As a woman, who wouldn’t. It is decadent. It is delicious. It is soothing. It is miraculous. The properties inherent in this confection have an uplifting effect on most of us when ingested.
I love chocolate.
As a writer I experience those spells of self-doubt and even depression. They influence that darned muse in all the wrong ways.
We are familiar with the astounding effects it has a premenstrual woman. How it soothes the angry fire we have when all we want to do is lash out and strike.
I was down the other day. Nothing I did brought me out of my funk. I switched Pandora stations ten times in search of a pick me up. I browsed my man-candy file for some stimulation. Nothing helped. In the end I acquiesced to a piece of that sixty percent dark chocolate. I am trying to be healthy in all things and this is supposed to be healthier than the rest. Within twenty minutes of devouring the thing, and I did devour it, too, I found my mood lifting and my outlook shift to the brighter side of dour.
The effects aren’t placebo by any stretch, you all. We have scientific facts supporting the release of several chemicals in our brains that make us happy. I am now showing my chemistry geekiness. Sorry, but humor me.
Among those chemicals are endorphins, which triggers euphoria, phenylethylamine, which acts like an amphetamine by increasing heart rate and blood (sort of like being in love). Don’t worry, it won’t cause any sort of addiction because the thing is entirely NATURAL. Another chemical is lipid anandamide which behaves like marijuana, producing feelings of well-being. Who among us hasn’t experienced all this and more by just eating a piece of chocolate?
So I tell you all, indulge yourselves once in a while and your outlook with improve.
Please pass this along to all your writer friends out there! ~DD
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Smokin’ Hot Firemen: Firefighter Romance Stories
Editor: Delilah Devlin
Publisher: Cleis Press in Summer 2013
Deadline: June 15, 2012 (although sooner is better!)
Smokin’ Hot Firemen is open to all authors.
Editor Delilah Devlin is looking for hetero firefighter stories for a romantic erotica anthology tentatively entitled Smokin’ Hot Firemen: Firefighter Romance Stories.
A firefighter is one of those iconic heroes who inspire a jumble of sexy images at just the mention of the word—a soot-covered face, sweat dripping from hard, chiselled muscles, the sexy snap of suspenders—yes, only a fireman can make suspenders sexy!
Smokin’ Hot Firemen will seek stories that satisfy the reader who craves the romantic idea of that soot-covered, smokin’-hot man while exploring stories set in American cities and small towns, as well as international settings. The stories will be contemporary. While traditional themes are likely to be featured, writers are encouraged to imagine greater in order to create tales that, while featuring this iconic hero, may also surprise.
Think about the big-city firehouse, teaming with sexy firemen, responding to a high-rise fire; firefighters arriving at the scene of an accident to pry a victim from a burning car; a strong, sexy man carrying a child from a burning house… All heroic acts we expect from our local heroes. Then think about the smoke-jumper parachuting into the hot zone of a forest fire; the sexy rancher next door, who’s also a volunteer firefighter, responding to an out-of-control brush fire; or even an oil-rig worker whose extra duty is to respond to a catastrophe on a rig in the middle of the ocean…
Then imagine the romantic possibilities of being held against that massively muscled chest by a man whose mission is to protect and serve…
Published authors with an established firehouse world may use that setting for their original short story.
The stories may be as kinky or vanilla as the writer wants—but a deep sensuality should linger in every word. Exotic locations and scenarios are welcome. 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. We are seeking original stories.
How to submit: Prepare your 1,500 to 4,500 words story in a double-spaced, Arial, 12 point, black font document with pages numbered (.doc, NOT.docx) OR rich text format. 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). US grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) is required.
In your document at the top left of the page, include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), mailing address, and 50 words or less bio in the third person to smokinhotfiremen@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. Delilah will respond in September 2011. The publisher has final approval over the stories included in the manuscript.
Payment will be $50.00 USD and two copies of the published book upon publication.
About the editor: Ms. Devlin has published over a hundred erotic stories in multiple genres and lengths. Her published print titles include Into the Darkness, Seduced by Darkness, Darkness Burning, Darkness Captured, Down in Texas, Texas Men, Ravished by a Viking, and Enslaved by a Viking. Her short stories are featured in Zane’s Purple Panties, and Cleis Press’s Lesbian Cowboys, Girl Crush, Fairy Tale Lust, Lesbian Lust, Passion, Carnal Machines, Dream Lovers, and Best Erotic Romance. She is published by Avon, Kensington, Harlequin, Atria/Strebor, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain Publishing, and Berkley. In Fall 2011, she debuted her first anthology with Cleis Press, Girls Who Bite. In 2012, Cleis Press will release She Shifters and Cowboy Lust.
Direct any questions you have regarding your story or the submission process to Delilah at smokinhotfiremen@gmail.com.
I have a confession. I was the child that drove teachers crazy.
I was the one with the math book open when we’d moved on to reading, the one who couldn’t answer the question because I never heard the teacher ask it, the one who was always staring out the window and lost in my own thoughts. All of my teachers, from kindergarten on, looked at me with frustration and repeatedly told my parents, “I don’t know what to do. She’s a smart girl but she is always daydreaming.”
That was me. The daydreamer.
Who needed math when magical realms were being created in my head? Why should I learn to graph sentences when stringing them together was so much more fun?
My parents did everything they could to get me to pay attention. Eventually they gave up and hoped I’d grow out of it. Sometime in high school I convinced them I had.
But you know what? I didn’t really.
I’m the mom now, the responsible one, the one telling her kids to pay attention, but then they aren’t around, I’m still staring out windows, creating magical realms and stringing sentences together.
I think most writers have some of that kid inside them, the curious child who wonders “what if” then gets lost in finding the answer. I grew up and did the responsible adult thing, but deep inside, I’m still a daydreamer. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I have a ton of writing on my plate this year and the only way I’m going to get it done is by setting goals and sticking to them. That’s right. I have to organize my life AROUND my writing in order to accomplish all the contracted work I have to finish by the end of the year. My sister, Delilah Devlin, and I offer a Goal-setting Workshop once a year for free to anyone. Usually in August when everyone seems to need a recharge to make it to the end of the year. I know I do!
The think about goal setting is that it can apply to any line of work or life in general. Setting long-term goals is the first step. Know where you want to be in five years.
Now you might think that’s a huge elephant to eat. Eat an elephant? You might as well, you’ll never get there, the elephant is way too big for one person to eat. So how does one go about eating an elephant?
One bite at a time.
Set your 5-year goal. Write it down. What big steps do you have to take in order to reach your long-term goals? Write them down. For each big step, determine the smaller steps that will get you there and…what will I say? Write it down!
I have my goals down to the number of words I want to write each day of the week. I plan in the times I’ll be away from my office, vacations, commitments, whatever. But the days I have words on my calendar, I write.
Sometimes it gets tough forcing myself to sit in the chair and get my words in. That’s where accountability steps in. I joined a goal-setting group to inspire me to reach my goals. We have to log in twice a week and report out progress toward our weekly goals. It’s embarrassing when you’re the only slacker reporting zero pages. I call it shaming me into getting the job done. Heck, whatever it takes.
Another technique I employ along the same lines is writing sprints. I have some online buddies I talk to through AOL instant messaging. We meet during the day online for encouragement and a break from the writing. But when we say GO, we write for 45 minutes. We’re not supposed to let any interruptions get in the way of our writing. Head down, butt in chair and hands on keys writing. When the 45 minutes are up, we report in. Again, there’s a shame-factor involved or tapping into the competitive streak. If you end up with a low word-count, for shame. If you have a high word-count, but your buddy has a higher word-count, you’re spurred into action for the next round, determined to beat that count and more.
Accomplishing your goals is the ultimate end to this game. Setting them isn’t enough. You have to follow through with dogged determination. But then the results are worth it. For a writer, it’s a published book.
Deadly Reckoning
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
“You win for now, but it isn’t over.”
Trouble has followed pregnant artist Kayla Davies to a picturesque Oregon town where she hopes to paint away memories of a brutal attack. Instead she finds herself again gripped by fear when a woman’s murder and an eerily familiar stalker coincide with her arrival. Someone is watching her…and disappearing into the dreaded fog called The Devil’s Shroud.
Shaken, Kayla finds comfort in the arms of Gabe McGregor, the hard-bodied town sheriff and single dad. Though he and Kayla share a powerful attraction, neither wants anything beyond an earthshaking fling. Too many lies and secrets have come between them–until another vicious attack on Kayla changes everything.
Reviews. Some writers live and die by reader reviews. Until I got “into the biz” I don’t know that I gave book reviews much thought. In fact, I’m not sure I remember ever reading a review. Since most reviews in the magazines and newspapers I read before I began to write would review either “literary” books or male authors, and since I read primarily romance, I rarely found anything in those reviews I found interesting. Being “online” meant having email access. How things have changed.
Now there are scads of places to look for reviews. Any online store (Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Kobo). Blog sites that are dedicated to book reviews. Book review sites like Goodreads and Shefari.
As an author, do you read your reviews? If so, why? if not, why not?
As a reader, do you trust book reviews when you’re looking for a good book to read?
Do you do book reviews? As an author, I think doing book reviews is so important. But I do get concerned about giving a book a bad review. The publishing world is mighty small. Can I offend the wrong person by giving a book a “bleck” review? Can revenge be a real possibility for a bad review?
So what your experience with book reviews?
Cynthia D’Alba is a debut author with Samhain Publishing. Her first book, Texas Two Step, released on Feb. 28 and is available at Samhain, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble
To learn more about Cynthia check out these links:
People ask me how I come up with the ideas for my stories. It’s not always easy to answer this question. Sometimes the idea literally springs from nowhere. I can be inspired by music, images, news, and many other random everyday occurrences. A conversation with a co-worker about a date she had might create an entire romance in my mind. A news story on NPR about an overpopulation of rats in an area could easily turn into a horror novel. My debut YA novel, The Waiting Booth, actually began with an object that I passed in my vehicle daily.
I have a 100 mile round-trip commute to my day job. You can imagine that this leaves a lot of time for thinking and observing. Not even a mile from my house, I passed a structure at the end of someone’s driveway. I live in the country and this isolated wooden structure seemed a little odd and out of place until I figured out its purpose. I speculate that the owners had children at some time and needed a place for the kids to wait for the school bus.
During this same period of time, I also tended to listen to science podcasts during my drive. The shows discussed topics like black holes, synesthesia, and string theory. The melding together of all these visual and auditory cues became an idea for my YA novel. It blossomed into something that had to be put on paper. I think that the best ideas come when you relax and let your imagination take over. The red structure was taken down and hauled off this year. One day I passed the driveway and it was gone. Poof. I’m glad I took some pictures.
The DSRA meets the third Saturday of every month at Thompson Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. Guests may visit up to three times before joining, and while we are a romance group, all genres are welcome.
For more information about upcoming programs, visit our website at www.dsra-rwa.com.
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February Meeting: Social Media by Voirey Linger
Voirey is currently published with Ellora’s Cave Publishing. you can visit her at www.voireylinger.com.
February’s meeting was full of information on establishing branding, basic social media and using Twitter. There was far too much discussed to cover in one blog so I’m going to concentrate on the subject of author branding.
Branding is almost a dirty word in the writing world. Some authors worry about pigeonholing themselves while others can’t narrow down just what they do. The process can easily become overwhelming. Sometimes it’s easier to hide than brand.
But branding serves an important purpose and it happens whether the author plans it or not. It’s better to take the time to plan than wait and see what happens. The images, language and atmosphere surrounding the author will tell readers what to expect on an almost instinctive level. A well-branded writer will attract her target audience while gently steering readers who prefer another kind of book in a different direction.
So how did I begin my branding process?
The first step was to define for myself who I was. Not my books, me.
Early on, I made a decision that I wanted to be a ‘safe place’ online. I write romance, erotic romance and high-sensuality mainstream romance, but I didn’t want my website to be perceived as dirty in any way. I made a deliberate choice to keep to images that are PG-13, to keep my language relatively clean, and to steer around internet kerfluffles. I figure people get enough negativity in daily life. I don’t want to add to that. This is something I try to keep in mind as I work on my site or interact through various media.
The next step was to define my writing.
At the time I did this, I had two books release. Both were paranormal romance, but I see myself as mostly a contemporary author. I didn’t want to promote myself with paranormal and cut off contemporary, nor did I want to claim the banner of contemporary when I had two paranormal books out.
I turned to friends and critique partners. I asked for terms that would describe my writing in general terms. I was fortunate enough to have a few reviews at that time, so I also gleaned them for words to describe just what it was I did.
The list was very revealing. Steamy, delicious, erotic, passionate with underlying tenderness, full of intensity, emotional, sinful, sensual. Combined, they give a general feel. My writing is sexy with a focus on the heart. The last two words summed up the impression I wanted casual browsers to take away, so I made that in to my tagline, Stories of Sin and Sensuality.
Once mood and writing is defined, it’s time to pull together the most important aspect of branding. Images.
I say this is the most important aspect because humans are, for the most part, visual creatures. We are driven by what we see. Our brains absorb information from images much faster than spoken or written information. We can and do judge books by their covers. An image will attract or repel a reader before she has a chance to read a single word.
I found a selection of images that I felt fit my descriptive list. They were not images that I was planning on using on my website. They were more for my reference. I began considering what it was about the images I liked and why I chose them over others. For me, it boiled down to these people feeling real. There was a raw earthiness about them that was different from the waxed and oiled models that dominate my genre. None of them were explicit or particularly naughty, but there was a sexiness about them which I found very appealing.
In the end, one image stood out to me. It portrayed an earthy sexiness while staying within the PG-13 limits I had imposed.
At this point, I had my branding. The goal was now incorporating it into my online persona.
My first step was taking that one image and making it my face online. It became my header, my avatar, my banner and my ‘filler’ for generic website additions. Wherever I go online, this image is visible, and when people see this one image, they associate it with Voirey Linger.
I used the terms and some of my chosen images to make a trailer, not for a book, but for me. It’s my personal commercial, and I use it wherever I have an opportunity. Like now.
Over time, people have formed an opinion of me and what I do based on my actions and what I present in public. Those who like erotica and sexy romances are pulled in. Those who prefer tamer reads won’t be offended by anything I present, but they won’t be drawn in, either. My branding is established, and it serves me well.
A six-foot-plus mountain of sexiness is trying to seduce Janie and doing a damn good job of it. Just one problem…her husband is watching the whole thing.
To her surprise, Edward has no problem with his wife being seduced. In fact, he’s encouraging it. They share a deep love, but the mindless lust that drove them as a new couple has been missing for a while. And Paul is just the man to bring heat back into their marriage. Edward knows if Janie is brave enough to allow Paul to join them, she just might like it.
Book Blurb: On a hot, spring weekend in Dallas, two old lovers meet again at a wedding of friends. Six years have passed since their torrid affair, but time has only dampened their flames of desire, not extinguished them.
Sexy rancher Mitch Landry is ready to admit he was wrong to have ended his relationship with Olivia Montgomery. He uses the wedding weekend to woo Olivia back into his bed and, he hopes, back into his life.
After a failed rebound-marriage, single mother Olivia Montgomery wants nothing to do with rekindling a relationship that only caused her pain. She has a son she’d do anything for and a secret she’d hoped to take to her grave.
The more Olivia pushes Mitch away, the more convinced he is that she’s the love of his life, until her startling secret rocks his world and threatens to shatter his trust in her forever.
A six-foot-plus mountain of sexiness is trying to seduce Janie and doing a damn good job of it. Just one problem…her husband is watching the whole thing.
To her surprise, Edward has no problem with his wife being seduced. In fact, he’s encouraging it. They share a deep love, but the mindless lust that drove them as a new couple has been missing for a while. And Paul is just the man to bring heat back into their marriage. Edward knows if Janie is brave enough to allow Paul to join them, she just might like it.
Is there anything better than an imaginary man? I think not. Imaginary men are perfect. They always say the right thing. They seldom sulk or pout. They never leave whiskers coating the sink or their socks on the couch.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore my husband. He’s funny, charming, sexy, and sweet…. Whew! Okay, he left the room. Where was I? Oh yeah – imaginary men….
There have been a number of imaginary men in my life. Here are a few that have earned a special place in my heart:
Rhett Butler – Gone with the Wind – A rebel in every sense of the word, Rhett was the first bad boy in my life. I fell in love with Captain Butler at a young age and our love has only grown deeper over the years. Observe my hands, my dear…. Guh!
Fitzwilliam Darcy – Pride and Prejudice – All I want is a chance to tell Mr. Darcy how ardently I admire and love him. I wouldn’t mind if Colin Firth wanted to send a little of that smolder in my direction.
Luke Danes – The Gilmore Girls – There’s nothing I love more than a good rant from this flannel-clad, backwards baseball cap wearing diner man. Who doesn’t hunger for a heaping helping of sexy with a side of snark?
Jamie Fraser – Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series – Now there’s a braw, bonnie lad. What I wouldn’t give for just one peek beneath that Scotsman’s kilt!
Imaginary men embody the very best and absolute worst of every man we know. Would we put up with their shenanigans in real life? Probably not. Let’s face it; these guys all have some serious issues.
Rhett? He’s a cocky bully. Mr. Darcy? A snob. Luke Danes has commitment issues and a hair-trigger temper. Jamie Fraser – Och! The man is an unholy mess.
Still, that’s part of the reason women find these men attractive. Who wouldn’t want to be the one they turn to when their hurts need healing, their tattered egos require mending, and their passionate natures get the best of them?
I love imaginary men. I love creating them. As an author, one of the biggest challenges and tantalizing thrills is creating a character who tugs at the reader’s heartstrings. I’m in love with every one of my heroes – flaws and all.
How about you? What draws you in? What keeps you hanging on long after the story is done? Have you ever fallen for an anti-hero, or do you like your imaginary men on the up and up?
book reviews much thought. In fact, I’m not sure I remember ever reading a review. Since most reviews in the magazines and newspapers I read before I began to write would review either “literary” books or male authors, and since I read primarily romance, I rarely found anything in those reviews I found interesting. Being “online” meant having email access. How things have changed.
