I’m blogging at Flirty Author Bitches today, talking about an article I came across that lists a ton of ‘rules’ from successful authors on writing fiction. Although I prefer to think of these as ‘nuggets of wisdom’ rather than rules that should be followed off a cliff, there’s a ton of great information there for anyone who’s ever considered penning a short story, a novella, a novel, or even a screenplay or a TV script.

Come join me!… Read More »

Quote of the Day:

It’s hard to be amorous with someone when you’re afraid that a monster might come out from under the bed and bite your butt. You try it.  

– Be Happy

In the midst of a serious non-fiction book analyzing the phenomenon of human happiness, I found the little gem above, and it struck me as profoundly funny. I knew I shouldn’t laugh, really. Apparently it’s based on a true story. The author of the book met a grown man who was still afraid of monsters under his bed. So afraid, in fact, that he couldn’t … Read More »

I love a sexy man in uniform as much as the next girl, so when this week’s theme showed up for Snippet Saturday, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. And then I started looking through my books, and realized that although I’m crazy about a man in uniform, I haven’t actually written one. *gulp*

I was just about to bow out of participating this week when I realized I’d written a sexy knight in a story for Amber Quill Press. Surely, a knight’s suit of armor counts as a uniform… of sorts?

England, 1202 A.D.

“Take me back, you coward.

… Read More »

Quote of the Day:

A failing we writers have is that we confuse the voices in our head with writing; we tend to do exercises in our head because thinking and writing feel so closely related. Visual artists never have this problem. Their sketchbooks are filled with sketches; when they do an exercise, they can’t just do it in their minds.​

– Chapter After Chapter: Discover the Dedication and Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams

I was just talking to my bestie, Fiona Jayde, about this very thing a couple of days ago. We were … Read More »

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a hard time with this week’s theme. In my day-to-day life, I pay homage to lots of things: a favorite piece of music, an episode from an old TV show, a movie I’ve watched close to a hundred times. But in my fiction? Not so much.

And then I remembered a short, intense, emotional (and super sexy) story I wrote for Changeling under my Hunter Raines pen name. I’m a big fan of the Blade movie trilogy. Something about a hot vampire hunter along with nasty (and some surprisingly redeemable) vampires … Read More »

Quote of the Day

He tucked the gun under the top edge of my towel, wedging it between my breasts, his knuckles brushing against me.

- High Five (A Stephanie Plum Novel)

I don’t read the Stephanie Plum series for the romance (though I admit to being a huge Ranger fan), but sometimes, the sexiness of something Stephanie does with one of her men steals my breath. Like the quote above… There’s so much heat in that simple act. You can imagine the way the heavy gun feels nestled against her breasts as it’s wedged beneath the towel. She’s probably … Read More »

I’m really glad to be getting back into the swing of things, especially since it means once again getting to participate in Snippet Saturday. It’s such a great way to discover new books and authors, and I always end up adding to my giant TBR pile when I follow the links to read everyone’s snippets.

This week’s theme is unusual settings. I’ve written a few of those, but for this post, I thought I’d focus on a scene from a hot little story I wrote for Amber Heat years ago. WILD, WILD, MOTHER OF THE BRIDE is set at … Read More »

Quote of the Day

So, what is submission to me? To me, submission is a desire to be special or significant. My earliest fantasies, and they were when I was very young, always involved being somehow chosen and desired.

- The Loving Dominant

I’ve always been fascinated by the rich fantasy lives we all live. In fact, I draw a lot of my story ideas from fantasies – whether nocturnal or while I’m daydreaming and avoiding work. Those are always the strongest stories, too, perhaps because they’re born of such intense experiences, even if they’re all in my mind.

The … Read More »

Quote of the Day

You have everything you need to write this book: you know what you need to know. You know how to find out things you do not know. You have enough time (same as everybody else), enough life experience, enough smarts. You are ready to write this book.

- Chapter After Chapter: Discover the Dedication and Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams

For as long as I’ve been reading, I’ve kept a book journal. I write down my impressions about a book while I’m going through it, and then I journal my overall … Read More »

To say I’m thrilled with the work Frauke from Croco Designs did on this redesign would be a severe understatement. She came up with a gorgeous design that works beautifully for both my pen names, and then wrapped it all around WordPress inner workings that make the site extremely simple to update and straight forward to navigate.

Oh, and she gave me my blog back! See that last post from September 2010? Yeah, I’m pretty embarrassed about that. As it happens, my web host had a glitch that deleted the database for my blog, and the whole thing went up in smoke, … Read More »