As I’m an erotic/steamy romance writer, the title of my post can only refer to one thing: the Cone of Learning. Ha, ha. Made you look.

One long ago Easter from my childhood, I made a Sunday School craft that continues to have a lasting impression on me almost fifty-five years later. What I recall is the first part of the tri-fold craft showed Jesus’ body being laid in the tomb. The second part depicted the stone rolled into place. The third showed the tomb empty. I remember thinking “How was that possible?” Precisely the point of the lesson: it was a miracle. I remember being hit with a sense of wonder like a flashbulb going off. Why is it the recollection of that craft has the same impact on me now when I’m sixty-three years old as it did when I was seven or eight? The answer is the Cone of Learning.

I came across this concept when I trained Sunday School teachers. Developed in the 1960’s by Edgar Dale, the Cone of Learning posits these points: people generally remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what they say and write, 90% of what they perform. In other words, the deeper you go, the longer it lasts. As I think back on that Sunday school craft, I’m sure I heard the story being told while I colored and cut and pasted in the company of other children doing the same thing. I probably read or repeated bible verses, too. That simple little craft took me deep into the cone.

The Cone of Learning takes on new meaning for me now I’m a writer. As I revise and edit my stories I have to do all I can so the 10% my reader recalls is truly memorable. This is why we writers are encouraged to show don’t tell, to evoke as many of the senses and to get as deep into the character’s point of view as possible. Think about the stories that have stuck with you. Think about passages you read over and over again to relive some delicious thrill or surprise. Your senses were engaged by sensory-rich sentences and settings. Emotion coursed through you as the character’s thoughts and feelings became your own. These authors took you deep and impressed you in ways that guaranteed you’d remember the 10% of what you read long after you put the book down.

With this in mind, my goal is to write thrilling, evocative and emotionally satisfying stories, stories so striking that fifty-some odd years later, the 10% my readers recall will be as fresh and impactful as my recollection of that Easter Sunday School take-home craft.

“$5.00 Kiss of Life” from First Response

Trapped by the small-town conventions imposed on her, a pastor’s spinster daughter finds rescue in the town bad boy’s very public kiss…

Excerpt from “$5.00 Kiss of Life”

Loose lips sunk ships during the war, Bev. And still do. Only now the ships are voter registration drives and lawsuits and attempts at economic self-sufficiency. It’s not Nazi spies listening and betraying but law enforcement officers who first tip-off Klansmen and other night riding types then stand by as they target the Negro lawyers, teachers and ministers who educate and encourage the folk of color to claim their rights. It’s not Tokyo Rose undermining Negro pride and confidence but those among our own people who choose the safety of their present limitations to the risks of a future determined by the freedom of true independence. Loose lips sink ships, Bev…and they still do.

You’d expect the ones oppressing you to do all they could to keep you down. But for members of the race to sow envy and fear and suspicion so as to undermine efforts to uplift the race was most distressing.

And most familiar.

A good reputation was the battleship in need of protection where she lived. To keep it afloat peer pressure, tradition and societal expectation waged a constant battle against the loose lips of gossip and scorn and lies.

As the daughter of the town’s minister she’d experienced the looks and the whispers and the dressing downs that kept her in her place. The freedom garnered by her one small rebellion – becoming the town librarian rather than the dutiful wife of her father’s associate pastor – turned out to be as limiting as the choice she’d rejected.

Preorder – https://amzn.to/3dRvwLE

Author Contact –
Twitter: @ mscottauthor1
Website: www.michalscott.webs.com

Yes, it’s Tuesday. And like I said before…er, sometime or other…it’s hard to remember what day of the week it is when you’re on lockdown. So, it’s my pleasure to remind you and to offer you some light entertainment while you’re slowly going out of your mind…

Okay, none of that is happening here. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, and we’re having to cook way too many meals. What is it with kids? They think every meal should be an event! Any other time, they’d be happy with PBJ or ramen. Ha! Okay, again, none of that crazy sh*t is goin’ on here. 🙂

(Do you sense that I’m ready for a spa day?)

Ah well, next best thing to a day of self-care is a FREE story, right? Something short to tide you over. You can tell the kids or your SO you won’t be long. Just a few pages more… And you’d be telling them the truth! In addition to the free story, I have an inspirational puzzle. Something of a morning pick-me-up. *wink-wink*

Enjoy both! And you’re welcome! ~DD

P.S. Tell me how you’re coping! No crazy sh*t going on there, right?

FREE Read — Lily’s Last Stand

A wife gives her husband a sexy surprise…and then he ups the ante…
Get your copy here!
*~*~*~*

The Puzzle

Here’s a free story, just because… 🙂

Passion lights the way for an ex-marine corrections officer rescuing a female CO trapped in a prison block during a blackout…

Get your copy here!

FIRST RESPONSE: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY
Editor: Delilah Devlin
Deadline: November 15, 2019 December 10, 2019

FIRST RESPONSE is open to all authors.

Editor/Author Delilah Devlin is looking for stories for a romantic erotica anthology tentatively entitled FIRST RESPONSE: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY.

Why write a short story for this collection? Well, it’s certainly not about making a lot of money, so why do it at all? I’ve said this before, but here are my thoughts…

Writing a short story for a call for submissions is a chance to flex your writing muscle! It can be a chance to experiment with a genre you’ve never written. If you’ve never written a story in first person but don’t want to begin by writing an entire novel using it, start short! For myself, I’ve written stories in new genres or with fresh themes that ended up being so much fun to write they’ve spawned entire series.

You have a deadline! I don’t know about you, but I have trouble keeping my butt in the chair without one!

It’s a promotional opportunity! If selected, you’ll be joined by 12-15 other authors for the launch, sharing your audiences and, hopefully, picking up new readers along the way. Having your story in the collection is another chance to be “seen.”

And remember, you retain the rights to your story, so you can republish it for individual sale or give it away to attract subscribers to your newsletter. You might even decide there’s more story to tell and expand it into a novel!

Here’s what I’m looking for…

FIRST RESPONSE: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY will include stories that satisfy the reader who craves stories about those brave people who sweep into therescue, regardless of the dangers. Here are a few ideas…

When an alarm goes off in a high-rise apartment building, our heroine is trapped in an elevator while fire spreads in the floors above her. Who will provide her comfort until she can be rescued? An ex who’s a fireman with local FD? Perhaps the heroine is the pilot of a spaceship on the edge of the galaxy when her ship is attacked, and she’s forced to land on uninhabited planet. Who will come to her rescue? Will he be human? The vessel of a woman attempting a solo voyage around the world is sinking in the middle of the ocean. Will a pirate be her only hope?

Don’t limit your imagination to these ideas! Just remember, our “boys” have to behave badly—to give the rescuee just what they always secretly craved… Have fun with the concept.

I’m open to any subgenre of erotic romance you want to write. I’ll accept contemporary, historical, science fiction, or paranormal stories, and I won’t be picky about whether the stories are hetero, LGBT, ménage… Basically, you, the author, can go anywhere your imagination takes you so long as 1) a character is in jeopardy, and 2) the story is a romance, and 3) you have a bad boy somewhere in the pages!

The anthology will be sold at a low price—my intent is exposure for you and your writing. The more readers reached, the better! You will retain the rights to your story so that, at a later date, you can republish your stories individually.

I’m seeking hot and inventive stories from authors with unique voices, and above all, I’m looking to be seduced by tales filled with vivid imagery and passion.

Published authors with an established world may use that setting for their original short story.

This is erotic romance, so don’t hold back on the heat. Stories can be vanilla or filled with kink, but don’t miss describing the romantic connection between strong-willed individuals learning to trust and love one another. A deep sensuality should linger in every word. Keep in mind there must be a romantic element with a happy-for-now or happy-ever-after ending. Strong plots, engaging characters, and unique twists are the ultimate goal. Please no reprints. I want original stories.

How to submit: Prepare your 2,500 to 5,500 words story in a double-spaced, Arial, 12 point, black font, Word document (.doc or .docx) OR rich text format (.rtf), with pages numbered. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch, and double space (regular double spacing; do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). U.S. grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) is required.

In your document at the top left of the first page, include your legal name (and pseudonym, if applicable), mailing address, email address, and a 50-words or less bio, written in the third person, and send to boysbehavingbadlyfirstresponse@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. Authors may submit up to 2 stories. I will respond no later than January 30, 2020 with decisions.

Payment will be $25.00 USD, ninety days after publication at the end of that month.

Who am I?

Delilah Devlin is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of erotica and erotic romance. She has published nearly two hundred stories in multiple genres and lengths, and is published by Atria/Strebor, Avon, Berkley, Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ellora’s Cave, Entangled, Grand Central, Harlequin Spice, HarperCollins: Mischief, Kensington, Kindle, Montlake, Penthouse, Running Press, and Samhain Publishing.

Her short stories have appeared in multiple Cleis Press collections, including Lesbian Cowboys, Girl Crush, Fairy Tale Lust, Lesbian Lust, Passion, Lesbian Cops, Dream Lover, Carnal Machines, Best Erotic Romance (2012), Suite Encounters, Girl Fever, Girls Who Score, Duty and Desire, Best Lesbian Romance of 2013, and On Fire. For Cleis Press, she edited Girls Who Bite, She Shifters, Cowboy Lust, Smokin’ Hot Firemen, High Octane Heroes, Cowboy Heat, Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors and Sex Objects. She also edited Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance, Rogues: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Blue Collar: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Pirates: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, and Stranded: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology.

Direct any questions you have regarding your story or the submission process to me at boysbehavingbadlyfirstresponse@gmail.com.

I’m late posting today. Had to run my mom to the doctor’s and then to the local hospital for some x-rays. She’s doing okay, but she’s not very happy with me because I tattled on her for not taking better care of herself. Ah well. The child becomes the parent.

So, since I’m trying to play catch-up, I’ll make this easy. Head on over to my Short Stories page and peruse the sexy covers. The first three on the top row haven’t been released yet, so ignore them. Here’s the deal…

Pick a short story you’d like to read and email me at Delilah@delilahdevlin.com with the title.
I’ll send you a FREE copy. 🙂 DD

Okay, so I’m late posting this. I’m doing it anyway. I hate leaving blanks in my blogging calendar. I already had two this year, the first in four or five years, but April followed some pretty gritty family things, so I’m excused, right?

Let me tell you how yesterday got so FU’d, because I know you want to know what a day in the life is like with me. And even if you don’t, this is my blog, so I get to tell you anyway. 🙂 And after I tell you my sad story, I’ll tell you about the new release! Yay!

So, yesterday, I was playing the good grandma. My dd and SIL are in Virginia at the moment, so I have the two teenagers to ferry back and forth to football and volleyball practices, as well as “play dates” at the community pool with their friends. The boy told me he HAD to be at the football field at O-five-thirty because they had some special deal and had to be bussed. So, I was up at 4:30 to make sure he got his own ass out of bed (he’s a teenaged boy, he needs more sleep than Sleeping Beauty). I woke him, took him to the school, and we sat. The field was dark. I asked him to check his schedule again. “Nina, it says we have to catch the bus at 6PM.” I must have given him bug-eyes, because he handed me the phone and said, “See?”

WTF do they teach kids in school? I took a deep breath and instead of punching him in the throat told him “PM” indicated that he had to be there in the evening.

Soooo, back home we went. I stayed awake, because the girl had to be at volleyball at 8 so I woke her at 7, because, even though she doesn’t need as much sleep as Sleeping Beauty, she still NEVER hears her alarm.

So, I went back in two hours to pick her up. Back home, I worked on edits that were due yesterday. Took me all my time, up until I had to head out to drop the boy at his bus, then the girl and I caught a craft club meeting in town, then back to the school to pick him up. By the time I arrived home again, I was too tired to post a freaking blog, and I went to bed.

So, that was my shitty day.

I didn’t have time to tell you about my new release, but here it is. Only, it’s not really new if you picked up a copy of Stranded: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology. It’s one of the thirteen stories in that sexy volume.

However, if you haven’t read my story and want to drool over the cover, you are very welcome and encouraged to pick up a copy of the short story, all by itself! It’s just $0.99 or FREE to KU subscribers!

Quincy Down Under

A bounty hunter following a lead is trapped in an underground-bunker-turned-beauty-salon with a pretty beautician…
Get your copy here!

P.S. If you’ve read the story, and want to help an author out, post a review! I’d be forever grateful!

The saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The connection between agency and self-sufficiency is obvious. It lends itself to more modern iterations like, “Don’t give a hand out. Give a hand up.” Ministering in inner city communities that most of the business world has abandoned, I love finding examples of agency/self-sufficiency projects that show them up. I found one of my favorite success stories in Liberia: the Liberian Womens Sewing Project.

Child Liberty, the son of an exiled Liberian diplomat, was inspired by the work of Nobel prize winners Leymah Gbowee, President Ellen Sirleaf and the Liberian Women’s Peace Movement, to return to Liberia determined to use his Silicon Valley tech experience to provide economic opportunity for women. In 2010, he co-founded Liberty and Justice which I learned is Africa’s first fair-trade-certified apparel manufacturer.

The workers in their factories in Liberia and Ghana are 90% female and are paid 20% more than others in the industry. They also own 49% of the business. This means women who are often locked out of opportunities for gainful employment are not just employed but owners of their employment. The cherry on the cake is that the remaining 51% goes back into community development.

Here’s a quote from a CNN interview with Child Liberty: “We did it in post-conflict Liberia where we have women from both sides of the conflict, affected by the conflict working together, singing together, praying together and doing all these great things but also exporting t-shirts for major retailers in the United States. In that process we hope those women will lift themselves and their families out of poverty.” You can read the full story here:

https://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/08/09/liberia.fairtrade.women/index.html

I’ve had to deal with banks in the inner cities where I’ve pastored that want credit for community development through Community Reinvestment Act investment, but you have to fight them tooth and nail to approve projects that are as community changing as Liberty and Justice. Having been a seamstress myself (alterations a specialty) and having a grandmother who supported her family doing piecework in clothing factories here in NYC, I love that women and sewing machines are providing their own happily ever afters.

“Put It In A Book”
by Michal Scott

The daughter of ex-slaves, Aziza Williams uses her freedom to teach slaves to read, a law-breaking activity that forces her to flee the United States for the Free and Independent Republic of Liberia where her independent and injustice-confronting ways garners the unwanted sexual attention of a dibia, Dulee Morlu. In a cruel twist of fate, Morlu uses Aziza’s love for education against her and imprisons her in a book no one will ever read. He declares she will remain there until she submits to him. After a month of imprisonment, Aziza despairs that Morlu is right. Fear that she may surrender to him begins to overwhelm her until one day she senses the unfamiliar touch of Sekou Caine, an audacious and inquisitive thief, leafing through her pages.

Excerpt:

A multiple volume encyclopedia stood on shelves at chest level in a far corner. Morlu would want his wealth within easy reach. Sekou pulled down the first volume and rifled through the pages. Paper currency of all types fluttered to his feet like leaves whirling from the branches of bombax trees in winter.

Clever, Dibia. But not clever enough.

Sekou chuckled and rifled through volume after volume. By the time he reached Z a pile of money lay on the floor. He scooped the cash into his swag sack, laughing quietly at his haul.

He thrust the last volume back into place, knocking a slender manuscript off the shelf.

The Story of Aziza.

He recognized the title of the book with which Morlu had taunted him. He picked it up, fanned the pages with his thumb. A sigh drifted past him. Startled, he crouched and looked left then right. Only the night breeze disturbed the silence. He fanned through the pages again. This time a scent – light like rain, sweet like honey – graced the air.

He stared at the face of a withered old hag on the book’s cover. The image had repulsed and fascinated him. The gaze in her eyes shone with intelligence and defiance, so unlike the villagers lionizing the dibia at this moment.

Sekou opened to the flyleaf. There the image of a black beauty stared back at him. Her skin was as smooth as the hag’s was wrinkled, but the same intelligent defiance shone in her eyes. He traced the outline of her chin jutting forth with pride.

“So, ladies…” He feathered his fingers along her full lips then examined the woman on the cover again. “To which one of you does this story belong?”

#

Aziza’s chest heaved. Warmth from the intruder’s fingers suffused the book’s cover, intoxicating her mind and her spirit with hope. The rapid flutter of her prison’s pages kindled arousal along her labia. She shivered as delight saturated her deadened limbs.

Once again the rapid rifling of the pages sent tremors of pleasure through her. She knew not whose hand cradled her prison, but the respectful caress told her this couldn’t be her captor. Dared she hope this might be a person she could trust to set her free?

Buy link: https://amzn.to/2JyIK4V