripped the Glock and ducked into the enclosed stairwell. The faint odors of oil and gasoline rode the stale air. Time stood still. A bead of moisture rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away and peeked out the door.

Her assailant fired.

White-hot pain speared Emily’s shoulder. She screamed, the sound echoing as she lost her footing and tumbled backward down the cold concrete steps. She landed hard on her back, sticky, ruby red blood coating her thighs. Her head pounded. Fear took her breath.

Inky darkness spilled over her like rising water.

Emily bolted up in bed, cold sweat streaming down her back. The same awful dream. So painful and so real. Every night for the past six months. Ever since John Cutter, her former partner, best friend, and lover, had ridiculed her choices and turned his back on her.

That wasn’t the worst of it, however. Their breakup had come first.

I want a houseful of kids, he’d said. A big family.

His hopeful words had gouged a hole in Emily’s heart, because she didn’t want kids—despite the incident tonight with the rescued baby. Her own childhood had been a living hell, thanks to her father’s bitterness and her great-uncle’s roaming hands, and even though her mother had tried, Emily didn’t want to follow in her footsteps. The very idea scared her to death. Better to just forget having a family and focus on catching criminals. She was a damned good cop and well-deserving of her spot in her division.

During their last fight before she’d left burglary, Cutter had mocked her for making the change and had even bashed poor Mike Jamison, the high school history teacher she had dated for a time the year before while she and Cutter were on the outs. His animosity had made absolutely no sense—and neither did this recurring dream.

“What’s wrong with me?” Emily murmured, shuddering at the thought that she might not ever get a handle on her nightmares.

She raked the ends of her short hair off her neck to dry the perspiration coating her fevered skin. Tonight—she glanced at the clock and groaned; five in the morning, so make that last night—she’d gone to Bullets and spotted Cutter sitting at the bar, and she’d ducked out without him seeing her. No need to stir the hornet’s next. The last time she’d bumped into him there, he’d been way too abrasive. Not mean, exactly. Just belligerent.

She drew the covers up to her chin. She and Cutter had been partners in the burglary division for three long years. She’d thought he was her best buddy and more. And now—

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Taking our Licks…
Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

Something thrilling! I’m the Guest Author for the whole month of August on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website! They’ve posted my bio and three FREE stories of mine! So be sure to head over there to check those out! Look at the panel on the left side where it says “Guest Author.”

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I’ve been so busy with the Cleis Press books, I haven’t had a chance to talk about the book Paisley Smith and I put together. First, don’t you love the cover? Especially that big fat tongue? Mm-mmm.

I write a lot of short stories. Usually too short to publish on their own. While most are picked up for collections, I don’t like the thought that some of my readers can’t enjoy them if they don’t want to read an anthology of random authors. Last winter I put together a collection of hetero tales, called Strokes.  Readers seemed to enjoy that.

I still had all these lesbian shorts doing nothing on my computer. Not enough to fill out a collection all my myself, but then I have friends. One in particular—Paisley Smith—is a fantastic lesbian fiction author. I asked her if she’d like to join me. She was all over it, and in fact wrote never-before-published stories just for this book!

And if you think LGBT fiction isn’t your cup of tea, well take a look…

From Paisley’s “Riding Bitch”:

After my third call went to voicemail, I flipped closed my cell phone and peered down the dark street. No sign of my boyfriend, Garrett. I couldn’t imagine why he’d forgotten to pick me up from my job at the Giggling Grouper.

Thunder rumbled and I turned toward the gulf. Soft lightning illuminated the sky in the distance. But beach storms rolled in fast. Apprehension gnawed at my stomach.

I’d sensed Garrett pulling away, but since my job was seasonal, and I’d probably be moving back to my hometown in Georgia after Labor Day, I really hadn’t bothered to end things with him.

Tonight, it seemed, he’d beaten me to the punch.

I glanced at my watch. Half past two. He was thirty minutes late and everybody I knew was either in bed or lived an hour away in Foley. No sense calling a cab. The fee to make the hour-and-a-half drive from Orange Beach to my place in Bay Minette would cost every dollar I’d earned for the night.

The parking lot was desolate except for one empty car and a motorcycle.

Lindsey’s motorcycle. Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Blogger: Anne Rainey
Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

Little Ideas

Writers find ideas everywhere. At the supermarket, while watching commercials, even when we’re doing laundry. It can be the littlest thing to spark off a plot for a book. Or even people in our life that we decide would make great characters in a book.

This time, I got an idea for a series while listening to my daughter tell me about some kids she knew at school. Katilyn, my oldest, came home one day talking about a couple of guys in her math class. As she started to explain about these five brothers that were all adopted, I couldn’t help but become intrigued. I had to wonder what sort of person or persons would take on five boys to raise. I mean, one boy is a lot to handle, much less five! I just knew that anyone with that much love to give would be someone very special. I needed to write about that, you know? That wonderful couple who would take five boys into their home and give them something they never knew before, unconditional love.

That was how the Blackwater series came about. The idea took root and I realized I had a rather emotional start to a series here. Thus, the Jennings brothers were created.

You have Sam, the oldest. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He feels responsible for his brothers and an overwhelming protectiveness for Wanda, the woman who gave him his first taste of what it’s like to be a family.

Next up is Vance. He’s been burned by a woman once and swears to never get that close to anyone again. He’s tough on the outside, but all warm and gooey on the inside.

Brodix is the brainy one. He likes order and numbers. In his mind, every problem has a solution—you just need to crunch the right figures.

Reilly and River are the youngest, and twins. These two have had a bit more than their fair share of hard knocks and they have the emotional scars to prove it too.

Anyway, in Blackwater, Ohio, when the Jennings brothers come home for Thanksgiving to find the family business heading toward bankruptcy, they all step in to make things right. Along the way, their slightly meddlesome mom Wanda starts playing matchmaker. She wants to see her boys happy, and Wanda can be pretty fierce when she wants something! 🙂

As you can imagine with a family like the Jennings nothing is simple and things are definitely not perfect. They argue and fight, but that’s all part of the fun, right? I grew up with three brothers and we had our ups and downs, but I wouldn’t change a single second of it!

What about you? Do you have brothers and sisters? 

For a look at the first book in the series, Sam’s Promise, check out this page. And you can read more about Vance’s Rules, book two, here.

Now, onto the newest release in the series, Breaking Brodix. In this scene you get a taste of Wanda as she attempts to play matchmaker.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Blogger: Cathryn Fox
Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

I’d just finished visiting the quaint town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, a town steeped in tradition yet bustling with a mix of industry, shops and services, when I started thinking about how much I’d like to live there.  Lunenburg is not only known for its hard working fishing vessels, it’s a place where many Stephen King movies were shot, including Deloris Claiborne, and where the television series Haven is filmed.

Later that day upon returning home I was chatting on line with the talented and very sweet Nikki Duncan. Before we knew it we were talking about doing an anthology together. We knew we wanted a third author, and both instantly agreed that we’d love to have our very good friend, Mackenzie McKade – another Samhain writer, and one of the wicked writers from our chat loop – on board.

Much to our delight Mac agreed and we set a time for brainstorming. We all agreed to do a reunion story with overlapping characters. This was fun, but challenging to keep time lines and characters consistent. Next came location and since we wanted a small town I couldn’t think of a better one than a coastal fishing village I’d just finished visiting. (Hey, I might not be able to pack up and move there but it doesn’t mean I can’t live there through my characters!) I shared my Lunenburg pictures and we all agreed to model our fictitious Maine town after this quaint little fishing village in Nova Scotia. Here are some pictures to give you a feel for our town and characters.

I hope you enjoy Lunenburg, or as we like to call it, Whispering Cove as much as we do!

Enjoy the stories we created: Wild, Wet and Wicked in Whispering Cove AND Burned, Bold and Brazen in Whispering Cove!

This is the house where one of Stephen King’s movies was shot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Blogger: Joey W. Hill (Contest!)
Monday, July 30th, 2012

Movie Moments of Stillness – A Creative Necessity

Movie references tend to creep into my stories a lot; in my most recent paranormal release, In the Company of Witches, my heroine Raina (half-succubus, all witch) is a big fan of the movie Titanic, and she and Mikhael, my hero (a Dark Guardian, something like a cop/sorcerer), end up necking in a theater where they’re showing New Moon (I’m not ashamed to admit it – I LOVE the Twilight movies!). Anyhow, though I’m a bit of a movie addict…(ahem – 500+ DVD library and counting!), the movies serve a creative purpose, as any source of good storytelling does. In fact, this week they helped me turn a flat, ugly scene into something worth reading. To make that happen, I employed what I call the “Moment of Stillness” exercise. Let me explain, with a few less parentheses (lol).

There’s an amazing movie called The Legend of Bagger Vance, with Matt Damon and Will Smith. It centers around a golf game between Matt Damon’s relatively unknown character, Junuh, and golf legends Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. During the movie, there’s a part where Bagger (Will Smith) tells Junuh to watch Bobby Jones when he steps up to the ball to take his swing. Once Bobby arrives at the tee, everything else disappears. He clears his mind completely, and when he does, a synergy of instinct and experience happen—and so does a great shot. It’s as Bagger tells Junuh: “All we got to do is get ourselves outta it’s way.”

I have noticed this theme in other movies. In Finding Neverland, Johnny Depp portrays playwright J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan. Caught in writer’s block, he strikes up a friendship with a widow and her children. As he gets lost in the enjoyment of being with them (rather than worrying about his stale play), he starts “seeing” a new story, Peter Pan. There’s an extraordinary scene where the boys are jumping on their beds but, in J.M.’s imagination, he sees them bounce, bounce, and then begin to fly through the air, finally soaring out the window, just as will eventually happen in the Peter Pan story.

In Star Trek – Insurrection, Captain Picard meets a people who have slowed down the aging process. In a lovely moment with one of the female leaders of the community, he is sitting by a stream with her where she helps him “stay in this moment”. We see a hummingbird’s wingbeats get so slow we can see the delicate wing structure, everything in slow motion.

Final example – Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey, Jr and Jude Law. In both the first and second installment of these incredible movies, there are times Sherlock, with his amazing ability to anticipate action and reaction, shows in slow motion what will unfold and plans his response to it, all before it happens. Though in reality, it all happens very quickly, it is slow and steady in his head, the rest of the world tuned out.

Anyhow, this process of slowing down the mind, opening it up, “getting out of its way” is vital in almost every creative endeavor. It becomes absolutely essential to find this method when you evolve from doing something you love merely because you love it, and doing it professionally. Business and creativity have always had an uneasy relationship. For instance, the athlete who is pure poetry on the broken asphalt of the inner city basketball court, must learn to hold onto that craftsmanship when playing for a million dollar contract, with the demands of team owner, fans, etc piled on his back.

On the same note, writers have to make the transition from scribbling away in their glorious solitude, where getting published is no more than a distant pipe dream, to being an author who writes on deadline, meeting promo requirements, answering copious amounts of email, social networking, etc… Yet every subsequent story must be a creative and fresh as the ones they created in the beginning, in their little private cubbyhole.

Impossible? Nope. Not with that moment of stillness. At the beginning of this post, I claimed that “moment of silence” had really helped me this week. I was working on the latest book in my Vampire Queen Series, Taken by a Vampire, which features a threesome—Evan, my vampire hero, his Scottish servant Niall, and Alanna, the rigidly trained Inherited Servant who has come under their protection until her treasonous Master is apprehended.  My editor needs a partial sooner than expected, so over the past several weeks I’ve been typing furiously, getting that first draft vomited out onto the pages (yeah, no better way to put it than that). But now I’m in the first edit. I can do the “barf to meet deadline” for only so long before my soul shrivels up into a husk.

So I take a deep breath, slow it all down. Surround myself with that creative stillness, and tap deeper into who and what my characters are, where they are, etc. As such, what was a pretty bland, bare-bones section became the following, which I like much better, even though this is still only a rough first draft. I’m too proud to give you the first version for comparison; just imagine blah blah blah, vomit, vomit, vomit, and you’ll have the essence of it – grin. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday Report Card
Sunday, July 29th, 2012

Yesterday’s Winner

Yesterday’s winner, chosen by random number generator is…Suzanne! Congratulations, Suzanne! Be sure to email me and let me know which email address you’d like your download of Cowboy sent to!

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Sunday Report Card

This week was all about refining. I worked on the first round of edits for Laying Down the Law, which my editor loves by the way. She adores my hero and heroine. I had fun with a suspenseful plot which included a bank robbery in the opening scene. Can’t wait for y’all to read it! It releases in September.

Then I turned my attention to Smokin’ Hot Firmen, a new anthology for Cleis Press that will release at the start of next summer. There are some super yummy stories including my homage to Magic Mike in the form of “Johnny Blaze.” I was busy swapping out stories, editing and taking a look at story order again. Did you know story order is important to an anthology? I have an amazing lineup for that book, but can’t announce it just yet. I need final approval from Cleis first.

Then I kinda lost focus. Might have been because I had TWO blog tours going on at the same time. One for Fournicopia and one for She Shifters. It wasn’t so bad at the start of the week, but by the end of the week, I had more and more sites to follow up with and comment on… Thanks to everyone who came by! I’ll be busy contacting winners today.

So no new pages at all this week. That scares me. I have so much on my plate. Guess I’ll spend today trying to figure out the best approach for getting the most work done over the next month. I have to finish the sequel to Fournicopia, A Perfect Trifecta, by mid-August. And I have to be half way through the full length novel I owe Grand Central shortly after that.  Right now, the only solution that comes to mind is a clone.

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Guests this Week

I have a stellar list of guests coming this week, so be sure to drop by and see what’s happening: Joey Hill, Nikki Duncan, Anne Rainey, and Melanie Atkins. I don’t usually schedule that many guests during a week unless I’m going to be out of town, but I kinda sorta screwed up. Hang in there. I think I get to pop in mid-week. I’ll bring a brand new contest and the winner to The Fugly Bottle Contest.

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Speaking of which…

The Fugly Bottle Contest continues! The bottle is truly hideous, something you can use as a gag gift, scare children with, or something you might want to give your mother-in-law (if she has a sense of humor!). And you know I’ll send along some fun stuff in the package you’ll actually want to keep! 🙂

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Upcoming Books

Just a heads up for those of you looking for a book fix!

Cowboy Lust

August 14 is the official release date for Cowboy Lust! You can hit the Cowboy Lust website for more information about the book and the awesome lineup of authors! Amazon is already shipping the book if you can’t wait for your local bookstore to stock it.

I plan to release my indie-published novella, Dragon’s Desire on August 24th! If you’d like to read an excerpt, click on the cover!