Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Especially on a Sunday, but I want to ask you something related to the war of words that has been raging lately, and whether or not the fate of books is written in the stars. These

 

An eye for an eye

...only leads to more blindness. 
~Margaret Atwood

Docile International Day of Peace, dearest denizens.

A gentle reminder

That today I'll be at Coffee Time Romance chatting with the 69 Shades of Smut authors from 2pm EST until I fall off my chair and my eyes pop. Authors. Ready, willing and able to suffer for their art since time immemorial.

To reserve your seat, click here.  

Hope to see you there, sweetie darlings! Muah!!

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on

How are you, sweetie daaarlings? Has your September got off to a good start? Have you had a chance to pick up Perpetual Pleasure yet? All those running for cover...you know what's coming, don't you...bad boys and girls, go to my room!

The new school year has meant peace and quiet during the day. And a whole lot of running around in the afternoons and evenings, but one has practiced so it's ok, and the extracurricular activities are such that it's more fun than work, for everyone. Yesterday, my youngest began karate practice and came back from the first lesson ready to take on Chuck Norris. And Chuck is what, 9th dan? 10th? It was a delight to watch, dearest denizens. The sweetest thing.
 
My social and work calendars are filling up fast. In the spirit of going out more often, I've booked some guest appearances for yours truly madly deeply with colleagues you've all heard of.

My guest blogging schedule so far:

Oct 1, Lissa Matthews

Oct 15, Delilah Devlin

Oct 17, Cindy Spencer Pape
 
Nov 16, Desiree Holt (The Holt! What shall I wear? What shall I wear?!)

Nov 19, Cassandra Carr

I'm already sketching out those posts. I hate nothing worse than cooking up something at the last minute. It can end well, stellar even, but when it doesn't, when you're not feeling it, it ain't pretty, and one only has oneself to blame for that. (And what's with the transatlantic English today? Shape up, Dita!) I'll do my best to make it worth your while, sweetie darlings. Keep it fun and real, m'kay?

But first, the 69ers and I will take over the Erotic E-loop at Coffee Time Romance on September 19th. There will definitely be book talk and probably men talk and sex talk and who knows what talk! The only way to find out what goes down is to show up, so come on over when you have a moment. My carriage is always the first one to turn into a pumpkin, stupid time difference, so I'll be there early on.

But even before that, I'm blogging at 69 Shades on the 8th, as usual. See you there on Saturday! To pass the time, go pick up the free reads (and check out the discounts!) at Ellora's Cave. Then think how much money you just saved and become a patron of that Parker girl, Dita I think her name is. Or words will be had in my room, where I sent you earlier, remember?

Oh you'd like that, huh? Not when I'm sitting on you and you don't know what hit you. Oh you'd like that even better now? Then I'm not going to excite you any further by telling you what happens next. And I don't know what factors influence your decision to buy a book, but Glenna says, "Loved this book." I know it's all the rage but just so you know, I didn't pay Glenna to say so.

Final destination

I spent my childhood abroad. Or rather the country and continent of my birth was just a place my family visited every summer and the exotic faraway place friends and relatives visited in the winter was home. Travel has always been a central theme in my life. We traveled extensively then and travel is the number one reason I'll probably die with nothing to my name. What money I manage to save up, airlines and B&Bs gobble up with greed. My kids have traveled since birth and I'm afraid I've infected them with my wanderlust. Which is just as well.

Some travel to get away from, some in search of themselves. Some travel to broaden their horizons, some to reinforce national and cultural stereotypes. There's a fine line between patriotism and nationalism, between loving your country and being suspicious of all others. If there's one thing I want to teach my children on our journeys is that the world is not black or white or some skin shade in between, it's not English, Portuguese, Swedish or Spanish speaking, it's not Christian, Catholic or Muslim, it's all of that.

Not many things in this life you get to experience for the first time, but when you travel, you can get in touch with that sense of wonder, that sense of seeing and smelling and tasting and touching and hearing for the first time. (You can achieve the same at home, of course, but too often the daily grind makes us blind to things around us that have no bearing on the tasks at hand.) It's the thrill of adventure. Searching, finding, getting lost and surviving.

St. Augustine said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” What of those who do not read a single page, literally, ever? They're confined to very close quarters indeed, the insides of their head, a very narrow strait through which very few ideas pass and when they outgrow their prison and escape out into the world, they wield the sword of single, simple truth because they never came in touch with some other thought or someone else's truth.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts," Mark Twain said. But maybe you don't have money to travel. You don't need money to travel. You don't have to leave home at all. You can always, you should always, read. I wrote a post that relates, kind of, if you want to have a look. No, you should definitely have a look because be you reader or writer, I want to ask you something. And there's a new snippet from Perpetual Pleasure!

I've liked that book all along. A good thing, liking what you do and the end product. But more often than not, there comes a time in the life of every manuscript when the author curses the day they got it into their heads it would be a great idea to write that book. I never felt that way with this one. I felt for my heroine. I rooted for my hero, hoped he wouldn't give up on her even when she gave him every reason and excuse to do just that.

I also got a kick out of writing the dialogue, and with the exception of a few surplus endearments, my editor didn't touch it. Sooo hard, writing decent dialogue, and if that's one thing I got right, that's what I want to offer you on the days leading to release. What do you say? Tiny teaser trailers, a tasty countdown.

Check in daily! Know someone who loves paranormal but is tired of vamps and shifters? Bring them along!! Starting tomorrow!!!

See you then, dearest denizens. 

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
– Henry Miller