The Dynamic Trio - Blog

That’s families in books.

I think my love affair with stories about families and trilogies started with Nora Roberts. I loved her Chesapeake Bay series with brothers Cam, Ethan, Philip, and Seth. Nora has written other good family series as well. The MacGregors, the Irish series and her witchy sisters. I’ve enjoyed them all. I like reading about the love and the conflicts within the families and seeing the way they all pull together in times of adversity. I like having a brother pop back into a book after reading his happy-ever-after story and seeing his love for his new wife.

Lauren writes wonderful family books. We’re all enthralled with the Chases. While others are squabbling over which brother they like best, I’m fascinated with Mrs. Chase. She’s a tiny woman who holds her family together. Known for her big hair, clip-clop shoes and huge heart she’s like an anchor for the Chases. I was very taken with her, except I’m not driving my car anywhere near Mrs. Chase! That sounds just plain dangerous.

Another fun family series is Christine Feehan’s Seven sisters. They’re seven witches with mystical powers. I love this series and the alpha heroes who dare to square up with the strong Drake women.

Do you like to read books with continuing family members? Series? What do you like or dislike about them? Which ones are your favorites?

Today, I’m piggybacking on Shelley’s post from yesterday. I don’t really feel like talking about writing. I’m kind of in the ‘life’ mood. The visual DNA thing really made my day. It got my mind off of the next word I was supposed to be squeezing out of my over-tired brain, and back to the things that make me want to put my thoughts down on paper in the first place.

So, here’s my visual DNA:

And for some more awesome eyeball yumminess, Chey McCray recommended a link that almost put my visual ‘oh my god’ on overload. Check it out and be prepared to slobber! Most Beautiful Men

But what about older good-looking men? I’m not a spring chicken, you know. I’m more of a almost-a-quarter-of-the-way-through-life chicken, with an expectancy to live past 100. But…I couldn’t find a site dedicated to gorgeous older guys, like George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Val Kilmer, Michael Jordan, Pierce Brosnan, or Sean Connery. Imagine that *snark*

If you have a site with pics of gorgeous older men, drop it on us :D

I’ve been working on editing and polishing a book all week. At the moment my mind feels a bit like marshmellow - all sort of soft and gooey. To help my poor tired mind I thought I’d post something fun - my Visual DNA for you to check out. After you’ve looked at mine, follow the links to get your own. It’s not necessary to register, if you don’t want to.

Let me know how you get on :)

I’m at work teaching a class all week, all day long, blah blah blah. Basically you stand on your feet and talk your head off all day to a group of folks who look like they’d rather doze off and let slobber run down the side of their face.

I let my studeents out early (it’s snowing here again) and snuck onto our site here. And what did I see? A link to Lauren Dane’s new website. It is so GORGEOUS! If you haven’t been over there yet, take a peek. B.E.A.UTIFUL!

All that blue on Lauren’s new site got me to thinking about the oceans, which got me thinking about scuba diving.

I’ve been diving down to seventy-five beneath the Caribbean Sea in Jamaica…but a sistah can’t swim to save my life. It’s a trip - as long as I have all that gear on and can breathe beneath the waves, I’m fine. But ask me to swim across a swimming pool in ten feet of water and after I finish looking at you crazy I might just wade down to the three-foot side of the pool so I can splash you good and proper-like!

Okay, time to ‘fess up. Do you have any weird concerns or things that you simply won’t do, even if you’ll do other things that are outrageous? For example, will you rock climbing (Tom Cruise Mission Impossible-style rock climbing) but won’t cross a high bridge? CONFESSION TIME!

TJ

My new website design is up and running - it’s soo pretty! I’m also running a contest at my blog so go take a peek!

This week is moving along at a brisk pace and I realize I’m leaving for RT in two weeks. I’d been hand beading tassles for my bookmarks and then I realized I have 1300 of them to do and there’s just no way I can finish so I gave in and ordered tassles. I’ll still have to thread each one, but that’s much less time consuming than hand beading, tying, cutting, etc. So the hand beaded ones will be promo alley ones and in my different prize baskets, etc. They are really pretty but the tassles look good too. They even shipped today, wich is a relief. Yes, I know I should have started a month ago. I had plans to but it never happened.

It’s spring break for my kiddos this week and they’re being very quiet right now. I went in to check on them because quiet = trouble but they’re all snuggled up together on the couch watching a movie. I don’t know what happened to my children and when the switch was made to these small aliens but whatevah, I’ll keep em.

I’m having a chat this Saturday, April 14th at 5 pm Pacific/8 eastern at Romance Reader at Heart - my first one with them! Come on by and say hello and grab the chance to win copies of Giving and Taking Chase!

Excerpts up at my messageboard from Making Chase and Sword and Crown - come on by and say hello!

Okay, I have laundry to do. The pile that never ends. Sigh…

I was surfing the web yesterday and came upon a site whose description promoted harmony in multiculturalism between African Americans and Asians. Being a person of mixed race and an author of multicultural novels I hopped in to see what they were talking about.

The first post I read was from a person who was under the perception that black people believe their children are better behanved in restaurants than white children…she was pissed.

The second post was a slam on Walmart and had a link to all these depressing pictures of people in China who are being oppressed by their government.

Now, my second thought was (I ain’t gonna say what my first thought was) what the hell does Walmart, a privately owned company, have to do with the Chinese government’s oppression of their own people?

So much for all the harmony and peace this group claimed.

I think if you wanna find acceptance and a blending of races and cultures, look to erotic romance. Though we’ve been criticized and put down by many, including many other authors of other genres, erotic romance authors have surpassed many other aspects of society when it comes to acceptance and exploration. What do I mean? I mean we’ve broken the boundaries of relationships between races, sexual orientation and class. For those of us who write paranormal and sci-fi, hell, we’ve even accepted other species.

Our characters are brilliant, independent, determined to protect those they care about, willing to take chances, and take responsibility for their futures. And they don’t blame Walmart for their situations!

I think if anyone is looking for a great example of multiculturalism in all its glory, they should look to erotic romance.

Amen.

We colored eggs today. Of course no one will eat them, but I suppose it’s fun to have the memory of coloring them nonetheless. I can remember egg hunts with my family, even from a very young age. My husband mowed the lawn yesterday in the backyard so we won’t actually lose a child in the tall grass, LOL. So tomorrow I will hide eggs and they will eat too much sugar and we’ll send pictures to my parents and my sister in law and it’ll be another day filled with memories.

I was thinking about this as I was working on my new WIP. Thinking about creating characters with memories and a past and finding the proper balance on the page. To me, as I’m writing, the character is revealing herself as I go. What are her quirks? Her habits? Why does she react a certain way in some situations?

As a reader, I love it when over the course of a story I walk away with a real sense of the characters as people. Not as cardboard stereotypes but as people. I just finished Nalini Singh’s Visions of Heat and Faith, a character who is without emotion for most of her life, was so three dimensional to me. Just as three dimensional as Vaughan, a changeling driven by his need for revenge and the instincts of the cat who lives within him.

Singh uses a fine touch here and there to unfold them both for the reader and it’s a touch I admire as a writer. The ability to convey personhood with a sentence here, a flash of insight there, a reaction or failure to react. It’s all in the way we relate our stories through our characters.

I don’t think there’s a way to learn it. There’s no one true way and it’s not something that works for every reader in every book either. Different authors with different voices do it - Megan Hart’s revelation of Elle in Dirty for instance - completely different than Singh and yet, still totally effective. Patricia Briggs and the way she’s revealing Mercy to us in Moon Called and Blood Bound. Jenny Cruisie in Bet Me - all very different authors and stories, all done very differently but all done very effectively.

Without compelling characters, even the most brilliant story will fall flat.

Back to my own story. I need to referee a fight breaking out in the back yard. Have a nice weekend everyone!

Men’s underwear in specific.

Now you might think this is a totally random topic but it’s not. Let me explain. This year is World Cup year for rugby. For me, and most other New Zealanders, this is a big deal because we’re all rugby mad. If you live in America you, too, have a rugby team representing you at the World Cup, although you probably don’t realize it because rugby isn’t big in the States.

And now I get to the connection…

All Black and hunk, Daniel Carter is the model for men’s Jockey underwear in New Zealand. He follows in the footsteps of several other prominent sportsmen. When they placed a giant billboard of Daniel Carter wearing nothing but his underwear in Christchurch, people (mainly women) ran off the road and drove through red traffic lights. Quite honestly, I could imagine doing that if a huge billboard of Dan Carter confronted me. Heck, he could be fully dressed and I’d still run off the road.

This week Jockey announced that Dan Carter has signed as their spokesman/model in Europe and Britain - all coinciding with the world cup. London and Parisian women are going to be confronted by a mostly naked Dan Carter. Whew! *fanning face*

Here are a few links. One and two and three showing Dan in all his glory.

Now to specifics: When it comes to men’s underwear what do you prefer your man to wear? What does he like to wear? Commando, boxers, briefs, something else (in this case please specify because I’m curious)
What do you think of Dan Carter? Would you drive off the road?

I have a dilema. My mom-in-law, who is absolutely fabulous, is 74 and lives out of state. She’s getting married in a couple of weeks (woohoo!). My supposed-to-be-ex-husband is more than likely bringing his girlfriend to the wedding. This man also wants to just pretend we were never married and is living his life accordingly. Fine with me.

So, what’s my problem - My son has met this woman, but I’ve been asking to meet her for a year. I’m feeling a bit awkward about going to the wedding. I’m a very straight-forward person, but in this case I don’t know how to act. Not only have I not met her, but the supposed-to-be-ex hid his relationship with her, among other things, for almost a year and I don’t know if she’s aware of MY relationship to the man SHE’S living with. I’m part of his family (when my mom-in-law comes to Colorado, she stays at MY house!) and don’t plan to pretend I’m not. How will he introduce me to this kid (she’s 13 years younger than me), as … who? I’d like to introduce you to “Some chick my mom just happens to like a lot?” Or will he introduce me as “The lady who happens to have the same last name as his son?”

Geesh, it’s enough to make me want to sit down and eat a whole pie! So…I had to go find out what kind of pie I am:

You Are Lemon Meringue Pie

You’re the perfect combo of sassy and sweet Those who like you have well refined tastes

So after I went HERE to check out the pie thing, my good friend of fifteen years (a gorgeous red-headed guy who was the inspiration for Gift Wrap Optional, though I ain’t never unwrapped the package), he suggested that I not put myself in a situation that’s going to be emotionally trying, or at best, a train wreck. My mom understands, but really wants me there.

So, what would you do? Other than eat pie, that is… and what kind of pie are you, by the way?

This week at my blog I’m writing about BDSM in erotic romances. I thought I’d put the entry on consent up here. Please come by to visit and comment. I’m always interested to hear what people think on the subject.

Writers handle subjects in as many ways as well, there are writers. Me? I’m of the responsibility school. I’m not going to show the hero flossing his teeth, but in a contemporary erotic story, he’s going to use a condom or I give a reason why. That’s a personal thing. As a reader, I notice it every time couples in contemporaries don’t use condoms and all I can think about are STDs and pregnancy. It yanks me out of a very hot scene. I don’t need a huge deal to be made out of condom use, just an indication that it’s happening in one scene can establish it but I digress…

In BDSM books, I have my characters set rules and establish a safeword and outline consent. Consent is a really big button of mine. It’s why I don’t ever write rape as titilation and I don’t write or read forced seduction. Being raped isn’t sexy, it’s not fun. But playing with power and control is fun and as long as everyone is on the same page, play within those boundaries is sexy.

Mistress Matisse - a local Domme and a woman whose column I read on a regular basis (along with a very well written blog) did a piece in last week’s Stranger about consent.

What is the difference between BDSM and abuse? Kinky people would like to be able to draw a clear line, but like vanilla sex, it all spins on consent, and consent is a fluid, dynamic thing. You don’t give it once and that’s it for all time. You give it, either tacitly or overtly, every time you play.

The points she makes are important because when you give submission to someone, you’re handing yourself to them. That means as a sub, you’re trusting your partner and as a Dom, you’re taking charge of someone - we don’t read a whole lot about the responsibility of Dom/mes in books. They’re often stereotypes nearly as bad as the weak, broken submissive. The issue is that D/s and BDSM in general are play, yes, but with that comes responsibilty from both parties. Like any other sexual activity - you need consent and trust.

The lesson for dominants: Know your partner. Negotiate and get clear consent—and, yes, it can be done without being a buzz-kill. And be aware that no matter what someone says, you’re taking a leap of faith when you pick up the whip. For submissives: Even if you call yourself a slave, the person primarily responsible for your safety is you. If something’s going wrong, say so—promptly. A good dominant will want that information. Someone who doesn’t care isn’t someone you should belong to.

So in my D/s books, even in books where D/s is prominent enough that it’s more than just a slap on the ass or holding hands above the head, there’s going to be a discussion. The whole thing isn’t necessarily going to happen on the page, but the reader will know the submissive consented and also that the Dom made sure he had it. That’s part of sexy for me when I’m shaping a character - I want the Dom to be strong, yes, but intelligent and worthy of the submission he or she is seeking from his/her partner.

Yes, there are books and stories which play on “edge” ideas like no consent. I don’t read them and I don’t write them. I’m not saying they should be banned, I’m saying I don’t read them and I don’t write them and I’d never play that way.

Consent is sexy. For the submissive, having a safe word, knowing somehwere deep that he or she has a way to stop things if necessary is important but s/he also has a way to be pushed past comfort zones by a Dom who knows what he’s about. A Dom who cares to make sure she’s all right. That’s sexy.