Thanks for the Memories

I hope you all enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday. As usual, the delicious aroma of roasting turkey wafting through the house took me back to the innocent days of my youth and the amazing sex education I received at my uncle’s knee.

Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound quite right. It’s not as if Uncle Bart intentionally provided me with an education a French courtesan might envy, he had no idea that I made a habit of hiding unnoticed under the huge dining room table after Thanksgiving dinner, eavesdropping shamelessly as he regaled the sophisticated, adult family members and assorted worldly guests with tales of his international adventures and misadventures of kinkiest kind. Apparently, being a sailor, then eventually graduating to captain of a freighter that sailed the seven seas, had opened the lust filled doors of golden opportunity for him to explore a wide variety of global sexual mores.

Listening to Uncle Bart’s red-blooded escapades was akin to taking a crash course in sexual sociology. No wonder this educational holiday tradition was carried over for many years. If memory serves me right, the enthralled diners remained rapt throughout the entire dissertation, often encouraging Uncle Bart to exceed the boundaries of good taste by indulging them with his bold narratives that sounded more like erotic fantasy than fact.

Uncle Bart’s overt masculinity, well-favored looks, and his superb ability to tell a story were surly a gift from the gods. Like a sorcerer, he captivated his audience with words and images spun from the most colorful strands of pure erotica that held them fast. Other than witnessing my older cousin, Freddie, stroking the protuberance jutting from the front of his corduroy trousers and Aunt Emily’s constant squirming, from where I sat under the table it was difficult to tell if the stories caused anyone to be disturbed or embarrassed. It didn’t embarrass me because at the time I had no idea what in the world he was talking about.

But, apparently, for some reason that I can’t even begin to explain, his stories of passion, lust and exotic debaucheries were indelibly printed on the cortex that influenced my long-term-memory. Try as I might, I could not erase the sexually graphic images his tales conjured up. According to Uncle Bart, he had done it all and was more than willing to share his extraordinary knowledge of foreign promiscuity and vigorously passionate affairs.

The elocution of Uncle Bart’s prose was so descriptive, to this very day, I can’t hear the word fellatio with out conjuring up the image of full, red lips gliding over an impressive penis that stands at attention like a wooden soldier, illuminated only by the flickering flames from an earthen hearth somewhere near the coast of Somalia.

Perhaps, if you’d like, I’ll share some of Uncle Bart’s darkest secrets and indiscretions, which may be built on a foundation of truth or steeped in unbridled creativity, lies and innuendo. I am, after all, a writer of erotic fiction.

Santa's Coming

Hi Happy Readers,

The holidays will soon be upon us and to make the season all the merrier, Santa's Coming. This was such a fun story to write, I truly hope you all enjoy reading it.

Be patient, Santa's Coming very soon.

Have a Purrrfect holiday . . . Cat Lovington

http://erotiquepress.com/index.htm

Prolific Writers - Are You One?

So you think you write a lot — How many books have you written? As a reader, how many books do you read a month?

Barbara Cartland, who my college Women’s Lit Instructor disliked intensely, wrote a stunning 723 books and made the Guinness Book of World Records for her efforts. She wrote a novel in one or two weeks. The critics say she actually didn’t write them she dictated them to her secretaries and they typed them up. I beg to differ with them. It was her creative genius that dreamt them up in the first place. If she hadn’t dictated them would each of her secretaries have written a best seller and had them published?

I take issue with the big name authors who have an understudy of sorts write from their outline and create a book for the named author. I see James Patterson and a few others are finally listing those as co-authors on the covers of their books. But now does that make them author of those books or the co-author? Who gets to count coup – will Patterson have 300 books because of their efforts or will he let them count those as their own?

Isaac Asimov wrote over 200 books, by himself – he then, in my humble opinion, especially with all the special issues Sci Fi authors face, was a prolific writer.

Georges Simenon wrote 400 books each book took him eleven straight days of writing. I’m sure he took food breaks and a nap break here and there – but that’s profound. Imagine fellow NaNoWriMo authors if you could write a novel in 30 days, why not one in eleven days?
How many words a day would that be? Approximately 4,500 words a day. Hey you could do that couldn’t you? {smile}

So write like the wind, read like a Tsunami and perhaps you will earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for your effort. After NaNoWriMo I’m sure many of you are thinking you deserve at least that commendation. I am proud of those of you who tried, even if you didn’t finish. And I am doubly proud of those who did – included in that my own daughter who finished her novel at just under 54,000 words ahead of the deadline. GO BECKIE!
www.cricket-sawyer.com

When an Author Looks Back

The books we wrote before may color our opinions of our younger self - or -

When an author re-reads something they have written long ago it’s sometimes very disconcerting, at least I thought so. I thought I was the only one who looked at my once written, even once published books and thought, oh my good gracious how could I have let that go as a publishable piece? I don’t feel so bad any more after reading this from Aldous Huxley (Brave New World 1932 among other novels) This was in the revised/republished 1946 edition of Brave New World. “…Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment….”

He goes on more eloquently but it boils down to what we both feel after pouring over the short comings of a novel written at a younger more inexperienced time in an attempt to patch a faulty piece into a perfect masterpiece. That particular piece having missed that mark the first time around—should be repaired to a place where growth had taken me. To spend time trying to mend the artistic sins committed by that different person, the person I was then—is surely vain and futile. Its defect may be part of its charm.

I could rewrite the whole book as an older, perhaps wiser, other person. What might happen then though is I probably would get rid not only of some of the faults of the story, but also rid it of some of its merits as it originally possessed them.

So, resisting the temptation to wallow in artistic remorse, I leave well and ill alone and move on to ‘next’ with what I have learned and am able to create in my next novel, with much thanks to Aldous Huxley for making me feel less alone and imperfect.


Cricket Sawyer

www.cricket-sawyer.com
www.erotiquepress.com

Exercise: The Reluctant I

In the picture my Mom is in the forefront, my Aunt Lois is pointing to the cake. Mom's birthday, but they shared the same birthday two years apart.

I sat there listening to her always with the phrases for everything. A quote, a song title, a bible verse, pulled as if from a small box in her mind. This time it was essential that her directive be avoided (not that it was known then.)

"Brags a good bargain, but hold on is a lot better," she said.

"Then how do you propose a writer will sell his/her work? No one can promote what another has written as well as the author. It's his/her baby, birthed with no fewer labor pains than the birth of a human infant. It seems weird to internalize that phrase and know now that one size, or in this case, one phrase, does not fit all.

Years after her death her phrases pop up as rules of life. Life is not a box of little ticker tape answers to every questions, though a lot of those do strike home with a ring of truth. Following, hanging on her every word helped to raise a lemming, a self-conscious, fearful individual with a couple dozen successes that many have never had, and yet that success feels like an embarrassment. It shouldn't.

Not all her phrases affected life that same way. Expressing the way her grandfather began a story - a phrase she repeated often, began a story created for my only Young Adult Historical novel. Watch For the Raven was born from her phrase, "When Tag was a pup, and turkey's chewed tobaccy."
Her phrases in all fairness did guide and still do.

We stood, the five of us, at her coffin during her wake, the final time we were able to talk with her and reminisced those phrases and funny fax paus she emotionally rendered throughout our growing years. "I'll slap my face against the back of your hand," was meant to be an admonition to my brother for inappropriate actions and words that we no longer remembered. We did remember watching our dad try to repress the laughter lighting up his mahogany eyes, the twitch in his lips that threatened to curve in a smile. Five faces suppressed the laughter only until she caught her mis-spoken words.

Laughter, hearty and long, followed as the tension in the room dissolved in fits of laughter, as it was as we swayed, arm-in-arm, remembering--the good, the bad and the hilarious--

And now alone, I think of perhaps the only wrong phrase, at least for me, that she ever insisted was law. Perhaps, she was right, but never for her daughter, the multi-published, award-winning author who needs to promote herself to sell her books. What would she say knowing about the Erotic Romantic Suspense titles written by me?

Perhaps there is a way to brag without boasting, is that what she meant? Be proud but not too proud? Be verbal, interesting, social, outgoing, be discovered by your talent, not what you say on your own behalf. If only it was possible to ask her for clarification, if only she had lingered as long as her phrases have. If only she had stayed until I had my first book published--then maybe it would have been different. Maybe then she would have said,"You deserve to be proud and brag," perhaps...
(This post sprung from an exercise in the book The 3 A.M. Epiphany. The use of I was permitted but only twice and it had to be a first person narrative.)

Introduction

Hello,

I am new to this blog....my name is Lanna St. Claire. I am very excited to have the opportunity to join this community!

I have a blog spot of my own called Lanna's Amorous Musings at http://lannasamorousmusings.blogspot.com/. I invite everyone to come take a look at it.
Please feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly at lannastclaire@amorous.com.

I look forward to hearing from everyone!
Lanna St. Claire

A Book is...

Lasts longer than a fruitcake, is cheaper than a flat screen monitor or television and more fun than a partridge in a pear tree. So why not give some one an exciting romp through the pages of a well written romantic suspense like -- well perhaps -- If I may...Dark Thunder by Cricket Sawyer ISBN 1-59080-597-6 or 978-1-59080-597-8 - available wherever they sell good books.
Published by Erotique Press. {smile}
You can also visit www.cricket-sawyer.com
if you're interested in some free reads and more.

Bridget Midway's Midway Lowdown newsletter now posted!

I said what in that interview? Bridget Midway has a contest going on now? Wait! What books are no longer going to be offered soon? For answers to these questions and more, join my newsletter group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midway_lowdown/

This is not a chatters list.

BridgeT
www.BridgetMidway.com

Holiday Romance

What holidays spring to mind when thinking of romance? Valentine's Day? Of course. New Year's Eve? Sure. Anniversaries? Absolutely.

I contend, however, that romance doesn't have to be limited to these days of the year. In the flurry of time that elapses between Halloween and taking down the Christmas tree, there are so many opportunities to take time to be romantic with your partner.

Take our next upcoming holiday, for example. Thanksgiving can be a wonderful time set for romance. How, you might ask, is that possible when the in-laws are coming for dinner and you have a pasty white 12-pound frozen bird carcass that somehow has to come out looking like a Norman Rockwell painting?

I think the trick here is just making time for each other. And yes, it can be done! Try some of these things.

1. Plan a simple breakfast in bed for Thanksgiving morning. A fruit parfait, croissants, and maybe a mimosa might make a simple breakfast for two enticing, or at least give you an excuse to stay in bed a bit longer!

2. Plan dessert for after the company leaves. Share a bit of pumpkin pie and LOTS of whipped cream (you decide where it goes!)

3. Forget all the hustle and bustle of the holiday. Go away for a long weekend. Trust me...you will enjoy the time together more than leftover turkey sandwiches!

At the very least, light some candles and curl up on the sofa to unwind a bit. You, and your very special relationship, deserve some attention!