Story excerpt

One of my short stories is available free on the Phaze.com. Look for free stories on the menu at left here - http://www.phaze.com/index2.html

The excerpt below gives you a pepper-hot taste!

Noelene folded her arms and waited. People got kidnapped nearly every week in Brazil but she wasn’t afraid.

The houses glowed pink-gold as the sun rose to reclaim the sky. Small gardens in front of each house flaunted blooms in hot, tropical colors. Somewhere in the neighbourhood, a radio played. A woman’s thin voice floated over an insistent drum beat. Noelene was pleased her Portuguese was good enough to follow along.

The song told the story of a happily married woman who fell in love with a beach boy, the same age as her only son. Noelene had never heard it before but she hummed a few bars, experimentally, as if testing her affinity with the adulteress.

She leaned forward until her head rested on the seat in front of her and closed her eyes. Darkness dissolved behind her eyelids. She was not Noelene. She was the woman in the song. Older, her skin looser, her belly marked by pregnancy. She lay on a bed in a light-filled room and heard the boy’s quickened breathing as his smooth, lithe body jerked over hers. She watched his face contort, looked into his eyes, dark with need and a gloating sense of his own power over her.

“Bite me,” she whispered. The boy bent his head to her breast, suckled her nipple, bit down on the hardened flesh.

He was her obsession. The life she lived with her husband and her family became a dream. She came to life only with the boy. When she was not with him she yearned for him with every fiber of her being. When they were together she could not stop touching him, loved to tear his clothes off. He was a pool of clear water into which she dove again and again, rising naked, her hair slicked back, her loins trembling, a raunchy Venus.

Last day of Phaze sale!

Now through January 2, save 25% on all Phaze paperback romances! Sizzling works by Bridget Midway, Leigh Ellwood, Jade Falconer, Robin Slick, and the Coming Together volumes.

To get the discount, enter OHOHOH in the coupon code box when you check out.

http://www.phaze.com/

All the best for the New Year!

Hope you're having a wonderful holiday season and wishing you all the best for the New Year!

I won't be blogging again until the week of January 8th so check back with me then!

Words in Motion Conference

Announcing - WORDS IN MOTION 2008 The International Affaire for Romance Writers & Readers

Theme: Romantic Suspense

January 2nd-6th 2008

Lamplighter Conference Center Main Street Community Forumswww.cobblestone- mainstreet. com Hosted by Cobblestone Press, LLC Free to attend and participate! !!!

Words In Motion (WIM) is an annual online conference developed to offer support, marketing, and networking within the romance and erotic romance industries. Our goal is to provide affordable and convenient opportunities for authors, publishers, and other professional individuals. Authors, Publishers, Agents, and Groups such as RWA chapters, review sites, and writing groups are encouraged to attend and participate in this exciting event. The theme this year is Romantic Suspense and we are currently scheduling special guest speakers, tables for authors, publishers, groups, and agents – agents will be offered private chatroom to set up meeting with authors they meet during the conference. We are also scheduling group chat parties as well.This is going to be the largest online event for the romance industry yet and we hope you will join us to celebrate!

It's absolutely free and the best part? You can show up in your sweats and nobody has to ever know (wink).

To condomize or not to condomize!

A few days after World AIDS Day and at a time when health experts are reporting that there are a whole lot more new HIV infections than previously thought, it's probably a good time to bring up the topic of condoms.

A lot of writers worry about introducing rubbers into their stories but there’s no hard and fast rule.

Some publishing houses take the view that their books are fantasies and who would fantasize about condoms? So they don’t require it. Who wants to think about sexually transmitted infections when they're getting their groove on?

Other houses, concerned about any messages they may be sending about unsafe sex, require writers to, at least, mention that their characters are using condoms. How the writer chooses to introduce the topic is up to them. It could be a one liner where a character mentions using it or discarding it after sex or it could be something lengthier where putting it on becomes part of the sex play.

So whether you choose to condomize or not really depends on the writer and their particular publishing house. I don’t mention condoms in The Gladiator’s Woman, not because they didn’t have condoms in ancient Rome, they did, but because it being a historical I didn’t feel the pressure to do so. People just weren't as worried about those diseases back then and there was a lot more ignorance about signs and symptoms. In a contemporary, I probably would bring up condoms. In another life, I was an HIV educator and I'd feel I owed it to my readers.

What you do depends on you and on whether the publishing house you're targeting would allow it. If you're unsure, look up the guidelines, read other books they've published, or, just ask the editor.

Smell!

Whether you’re writing erotic romance or erotica, you’ve got to employ the five senses if you want to paint a picture for your readers, one that will have them gasping along with your protagonists.

One of the most important senses to convey in your work is the sense of smell – if you’re in the heroine’s viewpoint tell us how her lover smells to her or vice versa. His hair, his skin, his balls, his feet – all of these will have a smell. When you’re writing, think about your characters – what would you like to convey about a particular character in your description of the way he or she smells? Someone who smells of vanilla and milk for instance is probably going to be a softer, more gentle and innocent person than one who smells of musk and cardamom. Similarly, in readers’ minds someone who smells of the earth after a rainfall may be a better person than someone who reeks of some cheap cologne.

Scientists tell us that pheromones, our scent markers, can determine if we like or dislike someone. Think about that the next time you’re dreaming up your characters and, if like me, you’re one of those people who do a detailed description of your characters before then be sure to include how they smell too.

Not just philosophy and great architecture!

The Romans built great bridges, roads and public buildings. Their philosophers are still read and re-read. What is less known is that they were a randy lot who had no problem paying for it!

In pleasure-loving ancient Rome, brothels were perfectly legal. Known as lupanars or whorehouses, some were quite grand with gardens and fountains while others were little more than places to flop down on a mattress and have at it.

Most had paintings on the wall designed for the inspiration of patrons. The variety of positions suggested included woman on top, doggy-style and one requiring some athletic prowess with the man standing and holding on to the woman’s butt while she held herself up off the bed by the arms, her legs draped over the man’s shoulders. Guess they weren’t into vanilla sex!