Plot Monkeys

MySpace Graphics and Myspace Layouts at pYzam.com

OK, everyone knows Janelle has been through a lot this year, what with the stress of moving, finding a new house, putting her things in storage, uprooting herself from a place she’s lived for so long. And now that she’s happily settled in Oregon, we thought we’d throw her a special birthday celebration, starting with:

Glitter Graphics & Comments

OK now that the preliminaries are out of the way, let’s get down to PARTYING! I know Janelle had to move all that furniture in the house, especially her daughters’ furniture … twice! So here’s the man who’s going to give you a full body massage! As you can see, he’s hot, sexy and extremely muscular. Definitely up for the job. But since he’s taking off his pants, he may be looking for a little something … extra! Hey wait! Who’s happy ending is this all about, anyway?

Next up, the man who will be at your disposal all day. Need a ride to the store? Or just want to hang out with him in the sun? He’ll take you anywhere you want to go! If this is what he looks like worn out, I’d like to see him when he arrives at your front door raring to go!

So the Plotmonkeys got together and decided Janelle can be a little … shall we say exuberant on her birthday, so we chipped in and added another guy. Just in case the first one wasn’t completely up to the task! Wow, Janelle, you’re one lucky girl!

OK it killed Carly to share this one. He’s on her “hero” board in her office, you know. But the Plotmonkeys are nothing if not generous to their own … So at your BECK and call - get it? BECK?

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, so we’ll leave Janelle with the best birthday wishes for a very special person we all love dearly!

And for those of you at work, you MIGHT want to wait until you get home to click under the tuck here…
(more…

Hello from San Francisco, everyone! To celebrate our trip, we’re offering this VERY fun, very adorable Alcatraz gift basket!

This week’s winner of the Bath & Body Works package is…

#84, Yolanda!!!

Drop me an email Yolanda with your home address & phone number and I’ll get it out to you right away.

And this week, instead of a funny, I decided to provide a link to one of those really annoying math tests that always work, even though I can never figure out how.

7-up quiz

I know there’s a logical way this works…I just have no idea what it is!

Since we’re all gearing up to go to the RWA conference in San Francisco next month, I thought I’d offer something special that I can pick up there. So here’s the deal–I’ll get the winner autographed copies of two books from your favorite author(s) participating in the July 30 signing. Plus I’ll throw in a backlist title of my own.

A few rules: The winner will have to provide me with a few names to choose from in case an author doesn’t attend or runs out of books. And you have to choose names from the list of authors participating, which can be found here.

I will try to honor requests for specific books but since I won’t know for sure which books the author will be signing, I can’t make any promises.

And the books have to be mass market paperbacks (no hard covers or trade.)

I’ll send the books to you in August after I return from RWA.

You know what to do–just comment and you’re entered! Good luck!

Time for a Jungle Celebration…it’s Carly’s Birthday!!

And as such, we have a very special message from Carly’s mom:

Carly was born on a hot evening in July, a full two months ahead of schedule. Luckily for us, our tiny two pound, fourteen ounce daughter was ready to be born. She had all her fingernails and eyelashes. The only thing missing was her full body weight. We worried anyway. By the time she was ten months old, she caught up and was doing everything.

Mom and Dad

Pass the Kleenex!

As many of you might know, Carly is a 1965′er (as are Leslie, Julie and Janelle…and a few jungle friends around here. Jodie?) Anyway, we thought it might be fun to take a look at what the world was like on the day Carly was born.

First, some tidbits from www.paulsadowski.com (If you get a chance, go enter your own birthdate and share some fun details!)

*Your date of conception was on or about 14 October 1964 which was a Wednesday. Actually, we now know Carly was a preemie, so it was probably a bit after this!

*You were born on a Wednesday under the astrological sign Cancer.

*Your fortune cookie reads:
Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals.

*Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/2/1965 and ending 1/20/1966. You were born in the Chinese year of the Snake.

*Your Native American Zodiac sign is Woodpecker; your plant is Wild Rose.

*Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 7 Tammuz 5725. Or if you were born after sundown then the date is 8 Tammuz 5725.

*The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.17.11.15.4 which is 12 baktun 17 katun 11 tun 15 uinal 4 kin

* The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Monday, 27 September 1965. The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Saturday, 17 April 1965.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Michelle Kwan (1980) Cree Summer (1969) Shelley Duvall (1949) Ringo Starr (1940) Doc Severinsen (1927) Pierre Cardin (1922) Robert Heinlein (1907)

Top songs of 1965

*Satisfaction by Rolling Stones
*Yesterday by Beatles
*Turn! Turn! Turn! by Byrds
*Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter by Herman’s Hermits
*I Got You Babe by Sonny & Cher
*Help! by Beatles

*Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 6.146771037182 years old. (You’re still chasing cats!)

*Your lucky day is Monday. (Ha! Blog day!)

*Your lucky number is 2 & 7.

*Your ruling planet(s) is Moon.

*Your lucky dates are 1st, 10th, 19th, 28th.

*Your opposition sign is Capricorn.

*On your birthday cake you will have 43 candles. Those 43 candles produce 43 BTUs, or 10,836 calories of heat (that’s only 10.8360 food Calories!) You can boil 4.91 US ounces of water with that many candles.

*Your birthstone is Ruby–Ruby is said to open one’s heart to love.

*Your birth tree is Fir Tree, the Mysterious: Extraordinary taste, dignity, cultivated airs, loves anything beautiful, moody, stubborn, tends to egoism but cares for those close to it,rather modest, very ambitious, talented, industrious uncontent lover, many friends, many foes, very reliable.

*On the day you were born, the moon looked like this:

Now we couldn’t have a birthday celebration without a few hunks…these were some of the hot guys of that year. (Isn’t it fabulous how men looked like MEN in those days? Sexy!)

(Anybody know who all these sexy guys are?)

Carly we all love you and hope you have an absolutely wonderful birthday!

We are so happy to have the fabulously talented Diana Peterfreund in the jungle today! Diana is a terrific writer who has achieved great success with her Secret Society Girl series for Bantam Dell. Her first book SECRET SOCIETY GIRL was followed by UNDER THE ROSE and RITES OF SPRING (Break), which was just released this month.

Diana has been a costume designer, a cover model, and a food critic. Her travels have taken her from the cloud forests of Costa Rica to the underground caverns of New Zealand (and as far as she’s concerned, she’s just getting started). Diana graduated from Yale University in 2001 with dual degrees in Literature and Geology, which her family claimed would only come in handy if she wrote books about rocks. Now, this Florida girl lives with her husband in Washington D.C., and writes books that rock.

Please welcome Diana Peterfreund!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Changing it Up

My third book, Rites of Spring (Break), is on shelves now. I know I’ve blogged on Plotmonkeys before about “writing romances that aren’t romances” but I’ve got to tell you: this one will please the romance fans. In fact, if I had to pick a genre for this book other than chick lit, other than comedy, that genre would be romantic suspense. Straight-up woman-in-jeopardy, relationship-in-the-balance romantic suspense. Enjoy.

The real challenge for me in writing Rites of Spring (Break) was not the romance (no, those two were like magnets), but rather, taking the entire story to a different setting. For two books, Eli University and its distinctive architecture, mysterious buildings, secret rooms, and rarefied culture provided not only a setting for my books, but a mood, a tone, and a heck of a lot of atmosphere. The windowless, clubhouse “tomb” the society meets in is practically a character itself. What would I do without Eli? Would my story survive? Would my heroine, Amy?

My editor and I had several conversations about my plans to take the characters away from their home base. We were both excited about the idea, and joked about calling it “Secret Society Girl: The Hawaii Episode” after the old Saved by the Bell series. (It was a step up from the title I’d been jokingly tossing around: Secret Society Girls Gone Wild). But whether I set the book in the gothic-towered, ivy-covered environs of Eli, on a half-wild tropical island, or on the surface of the moon, it still had to be a secret society girl book.

I’m one of those people who love settings. No, I don’t write pages and pages about the flora and fauna sprouting up around my characters (Hello, my beloved Jean M. Auel!), but I adore it when the setting of a book is an intricate part of the story itself. Where the story couldn’t take place anywhere else but, say, Leslie Kelly’s Christmas town or the haunted Isla de Fantasmas in Julie Leto’s Phantom books. In fact, the first books I ever read by Carly Phillips and Janelle Denison were from the Harlequin Temptation “Fantasies, Inc.” series, which are about secret trips to a wonderful island in Florida where the heroines fall in love. (I know, old school. I’ve still got them.)

Inspiration, much?

So the challenge was to make my island, Cavador Key (points to anyone who figures out why I call it that), every bit as engaging and unforgettable as Eli University. A real trick, considering I stole Eli, lock, stock, and gothic towers, from my own alma mater, Yale. Cavador I made up. These were the guidelines I followed:

No need to jump in the deep end:
If you read the excerpt, you can see that I did not start the book on the tropical, sun-drenched island depicted on the cover. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. The first time we see Amy, she’s bundled from head to toe (including a ski mask) and lying in the frozen slush in an alley at Eli University. I start the story with one of the oldest of all secret society traditions: playing pranks on another society. Not only do you see the familiar environment of Eli – but you see a part of it that’s utterly new.

Embrace the difference:
Since Cavador Key was so very different from Eli, I decided to take the opportunity to emphasize that fact and make it part of the story. The lush resort that my main character is expecting? Not so much. She doesn’t have the high class, old-world environment she’s used to from the secret society’s property in Connecticut. Instead, what she gets is run-down beach shacks and cabins. (Of course, some of the people on the island think of them as their own personal palaces…) Whether or not the characters can operate with the same sense of ceremony and formality as they do when they are not on Spring Break forms a central motif of the story. Who are the Diggers when they aren’t at Eli? Since most of my main characters are about to leave for good, it’s a question very much on everyone’s mind.

Use the tone, don’t lose the tone:
You can take the members of Rose & Grave out of their tomb, but you can’t take Rose & Grave out of the members. Even at a rustic beachfront getaway, my secret society types are still secret society types. Amy’s propensity for seeing the suspicious and creepy everywhere she turns has not faded, even when she’s staying on a gorgeous, tropical island:

_______________
I was practically running by the time I reached the compound yard. Yellow lights shone from all the windows of the main house, from the boys’ cabin, and even from a tiny porch light over the entrance to the tomb. Salt hadn’t turned off the generators yet, but the shower house was dark. Natch.

A figure stepped from the shadows. “I know.”____________

Three simple rules. I hope the readers of the series enjoy visiting Cavador Key as much as I enjoyed creating it, and think it’s worthy of it’s position as a property of the mighty, notorious Rose & Grave.

Thanks so much for having me, Plotmonkeys!

You’re very welcome Diana–and thanks for being here–we love having you! — Julie, Carly, Janelle & Leslie

Diana has generously offered to give one lucky winner a copy of Rites of Spring (Break). A winner will be randomly drawn from all commenters.

Debut author Jill Sorenson, whose first book DANGEROUS TO TOUCH is being released by Silhouette Suspense this month lives in San Diego with her husband and two young daughters. Born in a small town in Kansas, she has never lost her fascination for Southern California culture, her appreciation for year-round sunshine, or her love for the Pacific Ocean.

Jill has always been a voracious reader, especially of romance. She picked up one of her mom’s Harlequins at age eleven and fell in love with the genre at first sight. After earning a degree in literature and a bilingual teaching credential from California State University, she decided teaching wasn’t her cup of tea. She started writing one day while her firstborn was taking a nap and hasn’t stopped since.

Please welcome Jill!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Anatomy of a Love Scene

Thanks so much to the wonderful ladies at Plotmonkeys for having me as a guest today. I’m so excited to be here, discussing my favorite subject!

Being a debut author (my first book is in stores now),
I can’t say I’m an expert on writing, but I’ve been reading romance for about twenty years. When I was eleven, Sweet Dreams owned me. At twelve, I discovered Silhouette Intimate Moments, in which the characters actually consummated the relationship! I was confused, exhilarated, and hooked. For life.
Love scenes are my favorite part of romance, and I think most authors agree they can be hard to nail (pun intended). What I enjoy as a reader, and struggle to achieve as a writer, is a high level of sensuality, lots of emotion, and a touch of realism.

I’ve tried to break down the key ingredients to a love scene and have included lots of examples. Feel free to share your thoughts or ask a question in the comments section below.

· Make It Emotional

First of all, love scenes are about emotion. Whether it’s a sweet kiss that fades to black in an inspirational or a hot threesome from an erotic romance, if the characters don’t care about each other, I don’t care about them. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with meaningless sex, in real life or in fiction, but when I read a romance, I want tingly sensations in more than just my girl parts. I want to feel it in my heart and believe it in my head. Your characters don’t have to be in love the first time they fall into bed together, but if they aren’t headed that way, something important is missing.

· Make It Sensual

What’s sexier than the taste of a man’s skin, the feel of his muscles beneath your fingertips, or his unique masculine scent? Whether the heroine is turned on by the hero’s hot, sweaty bod, the way he kisses her, or even the smell of his deodorant (I like my husband’s Old Spice), love is about chemistry. And chemistry is about the five senses. With all that blood rushing south, it’s easy to forget that the largest sensory organ is the skin, and that the whisper of silk can be just as effective as a stroking hand.

Carly Phillips’ The Bachelor illustrates my point perfectly. Who could forget the crocheted panties? Not only is it a striking visual, the way the lingerie is, um, utilized in the scene is unforgettable. As readers, we understand what the garment reveals and conceals, we can imagine how it would feel against our bodies, and we know how excited the hero is by the sight of the heroine wearing it. With a little scrap of fabric, Phillips adds texture to a sexy, richly layered scene.

· Make It Memorable

Sex in real life doesn’t always involve singing angels and fireworks. Even in a romance novel, your characters don’t have to feel the earth move every time. Some of the most memorable love scenes, in my opinion, happen when everything goes wrong. Take Jennie Crusie’s Faking It, for example. True to the title, the heroine fakes it the first time she’s with the hero, and he knows! The second time they get together is only marginally better. When things finally go right for these two characters in bed, the scene is explosive. Crusie builds up the tension to a boiling point, not by withholding sex, but by withholding good sex.

· Make It Unusual
This sounds like the same point I just made, but it bears repeating. Perfect is boring. Simultaneous orgasm is unlikely. Well-endowed heroes are…never mind that. I have no problem with well-endowed heroes. Romance novels are full of clichés, and that’s fine by me. Give me a Regency rake, a Navy SEAL, or a kick-ass vampire slayer. But find a way to make them, and their bedroom antics, unique.

In Elizabeth Hoyt’s The Raven Prince, for example, the pair of lovers enjoy several decadent nights together in a brothel, sharing everything but a kiss on the lips. The lady hides her identity with a mask, and although he thinks her a stranger and refuses her this one intimacy, the scenes are far from cold.

Linda Howard, another one of my favorite authors, also knows how to change it up. In All the Queen’s Men, hero John Medina is a legendary CIA agent, a man with no identity and (seemingly) no vulnerabilities. During a deadly undercover mission, he and the heroine are almost caught snooping in an upstairs room. To cover, they jump into bed together and pretend to have sex. Only they don’t pretend. When the couple gets a chance to do it again, in more relaxed circumstances, he’s just as rushed.

He buried his head against her shoulder, shuddering with relief as if he couldn’t have borne another moment unconnected to her.

She smoothed her hands down his back, feeling the powerful muscles rippling under his skin. “There’s a concept I want to introduce you to,” she murmured. “It’s called foreplay.”

Ha! I love that line. A typical romantic hero always takes his time, but John Medina, the untouchable agent, loses control whenever he touches the heroine, and his lack of finesse is an endearing vulnerability.

· Keep It Real

We all know that in romance novels, men are never selfish, quick on the trigger, or inept. Virginal heroines are able to achieve multiple orgasms after a painless penetration. Birdies tweet and the heavens weep. It’s a wonderful, wonderful life.

But would you rather get real? Gritty realism isn’t appropriate for every book, author, or situation, but if you’re aiming for an edgier scenario, that’s your prerogative these days. And like I said, perfect can be boring.

I have to return to Linda Howard, because she does imperfection so well. In Kiss Me While I Sleep, the heroine has been on a dark vendetta for several years, and it’s been a long while since she’s indulged in a physical relationship. Her first time with the hero, she has trouble “going with the moment.” When she’s finally ready for him, orgasm is elusive. The scene works especially well because the heroine’s world is full of danger, distrust, and intrigue. She suspects the hero is an undercover agent—and he is—so although she can’t resist him, she has trouble surrendering herself completely.

In Cover of Night, the hero and heroine are tucked into a nook in the side of a cliff, waiting for daylight before they begin to climb again. He’s been in love with her for several years and this may be his only chance to show her how he feels. They make love twice, and although he can’t finish the second time, it doesn’t seem to bother him. Her pleasure doesn’t just take precedence—it is the only consideration. I love Linda Howard for challenging the myth that sex is over when the man finds his release.

· Don’t Forget Your Characters

I can’t stress this point enough: characters are the most important ingredient in a love scene. Unique, well-developed characters don’t shed their personalities along with their clothes. Does your heroine break out into giggles at inappropriate moments? Does she have trouble letting go or is she wild and uninhibited? Is she an investment accountant who thinks numbers are sexy?

A love scene isn’t just a chance for two willing partners to get busy, it’s an opportunity to develop your characters. Here’s a great example from my favorite romance novel ever, Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Dream a Little Dream. One of the secondary characters, Ethan, is a small-town reverend with an eye for the ladies and an ear for rock-n-roll music. He’s taken a vow of celibacy, and honored it, but when his church secretary gets a sexy makeover, his strength is sorely tested:

He leaned forward and kissed her. A pity kiss. A healing kiss. All better.

And then something inexplicable happened. As he felt those soft lips move beneath his own, the world split open and music exploded in his head, not Handel choruses or Puccini operas, but the raw shriek of dirty, sweaty, throbbing, feel-her-up, toss-her-down, come-on, come-on, Come On Baaaaby! rock ‘n’ roll.

Ethan Bonner’s faith, and his love for rock music, is part of who he is as a man. These traits don’t disappear during this kiss—they magnify.

· I Could Go On Forever

But I won’t. I get so excited talking about love scenes! They’re my favorite part of romance, whether I’m reading or writing.

For further reading, I recommend Alison Kent’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance.

Alison gives great advice for writing any kind of romance, and her insight into the genre is excellent. If I borrowed any of her words or ideas in this entry, it was inadvertent.

Questions for readers and writers:

What’s your favorite love scene? Which authors do you find edgy or innovative? Do you like realism in romance, or do you think it belongs in another genre?

We are so excited to have the fabulous TONI BLAKE (aka Lacey Alexander) with us in the jungle today!

We all know Toni from our days writing together for Harlequin Temptation. From her start with Kensington’s Precious Gems line, Toni has gained a reputation for writing sweet-and-sexy romances. She has gone on to become a very popular contemporary single-title author for Avon, NAL/Signet Eclipse and Warner Books, loved by readers and reviewers alike. “Toni Blake never fails to provide readers with a captivating story (and) intriguing characters.” — Romance Junkies “Tempt Me Tonight evokes delicious memories of steamy nights spent discovering young love, and invites one to feel what it’d be like to make up for lost time with the “sexy one that got away.” ~Michelle Buonfiglio, LifetimeTV.com

(PS: I’m genuinely honored to be a co-nominee for the RWA RITA Award with this fabulously talented author! –Leslie)

Take it away, Toni!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

HELLO, I’M A SENSUAL CREATOR – WHO ARE YOU?

By Toni Blake

I was recently talking with a friend who is a branding coach about my professional “brand”. And if you’re not familiar with the term “branding,” my friend Jenn Stark defines it as a “brief, memorable statement that identifies you to your audience.” Branding is something authors – and all sorts of professional people – sometimes use to make sure they’re advertising their work in an accurate, consistent way.

One piece of branding, however, is what Jenn calls a “core brand,” which is more personal than professional – it’s something everyone has, and it’s “the brand you express to yourself,” or which really catches “the essence of you.” When Jenn and I worked on determining my core brand, who I really am at heart, we eventually reached a two-word definition: sensual creator.

Why? Well, because I create. Not just books, mind you, but also quilts, wall-hangings, scrapbooks, counted cross-stitch, the occasional wood craft or website, etc. Creating something where there was nothing before is simply what brings me the most satisfaction in life.

And, of course, if you’ve read my books, the “sensual” part won’t surprise you – I write very sexy and atmospheric books, and in pretty much every facet of my life, I’m very emotional and thrive on “touching” – and not just in a, um, romantic way (although I do like to touch my husband a lot ; ) ) but I often find myself touching things like leaves, fabrics, rocks; pretty much anything that I expect to feel “interesting” draws my touch.

Only today, however, as I sat down to write this blog did I realize that many of my main characters are also “creators.” I never planned this, but I suppose when I’m writing characters that come from my heart, the creativity aspect comes naturally as part of who they are.

In my new release, LETTERS TO A SECRET LOVER, Rob works in construction, but in his personal time is a wood-carver. And Lindsey, the heroine, is a Carrie Bradshaw type who expresses herself through a fun blog and advice column, but by the time the story is over, she’s also creating entirely new things – and the woman she looks up to throughout the book, her Aunt Millie, was also creative in numerous ways. All that said, the book isn’t at all about creativity – it’s about forgiveness and trust and second chances, (and, yeah, it’s about sex, too ; ) ) – but the creativity part just worked its way in, like usual, without my ever intending it to.

So my question for you today is: What do you create? You might be a classic “crafty gal,” or perhaps an aspiring writer, or maybe creativity enters your life through your job or your kids’ activities. Whatever it is, I’d love to hear about it. And why do you create? I can’t really describe the satisfaction creating things brings me, but I’d love to hear about it from your point of view.

I’m also open to chatting about pretty much anything else – LETTERS TO A SECRET LOVER (which you can learn more about at www.ToniBlake.com), branding, reading, shoes and purses, my recent trip to Italy, you name it ; ) So please chime in!

Want a chance to win a copy of Toni’s super-steamy Avon Red release SWEPT AWAY?
Just leave a comment and a winner will be drawn at random tonight!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oh, and while Toni’s here…TA DUM! The world premiere of our new featurette. Check it out!
(More on this video and a visit from the fabulous authors who made it next Tuesday!)

PS: Blake…you wanna go? Do ya?

The winner of this week’s “Fifth Friday” contest is:

DENA! Message # 47!

Congratulations!

Please send Julie an email with your full name and snail mail address. julie at julieleto dot com (you know, put it all together… )

Now, this made all of us laugh…

Toilet Cleaning Instructions

1. Put both lids of the toilet up and add 1/8 cup of pet shampoo to the water in the bowl.

2. Pick up the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.

3. In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids.. You may need to stand on the lid.

4. The cat will self agitate and make ample suds. Never mind the noises that come from the toilet, the cat is actually enjoying this.

5. Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a ‘power-wash and rinse. ‘

6. Have someone open the front door of your home. Be sure that there are no people between the bathroom and the front door.

7. Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.

8. The cat will rocket out of the toilet, streak through the bathroom, and run outside where he will dry himself off.

9. Both the commode and the cat will be sparkling clean.

Sincerely,
The Dog