Plot Monkeys

I hope you’ll all forgive me as I “cheat” for my blog today and I give you a little bit of “this” and a little bit of “that”. Honestly, this past week for me has been insane and I’m brain dead and I just can’t come up with a clever topic. Last week Don had major foot surgery on his OTHER foot, so he’s in a cast from his toes up to his knee and I’m running him around to doctor appointments and overall just being his maid since he’s immobile. During all this, I’ve been having problems with my teeth and I’m going in on Friday for THREE root canals. Then bone graphing that needs to be done as a result of a tooth infection that raged out of control and destroyed a good amount of the bone around these three teeth.

So, I did come up with a few things to post today, and for me it was all “no-brainer” stuff so I didn’t have to think!

First off, I wanted to announce the winners of Jaci Burton’s contest last week! We loved having her here as a guest blogger! The winners need to contact her directly at jaci@jaciburton.com with your mailing addresses.

Ardie (Comment #29) Surviving Demon Island
Jeannie & Zoey (Comment #34) Wild Wicked & Wanton

Now, for a bit of shameless bragging. I just recently found out from Night Owl Romance that BORN TO BE WILDE was selected as a finalist for their NOR Award for Best Print Contemporary Romance. I’m up against some great competition — some of which are MY favorite authors! Anyway, the cool thing about this contest is that the general reading public votes on all the categories. So, go and vote on your favorite books and authors here: Night Owl Romance NOR Awards

Recently I did an interview for Just Erotic Romance Reviews and realized that it’s been a very long time since I’d done an indepth interview for anyone, and the person interviewing me asked some great questions. So, I thought it would be fun to share it here — and hopefully some of you will learn something new about me that you’d never known before.

Interview with Janelle Denison:

Q: When did you start writing seriously in order to become published? Did you always want to be a writer?

A: First I do have to say that I didn’t grow up wanting to be a writer. In fact, high school English was one of my worst subjects. I hated it! So, writing for a living never crossed my mind. It wasn’t until after I was married and I started reading romance novels that I realized how much I enjoyed them. At the time, I was reading a good 20 books a month, and my husband made the comment that since I liked reading romance novels so much why didn’t I try writing one? So, I did. That was nearly 20 years ago!

Q: How long did it take you to have your first book submission contracted?

A: It took me a good six years of writing before my first book was contracted. That first book was THE FAMILY MAN, written under the name Danielle Kelly, and was a short novella published by Harlequin. It took me another three years after that to sell my second book, HEAVEN’S GIFT to Leisure publishing, and yet another three years after that to sell my first Temptation, PRIVATE PLEASURES, back in 1997. Luckily, I’ve been selling my books steadily every since then.

Q: What motivated you to make the transition from series romance to mainstream? Was that something you had planned to do or did it just happen.i.e. You got the sort of offer that no author can refuse?

A: I did not make the transition from series romance to mainstream single titles easily. I know a big part of me would have been very happy to continue writing category romances, because I knew my genre and there was a certain sense of comfort writing what I knew best. But when Kensington started publishing stories for their erotic romance line, Brava, I submitted a novella idea and they bought it. From there, they wanted more stories from me, and asked me to write single titles. Yikes! I took the plunge and signed a two-book contract to write two single title Bravas, the first of which became the first of my Wilde books, WILDE THING.

Q: Have you always written romance?

A: Yes. I’m a romance purist. I look books with romantic elements and that end with a happy ending. I can’t imagine writing anything else.

Q: Have you considered writing any other category of romance i.e. paranormal, or are you perfectly happy where you are?

A: At the moment, I’m perfectly happy writing my contemporary romances, even as the paranormal market is flourishing all around me. I do enjoy reading a paranormal romance every once in a while, but when I think about writing one I’m very intimidated by the talent already out there. I’m a very linear writer – I find it hard to think in terms of creating new worlds and breeds. I have a lot of respect for authors who can do that, and do it well.

However, that being said, I have written one paranormal romance during my writing career, and that was HEAVEN’S GIFT, which is a story about an angel who comes down from heaven to protect her childhood sweetheart. It was published back in 1995 and is now out of print, but I’d love to see it back in print some day. I loved writing that story, but I don’t see myself writing any more paranormals.

Q: What do you like best about being a writer?

A: The thing I love the most about being a writer is that is has enabled me to be a stay at home mom with my two daughters. When I first started writing I had to work a full-time job (California’s cost of living is horrendous!), and that meant my kids were in daycare. I wrote at night when they were in bed, and after selling my 5th book and my writing career was on a steady rise, I made the decision to quit my day job and focus on writing full-time while raising my girls. At the time, they were 4 and 6 years old, and now they’re 15 and 17! Where has the time gone? I love that I’ve been able to be home for them for the past 11 years.

Q: How do you go about writing your books? Do you fly by the seat of your pants or do you outline your story first before writing?

A: I’m an “outline” type of writer. I need to know my characters, their conflicts, and the plot before I can start writing. I need to know that I DO have a story before I start writing it. When I write a synopsis of the story, it’s at least 12-15 pages long. If it’s any shorter, I’m afraid I won’t have enough story to fill 400 pages! That said, there have been times in writing a book that it’s taken a different direction than I’d anticipated, and in that case I do write by the seat of my pants. But not often!

Q: How long would you say that it takes for you to complete a book?

A: When I was writing category romances (Temptation/Blazes), it took me about 3 months to write a book. Now it takes me about 6 months to write a 400 page manuscript. I’ve published over 40 books, and I have to say that with each book that I write, it gets harder, not easier, and as a result it takes more time to write books!

Q: Describe a day in your life.

A: It’s very boring and mundane, LOL. My kids are out the door to go to school by 7:30 AM. I usually head into my office at that time (with coffee!), and check email, cruise the internet, or call Carly to chat. I get writing related stuff done (interviews, blogs, promotion, etc.), and like to settle into writing at about 10 AM. If I’m lucky, I can write until 2 PM when my girls get home, but the bad part about being a stay-at-home wife and mother is the fact that I’m HOME, and that makes it easy for me to get distracted from writing. Not a good thing, LOL! From 2-6 PM I spend with my girls. My husband is home from work about then so we eat dinner, watch a few TV shows together, and once the kids are in bed and my husband is doing his thing on the internet, I’ll head back into my office to try and get more work done. See, I truly live a normal, boring life!

Q: What has been, so far, the highlight of your career as a writer?

A: Being a RITA finalist was pretty exciting, and winning the National Reader’s Choice Award ranks pretty high, too. And of course selling my first book and making USA Today with my first single title. But ultimately, the highlight of my career has been being contracted and published by Berkley Books. They are a fabulous publisher and I love my editor, Cindy Hwang. I’m precisely where I want to be in terms of a publisher.

Q: How did your idea for the highly popular Wilde series come to be? Was it something that you had been mulling about, did someone suggest it to you? How did it all happen?

A: When Brava contracted me for my first two single titles, I knew I wanted to write about three brothers. My purpose for choosing their last name of Wilde was to use it as a play on words in the title of each of their books, to connect each story and make readers aware that it was all part of the same series. During the course of writing those Wilde brother’s books, four Wilde cousins were introduced, and readers started asking for those stories, as well. All in all, the Wilde family has spanned seven books, with BORN TO BE WILDE (out on bookstore shelves NOW) telling the story of Joel Wilde, the lone bachelor of the family.

Q: Do you have a set number of books planned as part of the Wilde series or are you keeping your options as to the future of this series open?

A: Well, there was only supposed to be 7 Wilde books, one story for each of the Wilde brothers, then the Wilde cousins. That 7th book, BORN TO BE WILDE, has been written and is just now hitting bookstore shelves. That should have been it for the Wilde series, but it seems like the Wilde books have taken on a life of their own. In BORN TO BE WILDE, you’ll be introduced to four of Joel’s ex-marine buddies, all of which work together at a security firm, and so the Wilde series will be spinning off into a new Wild series that isn’t about the Wilde family, yet you will see the Wilde characters throughout each of these new books. Because these new books are loosely related to the original Wilde’s, I decided to keep “Wilde” in the title, but dropped the “e” to make it “Wild”, so readers would know that it was part of the series. I’m writing the first book in that new series, WILD FOR HIM, which will be out in the summer of 2008.

Q: How comfortable are you about writing steamy love scenes? Do you have to force yourself to write them or does the inspiration come naturally depending on the characters?

A: With each book I write, the love scenes are more difficult to write. I think it’s because I strive to make each love scene different and unique, and after 40+ books, there’s only so much you can do, LOL! Sometimes the love scenes write themselves, depending again on the characters and the scene, and other time they take DAYS to write!

Q: If you could give some advice to hopeful romance authors, what would that advice be?

A: I have one bit of advice. If you are driven to write, and love the writing process and want to be published, DON’T GIVE UP. You’ll never know if the next book you write and submit will be the one to sell.

I hope you all enjoyed my “this ‘n that” today! I’ll be back next week with a regular blog. Promise!

No, I’m not about to rant. That is simply my official greeting for TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

I bought this one for my daughter, the math girl:

When did my fascination with pirates start?

Hmmmm…

Well, first, let me say that I know that the pirates I love are glorified Hollywood versions and real pirates were bloodthirsty, soulless thieves, murderers and rapists. Whatevah. Fantasy vs. reality…losing battle. I’ll pick fantasy every time.

I loved pirates LONG before Captain Jack Sparrow. I grew up on them. Literally. My home town has a local pirate-themed celebration called Gasparilla, which is in honor of Jose Gaspar (who, btw, never really came this far up the coast of Florida, but don’t tell anyone at the Chamber of Commerce that.) Every year, the wealthy doctors, lawyers and judges who live in South Tampa on the bay dress up in pirate garb and get on a ship, drink heavily and then take over the city. Well, not the whole city. Just the southern part. There’s an armada of boats and yachts and a wild parade that didn’t used to be so much like Mardi Gras (ie, drunk women showing their naked breasts to get plastic beads) but it is now.

Still, when I was a kid, Gasparilla was fun. I danced in several parades with various troupes and teams…I distinctly remember in high school that we carried batons even though we didn’t twirl…we carried them to keep the drunk pirates off of us. Our football team or baseball team would usually march on the perimeter. Hm…maybe it was more like Mardi Gras than I remember!

Then there was Captain Blood. I know for a fact that I’ve blogged about Errol Flynn over the last year. I honestly think this was my first pirate movie. And I was hooked. So you can imagine how I was over the moon when I saw AGAINST ALL FLAGS, another pirate flick that not only had dashing Errol, but also Maureen O’Hara as Captain Spitfire Stevens! You can imagine little eight year old me getting really excited, right?

Last week, Carly mentioned my love for Marsha Canham’s IRON ROSE. The pirate in that book is the heroine, not the hero. But he’s every bit her equal in his staid British ways.

I even loved PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (the theme park ride) before it was a movie or had a wax figure of Johnny Depp.

What do I love about pirates?

The rebellion. The romanticism. The code. The devil-may-care. The rules they make themselves. Think about it, there are tons of piratical characters who don’t necessary wear eyepatches or have gold teeth or parrots. The attitude.

Pirattitude, according to the founders of TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY.

Han Solo and Indiana Jones were both pirates…and who could resist either one of them? (Or Harrison Ford, for that matter.)

In one of my upcoming Phantom books, one of the characters has a pirate’s attitude….and that’s really what the appeal is for me, I think. She (yes, a she…is anyone surprised?) is a female Indiana Jones who is mentioned in the first two books but probably won’t put in an appearance until the third book. I think I’m going to pair her up with the Phantom who is a gypsy. A real gypsy. Dark, rakish, mysterious, magical.

A pirate and a gypsy?

I’m swooning just thinking about it!

So…I challenge everyone to act or speak like a Pirate at least once today. Why not? It’s all in the attitude!

Oh, this is the shirt I’m wearing today

It says, “I’m disenclined to acquiesce to your request.”

Says it all, doesn’t it?

Avast, me hearties! Have yourself a roarin’ great day!

PS: Hope Julie doesn’t mind me adding this–please don’t forget to visit me over at The Knight Agency’s blog today! (so I won’t be talking to myself…lol!) Thanks! Leslie http://knightagency.blogspot.com/

Does anybody here ever watch Inside The Actor’s Studio? I love that show and my favorite part is, of course, the questionnaire at the end. The host, James Lipton asks each celebrity guest ten questions, inspired by Frenchman Bernard Pivot. I’m quite sure I’d give wonderful, witty, important, insightful answers if I were ever on the show…but, un, I won’t be.

So I thought it would be fun if we answered them here.

Play along, okay?

1. What is your favorite word?
Possibility

2. What is your least favorite word?
Never

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
The certainty that true love does exist and that I’m blessed enough to have it.

4. What turns you off?
Greed and selfishness

5. What is your favorite curse word?
The F word

6. What sound or noise do you love?
My children’s laughter

7. What sound or noise do you hate?
Sirens

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Tycoon

9. What profession would you not like to do?
Grave-digger

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
“Ahh, you’ve finally arrived. Your loved ones who got here first are right over there, and you’re welcome to join them while you wait for all your other ones still living long, healthy lives on earth.”

Now you! Just cut & paste the questions, changing my answers to yours! Let’s see what we can learn about each other with this little experiment today.

PS: I’m guest blogging at The Knight Agency blog tomorrow. Please come by and say hello! http://knightagency.blogspot.com/

Hi, all. First off, apologies for being MIA on the plotmonkey blog lately. I was busy last week with the Jewish holidays and revisions on HOT PROPERTY. Today, I’m going to Boston to see my baby nephew who I should have seen months ago so I’ll be MIA again today. I promise to get better on my return. If you missed our Saturday blog, we had multitaltented author Karen Rose talking about writing, so please check it out!

And now for today, in my absence, I leave you with the video for SEALED WITH A KISS. Oh! Don’t forget to turn your volume up before you play!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Sooo … what do you think?
I can not wait to come home tonight and see your reactions!

#10 Michelle

You’ve won a Pirate Monkey T-shirt and Carly will send you your choice of an autographed book from her BACKLIST!
Just email your book choice and name/address to:
carlyphillips@mac.com

CONGRATULATIONS!

JODIE…you are the lucky winner of Karen Rose’s giveaway from yesterday…please email Julie for more info! (Julie @ julieleto.com)
And now for the Sunday Funny:

A pirate walked into a bar and the bartender said, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. What happened? You look terrible.”

What do you mean?” said the pirate, “I feel fine.”

“What about the wooden leg? You didn’t have that before.”

“Well, we were in a battle and I got hit with a cannon ball, but I’m fine now.”

“Well, OK, but what about that hook? What happened to your hand?”

“We were in another battle. I boarded a ship and got into a sword fight My hand was cut off. I got fitted with a hook. I’m fine, really.”

“What about that eye patch?”

“Oh, one day we were at sea, and a flock of birds flew over. I looked up and one of them crapped in my eye.”

“You’re kidding”, said the bartender, “you couldn’t lose an eye just from bird crap.”

“It was my first day with the hook.”

Let’s give a Plotmonkeys warm welcome to KAREN ROSE, who is guest blogging with the craft crew on our Saturday writing blog!

Karen and I met through my local chapter. She has to be one of the most interesting and generous writers I know. And she writes just about the most emtionally tense romantic suspense on the market today. She’s got a RITA to prove it! Her words of advice come from the heart…and I’m so excited to have her here!

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First, many thanks to the Plot Monkeys for inviting me today! As I contemplated all the craft topics I could discuss, I was, at the same time getting into the character of my newest hero, heroine, and villain. So “Getting into Character” is the topic on my mind right now!

There are so many different ways to approach character development! I’m going to share how I do it, but this may not be what floats your boat. Find your own way, but you may be able to get a few nuggets from other authors along the way.

When I think about a book that I’ve enjoyed in the past, I’ll sometimes think about the setting or the plot, but I ALWAYS think about the characters. It’s the characters that reach out and grab me and pull me into their world. It’s the characters I want to see survive (or fail!) and it’s the characters’ feelings I will remember long after I’ve finished the book.

So how do you create that unforgettable character? How do you make them so real they jump off the page and into your readers’ hearts? Here are a few thoughts:

I. Creating the character:
- Determine who they are. This is deeper than answering these basic questions, but this will get you started.
o Personality
Outgoing or shy? Or does it depend on the social situation?
Egocentric or selfless?
Talkative or quiet?
Visual or aural or kinetic? (How do they process information?)
Dog lover or cat lover?
Sociopathic or empathic?
o Moral compass
Do they have one?
Is it based in an organize religion?
Is it instilled by their family?
Is it the same as those of the people around them?
o Interests
Sports, language, books, movies, history, sci-fi?
o Physical appearance
This can be “trappings” or it can become a part of who they are
Is there a deformity?
Is there a characteristic that sets them apart?
Are they physically beautiful?
Do they have confidence in how they look, however that is?
o Ethnic roots
What are their customs
Do they embrace or reject their culture?
o Education
Are they self-educated or have they attended school?
Do they learn like everyone else? (Goes back to how they process information)

- Determine who they’ve been – this is perhaps the MOST IMPORTANT PART of character development.
o Who they’ve been establishes their outlook on the world
o Who they’ve been establishes how they will interpret what they seen
o Who they’ve been will direct what decisions they make in the course of your story

- Determine their goals and dreams
o Develop their GMC – goal/motivation/conflict
o Focus on both external and internal goals and dreams
o Separate out goals from dreams – this might surprise you!

- Determine what they will do to achieve those goals, and importantly, what they will not – VERY, VERY IMPORTANT
o Will be driven by their moral compass
o May be linked to values even your character doesn’t know they possess
o A really good way to help your character toward self-discovery

II. Once you’ve determined who they are – become them. When you write from their point of view, feel what they feel, get lost in their world. If you don’t get lost in their world, how can you expect your readers to do so?

Warning: Getting lost in your characters’ world may require you to become emotional. Don’t fight it.

Sometimes a plot line seems to drop off a precipice. Where did it go? What happened? Sometimes I panic. Okay, usually I panic. But then I go back to my character and jump in their skin.

What brought me here, to this place? What decisions did I make? Why did I do what I did? What can I do now?

If the decisions have been true to character, you can usually navigate to where you want them to go.

Some tips: Sometimes I have trouble being a character on a given day. This is especially true for my villains. I write linearly – that is, I write as events occur. I have no idea how not to do this. I’m in awe of authors who can move out of sequence! So when I get stuck, it’s bad news for me – and for my deadline. What I’ve learned to do is to continue the story line – from another character’s POV. Then, when I’m able, I close my office door, warn the family to find other pursuits, and write my villain scenes. They can deplete me, and often scare me.

This is good – it means my readers will be scared, too! But don’t underestimate the toll this has on you, the author. It can be exhausting! My kids think I play all day, and I do love what I do, but it can be tiring.

So in summary –

1. Create your character thoroughly. This is more than “She’s 5-10, blonde with blue eyes, and a killer figure.” Although wouldn’t we all love to be that character, LOL. Dig deep.
2. Know thy character.
3. Become thy character.
4. Make them real to you – or they can’t be real to your readers.

And if you can’t forget a character, that’s good. Chances are, your reader won’t either!

P.S. – often one of my books will start with a thought and a character will be born of a single scene that grabs my heart and won’t let go. Some examples:

1. Kristen Mayhew in I’M WATCHING YOU. A victim of rape, Kristen has a daughter out there that she placed up for adoption at birth. She has a small album in which she keeps pictures of the child, generously provided by the child’s adoptive parents. I can still see Kristen sitting at the vanity in her room, turning page after page in the album and feeling so very alone. Then she meets Abe, and after vanquishing the villain, they live HEA.

2. Mia Mitchell in COUNT TO TEN. All her life she’s tried to please her father and knows she’s failed. Worse yet, she knows her father is a horrible man, not worthy of her efforts. Shortly after her father’s death, she falls hard for hero Reed Solliday, who is a widower and still not ready to release the memory of his dead wife. Mia tells him, “I fought for the love of a man who didn’t deserve it all my life. I’m not going to fight your dead wife for you.” The dialog became different when the scene was actually written, but I remember lying in bed one night, unable to sleep with this scene in my mind, and being so … overcome. I cried then. I cried when I wrote the scene, when I edited, and I’m tearing up now, as I remember it. It impacted me. It impacted readers. That was good.

3. Jeremy, a little boy in COUNT TO TEN. He was never supposed to be a major character, but there’s a scene where he walks out of his house, knowing the police are waiting outside and knowing his mother is too afraid to do the right thing. At seven years old, doing the right thing has fallen on his shoulders. So as I was writing, this little boy opens the door and walks outside, dressed in his Sunday church clothes, his hair slicked back. And I fell in love with this little boy. He was so real to me – and to readers!

4. Sophie Johannsen in DIE FOR ME. Sophie loves her grandmother, but after making some bad choices when it came to men, Sophie isn’t sure she’s ready to love hero Vito Ciccotelli. But Vito wins her heart when he sings to her grandmother in a nursing home, giving back to both Sophie and her grandmother the memory of her grandmother’s days on the stage, of a time she felt alive. The nurses in the nursing home cried. Sophie cried. I cried. Readers have written to me that they cried, too.

Okay, that was a long PS – but you get my point!

Hope some of these tips have made you consider your characters a little differently! Thanks, PlotMonkeys, for having me!

Attention Aspiring Writers…come back tomorrow for a guest blog by romantic suspense superstar, Karen Rose!

Ahoy, Mates! International TALK LIKE A PIRATE day is September 19th. Now since none of the plotmonkeys is currently writing historicals, you might wonder why I’m bringing this up today. Because I found a rare species called: THE PIRATE MONKEY and I’m giving our plotmonkey visitors a chance to win a PIRATE MONKEY TEE-SHIRT! And a copy of a signed book from my BACKLIST.

We also thought we’d tell you the plotmonkeys favorite pirate books:
1. Carly and Leslie - Johanna Lindsey’s A Gentle Rogue
2. Julie - Marsha Canham’s Iron Rose
3. Janelle - Kresley Cole’s Captain of All Pleasures

For a chance to win: Post your favorite pirate romance or just say I don’t have one! (and maybe you’ll get some new reads here!). Good luck!

PS: Leslie still hasn’t heard from the winner of last week’s Jungle Madness contest! So Joanne K, message # 55 from last Friday, if you’re out there please drop Leslie a line at: author@lesliekelly.com

I’m thrilled to announce that we have romance author JACI BURTON as our guest blogger in the jungle today! Jaci is the very prolific author of the hot and sexy “Demon Hunters” series, as well as many other equally steamy books. This month she has not just one, but TWO new releases out! The first is HUNTING THE DEMON, and the second is a super sexy (erotic) anthology titled EXCLUSIVE. She’s one busy author!

Let’s give Jaci a warm jungle welcome, and if you have any questions for this super-friendly author, feel free to ask! I know I have a few questions of my own!

And now, here’s Jaci Burton:

The time after Labor Day always signals the kickoff to Fall. And with the Fall season comes the beginning of the new television season.

Fun stuff. For a writer, it’s awful. For a writer with multiple deadlines, it’s the kiss of death.

I would be the writer with multiple deadlines. The one who just signed a new contract with one of my publishers and said, “Oh sure, I can deliver that book on that date and the next one on that date.” Of course I already had a book due in the midst of all that. And one I’m about to turn in. Which means I’ll be writing nonstop from now until….well, I don’t like to think about the ‘until’. But I’m not complaining. I’m employed and I’m a happy camper.

I am, however, whimpering. Because the new Fall television season is starting soon, and my T.V. watching time is going to be severely limited. But, but, Grey’s Anatomy is returning. So is American Idol. And CSI. Men In Trees. Ugly Betty. Not to mention all the new shows coming out that I want to catch. Like Dirty Sexy Money. And the spinoff from Greys, Private Practice. And a couple new paranormal shows like New Amsterdam, Pushing Daisies, and Moonlight.

See my dilemma? Somewhere in there I have books to deliver, edits, copyedits, promotion. I just released two books back to back. I thought I’d have time to relax. Heh. Foolish me.

I think my DVR is going to get a workout. Either that, or I’ll be getting less sleep. Or learning to multitask even better than I do now.

And somewhere in the midst of all that I have to read. I HAVE to read. Besides being an author and a TV junkie, I’m a reader. And there are great books recently released and awesome books coming out over the next few months.

I’m so screwed.

So what’s going to occupy your time over the next few months? New TV shows you’re dying to see? Some old familiars? Great books? Tell me. I’m giving away a couple of my books as prizes to two random people who comment. A copy of SURVIVING DEMON ISLAND, the first book in my Demon Hunter series with Bantam Dell, and a copy of WILD, WICKED & WANTON, my Berkley Heat erotic romance.

Thanks so much to the Plotmonkeys for inviting me here today! I love this blog.

I’m on my way home from Boston. Actually, as I’m writing this, I’m about to get on a plane for Boston and by the time this posts, I’ll be on my way home. That means I really will have stuff to blog about next week, but right now, I’m only worrying about how much crap I can fit in my suitcase for a two day trip.

So…

Here’s an excerpt from WITCHY BUSINESS to hopefully entice you to order the book. I say order, because trust me, this sucker isn’t going to be easy to find in the stores. I nearly keeled over when I found four copies at Barnes and Noble. No copies were to be had at Waldens.

If you read STRIPPED and don’t want to miss the follow-up…and trust me, you don’t , then please order the book! You’ll also get stories by Rhonda Nelson (who guest blogged here last week!) and Mia Zachary, a Blaze favorite. Enjoy and I’ll “see” you all when I get back!

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In this exerpt, Regina, who has the position of Guardian Witch, and her former lover, Brock, a witch-hunter who previously tried to kill her, are on the run from his former boss, Old Movert. Because of Brock’s betrayal, Regina’s powers are greatly diminished…she has to use a wand and utter spells when before, she could do magic with a thought. They are attacked while in hiding by witch hunters…that’s what’s happening now.

Strategy for romance flew out of his mind the minute he heard her scream. Grabbing a handful of knives, he flew toward her voice. At the cave entrance, he saw her, flanked on either side by Hunters wielding crossbows. She had her wand at the ready. Several arrows lay at her feet, but a gash across her forearm proved that while she was wily with her spellwork, she was, for the moment, outgunned.

“Guardian!”

He shouted to her by her title, and then tossed a knife in her direction. The blade spun, the handle slamming into the palm of her hand on the rotation. In the split second where his Hunter brethren expected him to finish off their quarry, Regina spun, kicked out with her leg, knocking one Hunter to the ground while she sliced the other across the base of his neck.

He crumbled to the ground just as Brock leaped over his body and caught the second Hunter by the scruff. He disarmed him, flinging his crossbow out of reach.

“Your name,” Brock ordered.

The Hunter choked out a moniker Brock didn’t recognize.

“How did you find us?”

The Hunter didn’t respond quickly enough, so Brock applied pressure to the side of his neck until he screamed out in pain. The man was not wearing a protective amulet, one of the many Movert had created for his legions. He was either in disguise, undercover, or not associated with Movert’s war at all.

“This is our territory,” the Hunter replied.

Brock’s mind raced and he guessed that Regina’s safe haven of a cave must have been an old, established witch’s hiding place–perhaps one she didn’t realize had long been plotted on Hunter maps. Rogue hunters often trolled near these areas in hopes they’d stumble onto prey and perhaps, tonight, they’d just gotten lucky.

Or else Old Movert had found them.

“Who do you serve?”

The Hunter’s eyes widened and his lip curled in disgust. “I serve me and I’ll have that witch’s heart on my mantelpiece.” He narrowed his gaze at Brock, then spit at Regina, who’d started murmuring a spell, rotating her wand in small circles. “Who do you serve?”

Brock flung the Hunter against the hard stone wall. In a flash, Regina uttered the final word of the incantation and the Hunter disappeared in a flash of blue smoke. She did the same to the body on the ground, though she had to repeat the incantation twice.

She swallowed hard, looking down at the wand, seeing it for the fragile stick of wood it was. “I can’t defeat Movert this way. It’s too slow. Children play with wands, not Guardians.”

Brock tossed his remaining knives to the ground, knowing he couldn’t approach her armed. He stepped into her personal space, mindful this time of moving too quickly and scaring her away.

“Then take back your powers,” he said.

When her eyes met his, the liquid lavender swimming in her irises stopped his heart. “How can I?”

He swallowed thickly. “Love me.”

She shook her head. “You tried to kill me.”

“I tried to save you. Even tonight, I could have let these Hunters kill you. They were rogue. Movert would never have known it wasn’t me and my blood oath to him would have been fulfilled. Believe me. I love you. I’ve put my life on the line for you and I’ll willingly die for you–that much I’ve proved. But you can save yourself by giving in to what you know is true. Surrender to what your heart desires and everything you cherish will be yours again.”

She was shaking. He could see the conflict raging in her as she shook her head, trying to deny her heart.

He took a chance and smoothed his palms over her arms, careful not to grip her too tightly. “You’re hurt.”

She snorted. “’Tis but a scratch.”

His snicker lightened the moment, reminding him of the night they’d cuddled in her tower bedroom naked, munching on popcorn and watching Monty Python movies until dawn.

“Let go of your pride, Regina. You can love me and then let me go if that’s what you need to do, but only surrendering to your feelings will gain you what you need to survive. You can’t act as Guardian without your powers. And for the record, I won’t betray you again.”

In a flash of movement, Regina grabbed Brock by the collar of his shirt. For a split second, he hoped she’d kiss him, but instead, she dragged him back deeper into the cave, to where the fire smoldered and the atmosphere heated with smoke and spark. She released him, stalked over to the cache of supplies and dug into a duffel bag until she found an assortment of herbs. Choosing carefully, she created a bouquet of greenery, then tossed the collection into the fire, whipped out her wand and spoke an ancient incantation around the suddenly fragrant flames.

“I thought your powers,” he started, but stopped when she shushed him harshly, then grinned.

“Like you said before, I know spells that work no matter who utters them. So I guess I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

Brock returned her smile. Regina was nothing if not resourceful.

“Grab that poultice,” she said, flicking her wand toward a fragrant cloth that had tumbled out of the herb bag.

He complied.

She continued to wave her wand and chant, an incantation he hadn’t heard before. When she reached the third repetition, she switched her wand to her other hand and held out her injury. “Wrap my wound.”

She resumed her chanting. The fire burgeoned and the aromas crackling from within the embers started to affect his vision. He blinked, but applied the medicated cloth to her arm until the wound was covered and the gauzy material was knotted in place.

“Good,” she said, not opening her eyes, barely taking a break in between reiterating the spell. “Now take off your clothes.”

Brock backed up, surprised, but the tiny grin teasing her lips told him she knew exactly what she doing. In the past, getting naked with Regina had never been a bad thing, so once again, he obeyed.

By the time his jeans had dropped to the ground, he noticed a swirling shower of sparks encircling them, casting a rainbow of flashing colors in a circle around them, bringing to mind images of psychedelic acid trips or movie special effects. For a split second, he thought about how this blatant display of magic should appall or disgust him as he’d been taught all his life, and yet, the beauty of the twinkling lights and the intimacy of the tight space and warm atmosphere seriously turned him on. His sex hardened, lengthened. His heartbeat accelerated and the concentrated heat in the cave caused a sheen of sweat to coat his exposed skin.

Regina put down the wand.

“We’re safe,” she said. Unbuttoning the blouse she wore with delicious slowness. “Safe within this circle to do whatever our hearts desire.”

Brock understood, but despite the drugging effect of the magic, he clung to the knowledge that a pretty protection spell might not be enough to hide them from Movert’s forces if the Hunters they’d fought at the cave entrance hadn’t been rogue as he’d surmised. Still, the rotating sparks were hypnotic and little by little, he could feel his concerns melting away.

“Movert,” he managed.

She shook her head as the material of her blouse fluttered to the ground, leaving her lacy flesh-toned bra exposed to the light. “Even if he walked into this cave right now, the magic would show him nothing but bare stone walls.” She reached behind her and unhooked her lingerie, allowing the straps to caress her shoulders and arms as they slid to the ground. “Make love to me, Brock. Reawaken my love for you so that my powers will return.”

He wanted to ask, “And then what?” but he squelched the question by dipping his gaze to her breasts. Round, full and tipped with hard, dark nipples, they begged for his touch, his tongue. He strode toward her and dropped to his knees in front of her, splaying his hands over her hips.

“This can’t be real,” he muttered.

She maneuvered her hands between his, undid the top button and zipper of her jeans, then speared her hands into his hair, tugging him close so that he could inhale the scent of her arousal. “As real as magic.”

Yesterday, we celebrated my daughter’s 12th birthday. Which means that six years ago yesterday, we celebrated her 6th birthday. And while I rejoice and celebrate that my littlest one joined us on September 10, every year I find myself mourning all the things that she will or will not ever experience because of what happened on the day after she turned six.

On her sixth birthday, this world was a very different place. That previous weekend, we’d gone to Disney World…and we didn’t have to stand in line to have our bags searched. Who, after all, would ever conceive of innocent families being targeted at an all-American theme park? The previous summer, we’d flown to DC…and we didn’t have to take off our shoes or give up our water bottles or open our laptops at the security checkpoint. When I flew to Atlanta earlier that year, she and Bruce and her sisters went with me to the gate, and were waiting for me with flowers as I stepped off the plane.

She’ll never know what it’s like to decide on an impromptu trip across the border to Canada or Mexico, knowing your driver’s license is all you need. She won’t have any clue that you used to be able to drive right past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, or that you could actually get up to use the bathroom when within a half-hour of landing at Reagan National. She’ll never live in a place where you could hand your mailman a stamped package that weighed more than a few ounces. She’ll never be able to carry a regular bottle of shampoo in her carry-on bag. And, of course, she’ll never see the twin towers.

There are things that I hope will change with time. I hope she’ll eventually live in an age when, once again, we are at peace. When the biggest focus of our presidential elections is who can give the middle class the best tax breaks. When anthrax is a rare disease that can’t be contracted by opening your mail. When a group of dark-haired men praying isn’t cause for panic and alerting security. When you can ride a subway and not flinch at a loud sound. When a plane’s delay does not immediately cause a flash of “what if?”

When the rest of the world once again believes America is the good guy.

I’m not saying these changes haven’t made us safer–I suspect they have. But I still resent them. Because every little change in our lifestyle–each small restriction of our freedoms, each minute assault on our Constitution–is another tiny wound inflicted on us as a nation. They are like tiny bites from a mosquito when you’re trying to enjoy a warm summer evening…not enough to send us running for shelter, but still a constant reminder that there are creatures out there in the dark who truly want to do us harm.

I repeat: I resent the hell out of that. For her sake…for mine…for all of ours.

There’s a song I love from Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant show Assassins. It’s about everyday people reacting to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But the lyrics, to me, describe perfectly how I felt on that morning, how I feel now when I think back and remember every moment like I’m watching a slow motion movie scene in my mind. How our world changed. How…it just broke.

Something just broke.
Something just made a little dent.
Something just broke.
Only for a moment,
Something got bent.

But something just…

Oh, I hope it someday will be mended.

Please join me today in remembering…wishing…hoping for tomorrow.

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