Tomorrow, I begin my countdown to the release of Shattered Souls, but I thought you might like to take a breath before I assault you with luscious, spooky excerpts from my book. And you certainly won’t want to miss the countdown, because I’ll be giving away goodies!

So a simple question…

If you could add one thing—big or small—to your home, what would it be?

For me, I’d add a separate writing cabin, complete with a tiny kitchenette and a pull-out bed for over-nighters. If it just happened to look like a hobbit’s house, I’d probably never leave!

Psst! Sometime this morning, my blog at the Samhain site will go up. Be sure to hop over there too and answer another question for a chance to win a free book!

When Secret Fantasies Are Revealed, Stormy Sex May Prevail

We all do it. We know we shouldn’t and we probably feel a little guilty about it—but we still do it.

Keep secrets from our spouses.

Sometimes it’s a way to preserve a little piece of ourselves.

Sometimes it’s because we’re afraid for him to know the truth.

Do you ever wonder if your partner would still love you if he or she knew the real truth?

Bella, the feisty heroine of my latest novella, Extreme Couponing, is scared to death to let her husband Tae know her deep dark secret. That the strong, confident woman he fell in love with secretly yearns to be utterly dominated.

She would do anything to keep her handsome hubby happy—even pretend to be something she’s not.

If you’ve read any of my books, you know—you know—Tae is going to find out. And he’s going to give Bella what she needs.

And how.

The book blurb and excerpt follow.

But here’s my question for you: Have you ever kept a deep dark secret from your partner? What did it cost you? And when you came clean, did it make your marriage better?

I must admit, I am guilty. Of a lot of little lies. But the only ones I will divulge in public are pretty tame. For example, yes, I probably am not completely honest about how many times I visit the casino. I certainly don’t admit how many times I troll pictures of super hot guys on Pinterest!

My other sinister confession: All right. Yes. I do it. Sometimes I sneak vegetables into his meatloaf and don’t tell him until after he tells me how yummy it is.

Hah! So there.

As far as my other secrets…well, you’ll just have to wonder.

Please read on for information about my books, contests and coming releases!!

Have a wonderful day, and thanks, Delilah, for letting me ramble on!

About Sabrina York

Sabrina is an award winning author of erotic romance with over a dozen titles available, ranging from sweet & sexy erotic romance to BDSM to erotic horror. Connect with her on twitter @sabrina_york or Facebook.

Check out Sabrina’s books and read an excerpt on her webpage (www.sabrinayork.com) or explore on Amazon or at Ellora’s Cave.

Coming Releases

• Extreme Couponing (Novella): Available January 23, 2013 from Ellora’s Cave
• Dark Fancy, the scorching prequel to Folly (Short Novel): Available February 22, 2013 From Ellora’s Cave
• Man Hungry (Short Story): Available March 31, 2013 from Ellora’s Cave

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Win a Tiara From Her Royal Hotness!

Enter to win a gorgeous tiara by signing up for Sabrina York’s Royal Hotsheet (new book and contest info only–no spam! Your e-mail address will not be shared). If you’re already getting the newsletter, don’t fret. You’re already in the drawing. Send an email with “Enter Me” in the subject line (this is erotica, after all) to sabrina@sabrinayork.com. The drawing will be March 31, 2013.

One entry per person.

Refer Your Friends Bonus Entries
Tell your friends about Sabrina York, Her Royal Hotness. If they sign up for Sabrina’s Hotsheet you earn another entry, plus a chance at a Referrals Only drawing for more bling. (NOTE: They must tell me that you referred them in the message box so I can give you credit).

Good luck!!!

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A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

Bella adores Tae. He is sweet and patient and gentle. She would do anything to keep her handsome hubby happy—even pretend to be something she’s not. She ignores that niggling dissatisfaction with their very vanilla marriage. But secretly, she yearns for something darker.

When Tae discovers—quite by accident—about Bella’s secret desires, he is determined to fulfill her every fantasy—and his. He devises a wicked coupon book full of naughty commands and fiendish challenges. From spankings to bondage to erotic play with household implements, he tests her limits.

With each coupon Tae redeems, Bella sinks deeper and deeper into the lifestyle she has always craved but never had the courage to demand. Can they find a place that allows her to be the strong independent woman he fell in love with and the quivering sub she is at her core?

Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, I started attending the local art guild meetings with my mother. She didn’t like driving at night, so I agreed to take her even though I’ve never had any interest in visual arts other than collecting.

What I discovered was that I didn’t have to draw a straight line to produce art. When the guild asked for artists to participate in a studio art tour, where folks culd visit the artists’ craft rooms, studios, barns–wherever they produced their art—I signed up with mom and dragged my daughter right along.

We began making altered art pendants, using decoupage techniques. We made a ton of things with dominoes and scrabble tiles. When we grew more confident, and made things we wanted to wear, we branched into using inks, stamps, paint, etc. An example of something I made recently is this pendant. A funny thing happened.

I started posting my pictures on Facebook. People contacted me, wanting to know where they could buy our little pendants. We all had so much fun with the idea, we’re in the midst of creating a website, and branching out with beading, bead-making, metal-stamping, crochet and knotted cord and silks…

You get the picture. I have a new obsession. And it’s one that fits very nicely around my writing life. When I’m drained of words for the day, I head to the art room.

Here are some more recent samples…

This one sold the day I posted it.

I’ve grown more confident. This one I painted then stamped. The “messier” the images look, the happy accidents, are what make them more interesting to me.

I just love making these!

And I’ve found a way to blend my two worlds…

Thanks, Delilah, for inviting me to be a guest blogger. I hope you’ll feel better soon!

Even the most vivid imagination needs a little push…

“Creativity – like human life itself – begins in darkness,” American author Julia Cameron once said. For me, that darkness is the darkness in a movie theatre before the lights begin to shine on the silver screen…

Let’s face it – it’s hard to set the mood sometimes. Especially when a deadline is looming. There are those writers who observe professional, strict writing rules. They start their day early in the morning, have coffee, and sit down, have more coffee, write for a few hours straight, have a break, then continue writing.

While I admire such discipline, it never was for me. How to have a lunch break when you character is just in the middle of breaking up their relationship? Or what if inspiration doesn’t care one bit about the schedule you set? If all you can think about is unpaid bills, dirty dishes in the kitchen and the visit of the in-laws tomorrow?

Besides, most of us have day jobs, so time to write erotica and romance is spare and needs to be used as it comes.

 How do you get into the writing mood? What inspires you most?

For me, it’s the movies. Especially on grey and chilly January days like these, I need sweeping movie melodies to spark my creativity, and a look out of Robert Redford’s blues eyes. Or Isabella Rossellini’s green ones. I need sentences like “Am I K in your book? I think I must be,” from The English Patient, or universal truths like “I don’t mind making a fool of myself over you”, which Maggie the Cat says to the man she loves in Cat On The Hot Tin Roof.

It’s those sentences that are so magical in their simplicity that touch me most, and make my mind wander, such as when Rocky said to his future brother-in-law about love of his life, Adrian: “I dunno, she’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.” Sentences that tell a whole world: “I think I wrote that stupid book, in a way, to try to find you,” and utterly sad and beautiful ones, also said by Ethan Hawke’s character in Before Sunset: “I feel like if someone were to touch me, I’d dissolve into molecules.”

Gone is the writer’s block, the dirty dishes are forgotten, and the unpaid bills remain unpaid a bit longer, or to say it with Bruce Willis: “Yippie-kai-yay, motherfucker.”

Before writing Her Hero for Delilah’s upcoming anthology Smokin’ Hot Firemen, I watched Backdraft (for the umpteenth time). I wonder why there are such few movies about fire fighters, compared to the importance of their work, the sacrifices they make, and the stories they could tell, and compared to movies about other professions. Anyway, I hope you’ll find the passion and bravery and longing that the movie portrays reflected in my story.

To sort of quote Cora Blu, who wrote on this blog a week ago: Now you know the movie buff in me.

More on movies and the stories they inspired on www.catherinepaulssen.com or Twitter: @CatePaulssen

Ideas…Where Do They Come From?

I think most authors will tell you that one of the most frequently asked questions they get is: Where do your ideas come from?

The answer may vary slightly from author to author, but most writers I know will tell you their ideas come from everywhere! A spark of a plot may come from an overheard snippet of conversation or a television show. Inspiration may strike when reading a magazine, listening to the radio or viewing a movie. A brilliant concept could appear in a dream or the muse may smack you in the face with your latest book idea from out of nowhere.

Now you may be saying to yourself, everyone watches television, reads magazines and has interesting dreams. And that’s true. But what makes the writer different from everyone else is that they delve deeper and start asking questions. I like to call them the “what if” questions. What would a character do if she found herself in certain situation? What happens next?

Authors will also take seemingly unrelated ideas and connect them. That’s what happened to me with my latest Samhain Publishing release—Night of the Tiger. I was on one of my Yahoo groups a few years back and someone had posted one of those blog quizzes. You know the ones. You click a few buttons to answer some questions and they tell you which color most represents you, which cookie you are like, or which zoo animal you might be (if you were indeed an animal). On this particular day, the quiz was about carnival rides. I filled out the questionnaire and discovered if I was a carnival ride I would be a carousel. No surprise there. I’m not one for roller coasters or other death-defying rides. A slow, gentle carousel suits me just fine.

But I kept thinking about the carousel and wondered what one might look like if the animals were more exotic, maybe even mythical, rather than your run-of-the-mill horses. Then I started asking the “what if” questions. What if the animals on the rides were really trapped there by an ancient curse. What if they were really immortal shapeshifting warriors. Why were they there? How would they escape? What dangers would surround them? Throw in an ancient feud between a god and goddess and I had the seeds for not just one book, but a new series.

These thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone and I outlined a four-book series I entitled Hades’ Carnival. Night of the Tiger is the first book and introduces you to Roric, immortal warrior and tiger, and the very mortal woman who helps break his curse.

To win the battle for his soul, he may have to sacrifice the woman who set him free.

Hades’ Carnival, Book 1

https://store.samhainpublishing.com/night-tiger-p-7182.html

Aimee Horner lives and breathes her career as a graphic novel illustrator, but she never expected it would invade her dreams. In recent months, worsening nightmares have pulled her into the darkest corners of Hell.

On a rare night out with friends at a traveling carnival, she finds herself strangely drawn to an abandoned carousel adorned with vividly exotic animals. One steed, a massive white tiger, is a temptation she can’t resist. The moment she climbs upon him, her world changes forever.

More than five thousand years ago, Roric and his fellow shapeshifting warriors were imprisoned in their animal forms, a last-ditch effort by the goddess they served to save them from the horrors of Hell.

With one special woman’s touch, he has a chance at freedom and redemption—but the clock is ticking. If he is still alive in twenty-four hours, the spell will be broken, and Hell will have no claim on his soul. The only hitch is his blazing attraction to Aimee. If only he could trust that she isn’t merely a distraction sent by Hades—luscious bait to lure him from his mission.

So you see, writers find their inspiration everywhere, which is why there are a never-ending supply of stories to tell. So when they tell you the ideas for their books come from everywhere, they’re telling you the absolute truth.

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N.J. has always been a voracious reader, and now she spends her days writing novels of her own. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks—all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to live it.

Visit me at:

Website: https://www.njwalters.com
Blog: https://www.njwalters.blogspot.com
Newsletter Group: https://groups.yahoo.com/group/awakeningdesires/
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/N.J.WaltersAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/njwaltersauthor
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/njwalters

I’m still fighting the flu. Yesterday and today I have managed to make it out of bed, but my joints ache, so my fingers hurt when I’m typing. Go figure. I know, wah-wah! I’m such a baby. No writing all week, and it means I’m going to miss a deadline, which scares me, but not enough to chase away this cruddy infection. I hope y’all aren’t having to deal with it. My SIL and my mother were hit last night. My mother at least had a flu shot, so hopefully she won’t be laid low for long.

So, while I toddle off to wrap up in a warm blanket, answer me this…

What high school class do you wish you’d taken or paid more attention to?

I’m thinking about this because I had the chance to take typing, but turned up my nose. And when I entered the military, I was very glad I couldn’t type. Back then, women were often shunted toward admin jobs, despite their training. The first time my commander asked me to type a letter for him, I did the old single digit hunt and peck to find the keys of the typewriter. He never asked again.

However, here I am—a writer. And I only use three fingers on either hand to type. I’m wondering how much faster I could be if I’d taken that class…

So your turn now!

Sorry this is up late! Between illness and internet outages,
I’ve been having a terrible time keeping up with things! ~DD

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Welcome to Small Towns, Big Personalities—An Exploration of Setting as a Character

Hello, my name is Cyndi Faria and I’d like to thank Delilah Devlin for hosting me today. One of the topics I’ve studied and would like to share is Personality Types. A writer can use setting as another character, be that as a protagonist or an antagonist. If you’re a reader, watch for the following techniques used by your favorite author.

Of the Nine Personality Types, consider the Reformer (Type One). If this were a real person, their occupation might be as a crusader, advocate for positive change, or teacher. As a healthy One, Reformers are wise, discerning, humane, hopeful, warm, and friendly. On the other hand, unhealthy Reformers are self-righteous, intolerant, hypocritical, condemning, and willing to be cruel to rid themselves of “wrong-doers.” Their ultimate fear is of being corrupt, evil, and defective. Their desire is to be good and to have integrity and balance. I bet you know a real One.

Setting can be typecast as a character who must also consider the thematic premise. In my current work in progress, I’ve typecast my setting as a Reformer who must also bear the consequences of secrets and the resulting oppression (Think: the truth will set you free).

The Beginning (An Unhealthy Reformer And Town):

Enter a cursed drive by coastal town shrouded by both storm and mist. Bedrock below. A restless sea sits to the west. A coastal range overshadows the town from the east. A highway carves a swath and separates the marina’s blue collar folks and stilted cottages from the bluffs’ white collar citizens and estates. The town’s grey hub boasts a diner with peeling paint and boutique fronted by a leafless sycamore tree. Because of the dwindling fishing industry, the one-block town’s corroded lampposts are missing light bulbs. Due to law enforcement budget cuts, the highway traffic rarely respects the 35 mph sign. At the edge of town perched on a rocky crag overlooking the pacific, a lone mission church steeple pierces the condemning sky. The mission bell rarely tolls in celebration of life and marriage, but more often to announce death, forever reminding the citizens of their inescapable errors and the curse that tethers the secret-keeping founding families to the foggy town inhabited by spirits seeking redemption.

Similar to a fictional character, in this four book series, book one represents Act 1 in the series arc. In a well-written novel, a character’s flaws must be shown just as the town’s flaws are shown. Hence by the end of book one, the town has debated and decided to move in a new direction.

How To Show New Direction:

Culminating Act One, the church bell chimes in celebration of a new marriage. The newly painted lampposts’ lights twinkle. The entire community has rallied together for a single cause as two citizens faced challenges relating to the theme and have moved into wholeness, essence, healthiness. Therefore the curse lifts for the couple as they enter their happily-ever-after. The town hasn’t completely changed, however. This absolute transformation will come at the end of the series.

The Series End Results (A Healthy Reformer and Town):

The highway has been rerouted, so the town is no longer divided. Visitors can leisurely shop and enjoy the warmth exemplified by newly painted building facades, the addition of welcome banners, and lamppost floral baskets. Clear skies bless the harbor and fishing boats fill the marina. A farmers’ market bustles with tourists. A new church has been erected near the historic mission, never forgotten but finally released from bondage as the citizens have been freed from the curse.

The next time you pick up a book, will you see the setting in a new light? The next time you drive by an unmapped town, will you wonder about the dynamics, politics, economics, and inhabitants in that town? Of the history behind the original settlers? I bet you will now.

To learn more about yourself and Personality Types visit www.cyndifaria.com/more-than-skin-and-bones-characterization

Happy reading and writing,

Cyndi Faria

Leading the lost to happily ever after…

An engineer turned romance writer, Cyndi Faria satisfies her craving for structure with cursed spirits, lost souls, harbingers, and a haunted coastal town. On and off her sexy romance pages, this California country girl isn’t afraid to dirty her hands fighting for the underdog. Find her helping fellow writers at www.cyndifaria.com, eyes attuned to her e-reader illuminating the midnight hour, or short-order cooking for family and friends while knee-deep in critters as she leads the lost to a place called home.

Follower her on Twitter: @cyndifaria