Today’s horoscope. “Helpful is practically your middle name. Improve your karma by lending a hand.” I have the organizer lady coming back today. Shouldn’t she be lending the hand?

My bookshelves have been cleaned, and boxes of my own books consolidated. Sheesh! I have a huge stack of books I don’t need and should give away. So if you help me today, one lucky winner will get her choice of two books from this list:

* Texas Men
* Alluring Tales: Hot Holiday Nights
* Wild, Wild Women of the West 2
* Into the Darkness

And what do you have to do to win? Well, you know I have a lot on my mind with the new book, so I really don’t want to think that hard about what should happen next to poor ole DiDi in Bad Moon Rising (your free serialized story). I want you to tell me what should happen next in the story. It could be something big or small, sexy or not. I’ll take all of your suggestions and think about it, then come back and let you vote. And it might be a good idea for you to read the two chapters of the story first!

The winner (by random number generator) of yesterday’s quick contest is…Teresa W! Teresa—congrats and email me!

My horoscopes are getting wierd. “Like a human magnifying glass, you can see the finest details with your naked eyes.”

Did you notice I made some progress yesterday? Not on the big project, but something. I had so many chores to catch up on when I got back from Omaha, I didn’t think I’d make it to writing pages yesterday. But yay!

Today, I have someone coming in to get me organized. I’m tired of my two filing cabinets looking like they’ve been fragged. And I need someone to organize my many bookshelves. I did start with a plan when I moved in, but now, I can’t find a thing. Doesn’t everyone need a single Viking history/myth row of books? That’s what I want. And maybe she can get my mailings ready to go. I just hope she doesn’t talk to me. She’s a chatterer, and I need to work.

I have a stack of books from Omaha, but my mother scarfed them up. I may offer some slightly used books in a couple of weeks. Oh, not quite true, I have copies of Men in Blue and Masters of Desire, both Aphrodisia titles, and both include stories by my sister’s alter ego, Myla Jackson. So if you comment today, you’re in the running to win them both! Have to make room on my shelves for more books. Who knows what else I’ll throw into the box by the time I mail them.

My horoscope today. No kidding. “You’re a space explorer, setting out into the unknown. Make contact with Houston.”

Anyway, I’m back! Still tired and my butt’s tingly from sitting for hours in a car, but I kind of like tingly, so not so bad. And I have pictures! They’re not as fun as the cruise pics, but you know I have to share. Thanks so much to the ladies who took over my blog while I was gone. Looks like you all had fun! We’ll do that again!

Have to start with this picture. My sis, Elle James, forgot she was wearing her reading glasses and we bumped heads while she held the camera above us. She thinks I deleted this one.

Sis and I left Arkansas on Friday, and headed up north to snow country. A writer’s group in Omaha invited us up to conduct a weekend-long plotting bootcamp. We do them a couple of times a year. They’re exhausting, but also a lot of fun. I like hanging with other authors and helping them put together a plot for a book. Brainstorming is fun so long as the book’s not mine!

The group was a nice mix of newbie-writers and multi-published authors. I won’t mention names to protect their privacy, but I was pleased and a little intimidated going in. That lasted about five seconds once everyone started talking about their stories.

I shot this out the car window as we drove. I don’t see snow that often, so it’s cool to me. That drive, BTW, was 12 hours! I broke it into two legs. 4 to my sister’s, then we drove 8 together. Like I said. Tingly butt.

The Omaha group set everything up in a hotel. Here we are arriving. Had to include this pic because that’s sis’s butt. She’s gonna want to kill me, but she’d have a long drive to do it now.

I don’t have a lot of fun photos because the weekend was cram-packed with work. I took a couple of shots while everyone worked on their lists of story conflicts. This was a rare quiet moment.

The bootcamp class is dynamic, and usually looks more like this. Wish you could see her schnauzer slippers. We kept to sweats and slippers for comfort.

The whole reason I love to do the bootcamps is a chance to hang with my sis and do something we both love.

I’ll be back tomorrow! In the meantime, welcome Ari Thatcher… ~DD

Delilah was kind enough to let a few of us come play here while she’s away. I have to admit I’m so busy drooling over her covers I can’t concentrate on what I wanted to say!

Dontcha hate that? Have you met a guy in real life that was just so perfect to look at, you couldn’t speak? Or worse, you do speak and something just awful comes out of your mouth?

In high school I injured my knee and had to go to the ER to have it looked at. The doctor was to die for—young and yummy! He asked what the problem is and I told him, “I hurt my knee and Mom called the doctor and he said to come in and have it x-rated.”

Dear universe, swallow me now.

I’m not usually so eloquent around good-looking men. My normal response is, “Huh?” It’s truly why I keep my hair blonde. A quick smile, hair toss and giggle and I’m good again. They give me a knowing nod and go on their way.

I have no trouble putting these guys down on paper. The saying goes “write what you love”. And oh, I love to look! Living in Southern California I meet enough in a day to keep me writing for years.

Which must be why I have to write. There I can be as bold and brassy as I like. Flirt, tease, and walk away. All those things I wish I’d said come back and live on the page, where my hero has to convince the heroine she needs him desperately.

Thank heavens for sexy romance, where love is the way we wish it could be and men are the way we want them to be. Thank heavens for romance covers, even the ones we only read at home for fear of being seen.

Now, I know I came here for a reason. I’m sure I had something really intelligent to say. While I try and remember you can enjoy my latest cover hero, Kyle, and read about the woman who has him begging for mercy.

Kyle’s Redemption
By Ari Thatcher
Available at Ellora’s Cave

Six years ago, Lily Astor looked forward to establishing herself in the Los Angeles art world. In one painfully public moment, those dreams were shattered. Now she has the chance to try again, but the invitation to exhibit comes from a gallery owned by Kyle Ventura. The man who should have cleared her name.

After a night of eyebrow-singeing sex, Kyle realizes who Lily is, and his role in her downfall. Now, as his heart falls deeper for Lily, he needs to make amends. But Lily doesn’t want his help, just his body.

For the first time in his life, sex isn’t enough for Kyle. He wants to show Lily he’s not the man he was six years ago. But first, he has to prove it to himself.

While I’m away, I let my friends come out to play. Welcome Ann Cory… ~DD

A few months back, I couldn’t wait to show hubby my new covers. Three gorgeous covers that had one very common theme: they all depicted two men with one woman. I didn’t actually think about it at the time, I just always feel like a kid at Christmas when I get new cover art. He also likes being the first to see them. Or at least he always did before. This time he had a different expression. His brow went up and then he crossed his arms.

I looked to the screen and then back to him and asked, “Don’t you like them?”

He cleared his throat and grumbled, “What’s up with the extra guy on each of the covers?”

I felt my cheeks redden, and then I chuckled lightly. “Well, they’re ménage stories.”

He clicked on the “upcoming books” part of my website where he proceeded to read the blurbs. When he finished, he gave me a quizzical look. “How come it takes two guys to satisfy these women? Are they high maintenance or something?”

“They’re fantasy,” I said, and watched his lips curl into a smirk.

“I see. So, is that your fantasy?”

Wow. I felt put on the spot.

I explained that it’s all fiction. That if he remembered correctly, I wrote horror and erotic horror before I ever wrote erotic romance. I wrote about a lot of things that weren’t my fantasies. They were stories in my head. In fact some were based on nightmares and irrational fears. Some of them scared me. When I started to write erotic romance some stories did incorporate a bit of my fantasies. And sure, most stories there are pieces of me within one or more of the characters. Traits and quirks of mine. Insecurities and flaws.

I gave him one hell of a spiel, all the while knowing he was only half listening.

When I finished, he asked again if it was my fantasy. I said I was quite content and that he was all the man I needed. Which is true. Far as I’m concerned, one guy is more than enough work, and I wouldn’t know what to do with another one. But of course I didn’t go into that. I’d said what he wanted to hear.

He then turned his attention back to the covers and said they were cool, gave me a hug, and told me he was proud of me.

Writing ménage is somewhat new for me, and I have to admit I’m enjoying it more than I probably should. Is it fantasy? Yes. Is it my fantasy? No. Well, okay, the thought does come to mind when we get into an argument. Instead of the hunky knight to come rescue me and whisk me off to a fabulous castle where I get to wear glamorous clothes and be waited on, I did consider two alpha hotties stealing me away and spoiling me beyond belief. But then I look into my hubby’s blue eyes and am reminded of the incredible thing we have, and how he truly is all the man I need.

Though, I might be tempted by a shifter. *wink*

~Ann Cory

While I’m away, I let my friends come out to play. Welcome Lexi from Romance Writer by Night… ~DD

I’ve got a confession to make.

I used to hate Valentine’s Day.

That’s a horrible thing for a romance writer to admit, but it’s true. This whole season, stretching from the day after Christmas until Valentine’s Day, is the season of romance, right? Well, it’s not so easy to stay festive when you’re single. I’ve got a birthday right before Valentine’s Day, too, just to add that extra kick. It was a triple whammy: no midnight kiss, another year older and then another dateless Valentine’s Day! Yay, me! How could I think of romance when the whole world was a huge reminder that I was single?

I’ve come to realize, though, that hating Valentine’s Day and singledom in general is no way to go through life, especially as a not-yet-married romance writer. If ever there was a time to make lemonade from the proverbial lemons, it’s right now. So I’ve turned my attitude around, and I’ve discovered that the lemonade has been good for my writing, too. Here’s how.

1. Window Shopping for Heroes

Checking guys out. It’s one of the biggest perks of the single life. Not that women in relationships can’t check guys out, of course they can. No harm in looking, right? Especially if they’re looking for heroes to star in their stories. Hey, they can’t all look like the SO or the DH.

But there’s a certain shameless freedom that we single ladies can bring to the table. Even if all we do is look, the knowledge that we could do more than that—flirt, swap numbers, fly to Vegas for a wild weekend culminating in an Elvis-themed wedding—makes the whole project more exciting. So when we check guys out, we can do it with a dual purpose. That guy across the room might have the perfect look for our next story, or he might turn out to be our real-life leading man. Wouldn’t that be an awesome “how we met” story?

2. Being Positively Wishful

It’s not easy to think romantic thoughts when your one of your eight bags of groceries has exploded in the parking lot, leaving you alone, in the rain, to put everything back together so you can get it up all those stairs to your home. That’s not easy at all. (Don’t ask how I know.) But it does pay off. Before I learned to love Valentine’s Day, I’d have lots of colorful words to share with the parking lot and my groceries and my nonexistent boyfriend about how wonderful it was to be lugging two weeks’ worth of food all the way from the car to the front door. Now I’ve seen the light.

Today, when I’m faced with one of those single-girl challenges like leaping across the rainy parking lot without dropping any of my single-serving frozen foods, I ask myself this question: How would I rather have this work out? Then I let my imagination run with the idea.

Maybe a hot stranger hops out of his car with an umbrella. Maybe I chase a wayward can of corn down the sidewalk until it rolls onto the patio of his studio apartment. Maybe, while I’m huddled beneath my raincoat on his patio, rearranging my groceries, I catch a glimpse of him through the sliding glass door. Maybe he’s a good-looking artist, the lean, intense type, adding the finishing touches to a painting … of an equally lean, intense male model … who sees me on the patio. Now that’s nice, isn’t it? Even though, in reality, I haven’t left my pile of spilled groceries in the parking lot, far from my front door, I’ve got a nice story idea in my head and a smile on my face. That won’t put my stuff back in the bag or stop the rain, but that hey-it-could-happen feeling does make the heavy lifting more bearable.

3. Making the War Stories into Your Stories

Into every woman’s single life wanders the occasional Evil Ex-Boyfriend.

Okay, maybe “evil” isn’t the right word. After all, none of my exes has plotted world domination, or built a weather machine designed to melt the polar ice cap, or re-animated the dead. At least not that I’m aware of. But Evil Ex-Boyfriend has a certain ring to it that Amoral, Self-Absorbed Creep doesn’t.

Thoughts of the Evil Ex have a way of resurfacing in a single girl’s mind at this time of year. Well, that’s fine. Now those thoughts have a place to go: the WIP (Work-In-Progress). I used my memories—the despair, the blame, the shock, all that great stuff—to add detail to my heroine’s breakup with her own Evil Ex. The more I thought about it, the more detail I could weave in, from the icy prickle of anger to the smug expression on Mr. Evil’s face. My heroine’s Evil Ex became someone who felt real without becoming a copy of my real exes, and getting those feelings onto the page made me feel better about surviving that pain.

I’m not a huge believer in the New Year’s Resolution; I’ve got some long-term commitment issues, which I’m sure are totally unrelated to my current single status. But I am determined to take advantage of the single life, both the perks and the unhappy memories, as Valentine’s Day approaches. Singledom’s been pretty good to me, all things considered, and now it’s making me a better writer, too.

What’s not to love about that?

While I’m away, I let my friends come out to play. Welcome Michelle Polaris…~DD

First off, I want to thank Delilah for allowing me to kidnap her blog while she’s away and so help pursue my plan for total world domination. Oops, did I say that out loud? Sorry Delilah-faithful, I’ll have to get back to you on the particulars of my plan, as its details are still quite fuzzy. I’m such a tease. Instead, I’m here today thankful for having a chance to pimp my book, Bound Odyssey, released by Ellora’s Cave this past fall.

But before I jump into shameless self-promotion, I wanted to share a few thoughts I had about why I love erotic romance. One thing fiction does stupendously is allow readers to a place to explore or connect to emotions or ideas in a less overwhelming way. Sexuality and all its flavors is a basic component of our species, but for many it’s difficult to acknowledge. Especially its less mainstream expression. Having a place to connect to our feelings about the varieties of expression is crucial if we’re to avoid crushing our own complex identities. A story that explicitly touches on emotion, relationship and sexuality is a mother load for doing this. As a writer of BDSM romance this strikes me as particularly true.

I am also a fantasy and science fiction reader by nature. I love world building. I adore speculative fiction. They provide the chance, just like erotic romance does for issues of sexuality, to explore a lot of provocative topics without triggering our human tendency to shut down about unpleasant realities. For instance, the threat to the environment. How sexy is it to tune into the news and listen to the debate about global warming, the melting polar icecaps and rising sea levels? Not too sexy. Or to issues about bigotry and violence in our world? I don’t see Cosmo covering these topics in their features about increasing sexual satisfaction in relationships. Not sexy.

Now is about the time I circle back around to my erotic romance novel, Bound Odyssey. It is a futuristic, post-apocalyptic, Femdom, m/m/f ménage which also includes male domination elements. Okay, maybe not for everyone, although it’s getting kick-ass reviews. But what I wanted to build for my readers was a way to reflect on current issues of environmental threat and the politics of hate, while allowing them the eternal hopefulness that comes out of lovers healing each others’ emotional wounds and finding their happily ever after. Life can be painful, but painting a picture of hope alongside dark reality is what keeps folks going. I better shut up now and let you read the blurb.
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