An Inspiring Man at 20″

There was a time when I drove an hour and a half each way to spend time with a man. Many know of his extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess. He was always naked and prepared to conquer me, which is why I can tell you he is beyond gorgeous and a true hero. However, one day I turned around, and lost myself to another.

HA! A bit flowery, but oddly true. Way back when for almost three months I went once a week to visit and study a 76″ sculpture called The Lansdowne Herakles. That’s right, he was originally known as Herakles until the Romans decided to call him Hercules, but enough about that. It was no hardship to study this particular sculpture and yet, no matter how wonderful he is, Herakles was not who inspired me to write Tied Up For Love, that honor belong to a lesser character who was broken.

When the work I needed to do was finished, I would leave the courtyard where Herakles stood and spend time with Marsyas. The sculpture is small at less than 20″ and has lost some bits, but he still packs a powerful punch. While his pose, arms stretched above his head, is seductive the story behind it isn’t so much. I won’t go into details as it plays a part in Tied Up For Love, although I will tell you he pissed off the wrong Olympian, and paid a big price for being the best.

The sculpture has been with me in photos I’ve taken over the years. That’s right, I continue to visit him, although he’s currently not on show – shame. Anyway, this is such a memorable piece that when I was sat down to write another installment in my Mythological Messes Redux series, I chose Marsyas. Not only was he cut off at his prime, but later artisans and mythologists messed up his origins, and his importance was lost.

The picture above [from the Getty Museum website] hung on the wall above my monitor and I wrote this man a seriously hot and somewhat kinky second chance.

Thank you, Delilah, for allowing me to share how a sculpture fed my need to write Tied Up For Love.

Filla is a nymph used to the raucous ways of a Dionysian festival and allows a handsome newcomer, Marsyas, to strip her down for a passionate interlude while tied to a tree. After time spent alone, together, she knows little about him beyond the physical. However, her feelings for him are growing until he brings her back for the next festival, and suddenly she’s not sure of anything.

Love is found in the most unlikely places, but will it last?

eBook now available at All Romance.

Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
www.tillygreene.com

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Turn Around, I Forgot The Pig: Superstitions, Charms,
and How We Trick Ourselves Into Writing

by Michelle Moore and S. Reesa Herberth

Michelle

While I doubt that any of us are as bad as professional sports players (I, for one, have never worn the same underwear for a week!), we writers have our quirks. Quirks, idiosyncrasies, traditions… superstitions. Okay, we don’t really like to call them superstitions. That makes us sound so, well, superstitious. But I suspect everyone has some sort of a process they go through to get ready to write.

Like me, for an example. Before I settle in for an evening of productivity, I slip into a gold lame tuxedo jacket, braid some chameleon tails (naturally lost, of course) in my hair, and peddle a unicycle around the dining room table. Okay, not really. But there was a time when I couldn’t write a word without a bowl of Crunchy M&Ms at my side. Imagine my dismay and horror when Mars discontinued them. It wasn’t pretty.

Now that I have two novels under my belt, what’s my course of action? Am I as shortsighted in my choices? Well, as long as Starbucks stays solvent, I should be okay. Five days a week, I pack up my purple Dell mini, my purple thumb drive, my “Working Writer’s Daily Planner” and my little stuffed guinea pig and head to the neighborhood Starbucks. I do not leave without the pig. Let me repeat. Do. Not. Forget. The. Pig.

There are two acceptable tables, the preferred one is next to the mug display. The computer goes in the middle of the table, the planner goes on the window ledge, and the pig goes on the right hand side of the computer, sitting on top of my phone. Centered on top of my phone. I order the same drink, grande Java Chip Frappacino with four pumps peppermint and six scoops chips, and that goes on the left hand side of the computer on a napkin. Then and only then am I ready to write.

I’m insecure and I need some validation. Surely I’m not the only person out there with so many, err, issues. Help Michelle feel better about herself. Share some craziness. (Talking about yourself in the third person is not a requirement.)

—

Reesa

It only stands to reason that since Michelle and I write the same stories, and work at the same time, we’d have similar writing jinxes. I don’t -need- a grande skim caramel macchiato to write, but I’m not saying I’d ever turn one down. As outlined above, I clearly have to jockey for space on the table, but I’ve been known to bring my own little touchstones with me, namely a squishy pineapple stress toy that feels nice and bumpy in my hand when I need a moment of clarity.
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Remember! Post a comment and be entered in the Mermaid Journal contest! ~DD

Short but Sexy

The short story is under-rated. When it’s good, it’s really good. A short story can pull you into its world within the first few lines, thrust you through intense drama and then surprise you at the end.

Examples of some hit short stories include Stephen King’s, The Stand, and 1408, both of which were made into hugely successful movies, and Edgar Allen Poe’s, The Pit and the Pendulum.

These days everything seems to want to be long. It’s as if some writers are in competition with each other, trying to see who can write the longest manuscript. But bigger doesn’t always mean better.

As author Mark Twain once famously wrote to his friend, ‘I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.’

In many ways, writing a short story is harder than writing a novel. There isn’t the opportunity to hope the reader falls in love with the characters within a few chapters. Instead, the character must be big enough to be believed in and adored within a few paragraphs. The story needs to have a plot and the characters need to have a past, but this information needs to be filtered in and not simply dumped in one big heap.

Writing erotic short stories is sometimes even harder than writing non-erotic stories. Of course, the sex is important. It has to be smoking hot and it needs to happen within a few pages. However, this doesn’t mean that the story itself should be lost, or that the characters have any less depth or background.

Generally my short stories start with a situation: a woman gets into difficulties while out for a swim in a rough ocean, a man returns to his parents home to find the girl next door is no longer a little girl, a business man is accosted by a hot air hostess while on a long haul flight. Once I’ve got the situation sorted out, then the characters start to build in my mind. I ask myself who they are, what are their likes and dislikes—their favourite foods and music—how do they like to dress? Then I start to look into their past. What has happened in their past to get them into their present situation?

I like to end my stories with a happy-ever-after or a happy-for-now ending, but my favourite type of ending is a twist, something even I didn’t see coming.

The great thing about a short story is that it has such immediate gratification, both for the writer and the reader. There isn’t the six months writing the first draft, followed by another six months of revisions, then another six months of submitting before you even hear something. Writing short stories are fun, and getting the acceptances are even better.

So get writing everyone. Craft your short stories with the love you give your novels, but remember if less has ever been more, it is certainly true in a short!

Author Bio:

M.K. Elliott is the author of the bestselling short story collection, Rescued. A British author, she was born in Devon, England, where she now lives with her husband, two young daughters, a crazy Spanish rescue dog and four hens. Though she has a degree in Zoology, her true love has always been writing and she now works as a full time author. M.K. writes everything from contemporary romance to steaming hot erotica, and her love of travel and adventure is her main influence in her stories.

Rescued is available to buy from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you would like to know more about M.K. then please visit her Facebook Page. Her short stories also appear in the Kindle blog and eBooks, Everything Erotic.

Desiree Holt is one of my favorite people. I met her when I lived in South Texas. Her appearance is deceptive. She looks sweet, like everyone’s favorite milk-and-cookies mama—until you get closer and note the maniacal gleam in her eyes.

I met her before she ever published and I had not idea she’d be such a powerhouse! I’m prolific, but she’s a human dynamo—and she just published her 100th book! Give her a warm welcome! ~DD

What do The Kingston Trio, Tex and I have in common?

The Kingston Trio recorded a centuries-old Irish air called The Gypsy Rover, about a whistling gypsy whose music is so seductive that the daughter of the castle’s lord runs from her home, her lover and her upcoming wedding to follow the gypsy rover. Her father “saddles his fastest steed and searches the valleys all over” in order to find her.

Texas is where I live-and breathe—so whenever possible I set my stories here. It seems the perfect backdrop for a story of a runaway bride, a wealthy and powerful rancher and a cowboy minstrel who isn’t quite what he seems. I love the song so much that I just had to write the story—and of course listen to the song while I was writing.

Buy it here: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9285-hard-lovin.aspx

Leave a comment and you might win a free ebook.

Erin Braddock, daughter of wealthy and powerful rancher Rance Braddock, has been to hell and back. So has wandering cowboy minstrel Grady Sinclair. But the moment they meet chemistry ignites between them, erasing everything else. The sex is scorching, explosive, addictive. They can’t get enough each other. The same talented fingers that coax seductive music from his guitar coax powerful orgasms from her body. Seduced by his music as well as the sinfully sexy man himself, Erin runs away with him. Nights she sits in the bar listening to his come-to-me voice promising her the erotic delights he delivers on when they’re back in their room. But will the past follow them or can they build a future together, in and out of bed?

Gypsy rover come over the hill, down through the valley so shady
He whistled and he sang til the greenwoods rang and he won the heart of a lady

Erin Braddock slipped into the dark bar through the back door, squinty against the darkness and found her way to a tiny booth in the corner. The area was so small a second person would be hard pressed to find room in the space but that suited her just fine. She hadn’t come here looking for company. Unless it was the cowboy up on the postage stamp sized stage, alone in the spotlight with his guitar and his smoky voice. Ebony black hair curled down to the nape of his neck and a work shirt and worn jeans clung to his lean body like a second skin. The muscles in his arm flexed as he picked at the strings of the guitar, coaxing a tune from it.
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The Mermaid Journal contest continues! Post a comment today for another chance to win! ~DD

Thanks so much for having me, Delilah!

My May release Past Midnight is the first book in my sexy new DeKnight Trilogy from Berkley Heat. It’s the emotional tale of a couple who had the perfect life until they lost their son, and their struggle to find each other again. Here’s a brief blurb.

A devastating blow rocked Erin and Dominic DeKnight’s marriage, and now only extreme sexual games can soothe their emotional pain. But their most daring erotic adventure is just ahead, and it could ultimately destroy everything they hoped to save.

When I tell people that I do research for my erotic romances, they always think I mean sex research! No! I have a very vivid imagination for that. Though I write contemporary erotic romance, my characters can’t be having sex all the time. There’s got to be a story, too! My editor loves what she calls my “business” books. I’m an accountant by training, and I spent 20 years working in Silicon Valley, so I love incorporating that business world into my stories (see, there is more than sex!). The Fortune Hunter trilogy was set in a mining equipment company. And the background for the DeKnight trilogy is a small company which manufactures ultrasonic testing gauges. You see, Erin and Dominic own this firm together. In order to give my readers a real feel, I interviewed my neighbor, Teresa. She and her husband own a company very similar to DeKnight Gauges, Inc. It’s just amazing what ideas come when you simply listen to people talk about what they do. I have to thank Teresa for giving the story direction from the business point of view, helping me add a little corporate intrigue (stolen patents). The other two books in the trilogy will center on two of their employees, one their accountant (or course), and the other a single mother reentering the work world after a divorce.

Research doesn’t stop with the business side of things. I sent Erin and Dominic on a train ride, and in order to get those details correct, I took a trip on Amtrak’s Zephyr from San Francisco to Reno. My family went with me, and we had a great time. I was able to get all the details I needed, including a tour of the sleeping car given to me by a helpful porter.

This past weekend, I went to Las Vegas, again with my family, to research a trip my lovers take in the third book of the DeKnight trilogy, Anything Goes After Hours. My mother said I made her walk 9 miles so I could take photos of the Grand Canal in the Venetian, the indoor Paris cityscape, the Bellagio’s conservatory, and much much more. She drew the line at going on the roller coaster in New York New York, though. We did see “Menopause, The Musical” at the Luxor. Mom adored it!

So just because I write erotic romance, don’t think I skimp on the research! The truth is research actually helps shape the story, taking me in directions I wouldn’t have thought of without it.

Past Midnight is available online and in local your bookstore and also in e-format, Kindle and Nook. Book 2, What Happens After Dark will be out in Nov 2011 and Book 3, Anything Goes After Hours will be coming in April 2012. Don’t miss an excerpt.

I also invite readers to visit my website, www.jasminehaynes.com, and my blog, www.jasminehaynes.blogspot.com. I’m currently doing a free read on the blog, a chapter a week of Kinky Neighbors, a naughty little foursome tale.

The Voodoo Doll contest continues! Post a comment today for another chance to win!

I’M NOT MY CHARACTERS BUT MY CHARACTERS MAY BE PEOPLE

by Cat Johnson

There’s been some noise in the romance community lately which only reinforces my opinion that non-writers truly do believe erotic romance authors are—or at least do all the things their book characters do. Of course that’s ridiculous. First of all, unlike my heroine in UNRIDDEN where in New York State just an hour from Manhattan am I finding bull riders to have threesomes with when I rarely leave my PJs or my laptop long enough to go out and buy food for my family? Second, if I wrote murder mysteries would they assume I was killing people for research? Of course not, but apparently researching sex scenes is a different story in people’s minds.

So no, I am not my characters, however my characters are often people. Not verbatim but at least in part based on or inspired by real people. Case in point Jared, the hero of my latest release of the same name, the fourth book in the Red, Hot & Blue series with Samhain Publishing.

Jared was written into JACK (Book 2) and JIMMY (Book 3) in the Red, Hot & Blue series as a side character, the younger brother of SpecOps Jack and Jimmy Gordon who chose his first love, horses, and stayed home to run the family breeding farm while his brothers were off saving the world in the military.

Writing the character of Jared was a pleasure. I mean, who doesn’t love a man who loves horses? And the image of him working his farm, shirtless and glistening in sweat, wearing not much more than cowboy boots and jeans, is pretty nice too.

So who inspired Jared, you may ask, since I already confessed I don’t get out all that much. It was the son of the farmer who delivers my hay. See! I didn’t even have to leave home to find him. Gotta love when characters fall in your lap like that. Seeing that hay truck pull up with 200 plus bales stacked high and tight, and the farmer’s son jumping up on top of all that hay to fling the bales (weighing at least 30 lbs each) two at a time through the hay door high up in the wall of my barn, was some nice inspiration.

If I didn’t have to stack those bales once they hit the floor inside I would have just stood and ogled him. I guess I did pay too much attention to the vision since I nearly got pummeled by a few bales flying in from above when I wasn’t paying attention. It was a bit like that game Frogger but I didn’t write that part into my story. In the book the heroine isn’t sweaty, hacking and covered in dust like I was. Oh no, my heroine gets to enjoy the scene from afar. See how we authors create a fantasy from the facts? You’re welcome! LOL.

Anyway, I know what some people are thinking about me and the farmer’s son all alone and sweaty on my 5 acre farm—but no I was not alone here with the farmer’s son. His dad was here too, helping stack those bales and huffing and puffing pretty heavily, enough to make me wonder if I still remembered my CPR training. You see the son was here because his dad had recently had a heart attack. But when you make a living being a farmer, you’re back on the horse—or the hay truck—or you don’t pay the bills. So there you have it, life is not nearly as nice and clean or hot and sexy and we write it, and aren’t you grateful for authors taking those liberties.

Cat Johnson
www.catjohnson.net

Check out the newly released JARED (Red, Hot & Blue, Book 4) available in eBook now.

Everything is just right…until she turns his life upside down.

It doesn’t take anything fancy to make Jared Gordon a happy man. A slice of his mama’s pie, a pretty girl, a well-bred horse. Life on the farm is just how he likes it. Simple. Until a big city girl blows into town like a tornado hitting a trailer park.

Quintessentially small-town Pigeon Hollow has everything LA producer Mandy Morris needs for her new reality show. A smoldering deputy sheriff, a quirky diner owner and a horse farm complete with a hunky horseman. If her own instant attraction is any indication, Jared will have the female demographic glued to their sets.

Except the red-hot cowboy is cool to the idea of cameras in his face. And the harder she negotiates, the deeper he digs in…until their head-butting strikes sparks that fans a prairie fire of unexpected passion. She doesn’t usually mix business with pleasure, but as Pigeon Hollow’s charm works its magic, the youngest Gordon brother has Mandy rethinking many things.

Like happiness doesn’t have to end with the word “cut.”

Warning: Contains one hot shirtless cowboy taking a city girl for a roll in the hay…and a few other places.
This book has been previously published and has been revised from its original release.

Branded

The concept for Stormy Wedding was simple. Ellora’s Cave put a shout out about their new Branded line of erotic stories. Branded is a series of erotic tales set within the confines of a marriage.

One of my pet peeves about romance is that the story ends when the marriage begins. And that is where I began my story…at the end…with the wedding. My first-ever erotic story starts at the rehearsal dinner of a wedding and ends in bed. In between dinner and bed, a storm rages outside the wedding venue while a tempest of passion erupts inside.

Why Branded? According to my handy dandy dictionary, branded means (1) a mark burned with a hot iron, as upon cattle, to show ownership. Ouch! And may I say, double ouch. And not the image I want to portray. (2) A trade-mark to show quality or kind. I like that better. (3) To impress deeply upon mind or memory. I like that best. But I do still hear the sizzle of that hot iron, which isn’t all bad.

What do you think? Does the romance and passion end when the vows are said? Feel free to tell me about your wedding, your wedding disaster or your dream wedding. Leave me a comment and email address and I’ll put you in a drawing for a free e-copy of Stormy Wedding or a deck or Ellora’s Cave playing cards. And don’t forget to check out the other Branded titles at Ellora’s Cave. To read an excerpt pop over to my blog: www.kelliscottbooks.blogspot.com

Today’s the last day of the Dark Fairy contest! Post a comment today to win!