Lynn Crain's XtraOrdinary Romance

Our Second Day

2012-02-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

Yeah, never say I was one to not think of great titles...LOL! I was just lazy today but there’s nothing lazy with announcing winners from yesterday. Please go to the website for all the details at Valentine Blog Hop Event Page. and see the wonderful group of authors that are promoting there. There are two-hundred and sixty three authors, that’s right you heard it, 263 authors who want to give things away to you! Glad you could stop by! Click on some or click on all, with each you’re guaranteed to find great authors with fabulous giveaways.

Valentine Day Blog Hop

First, let me commend the one commenter that emailed me to say that my comment function on this blog wasn’t working. For that, I am truly sorry. Many of you actually tracked me down via Twitter or looking through this blog and sent me personal emails. I’m glad you made it. The problem’s all fixed now and all you need to do is to click on the number after the word ‘Comment’ at the top of the blog. I know it’s odd to have the comments at the top but I didn’t realize that when I started using this template. I will be getting a whole new blog soon and can’t wait.

Also, remember, to be in the grand prize drawing, you must comment on this blog. Just passing by and reading it won’t get you anything but a good read in the blog-o-sphere. Commenting will and the more the merrier as well as increasing your chances for a win.

Now...on to the important stuff...the winners of yesterday’s drawings are: Kimbre15 ~ you have won a copy of my latest release and I will be sending it to you shortly; books4me ~ you have won the $10 gift certificate and I’ll be emailing you to get your choice of place.

Today, I’d like to talk about great love stories. Yesterday, I talked about why we even have a Valentine’s Day and why it even came into the public eye. I’m going to list out my favorite ten couples of all time. And I’ll be like David Letterman and give them to you in reverse order. I think some of you will be surprised as not all of them come from books but rather movies. That's what happen when a good love story comes to the screen.

10 ~ Del & Tiger from Sword Dancer by Jennifer Roberson ~ This is a wonderful fantasy book about two people from opposite sides of their world and how coming together is for the good of not only themselves but the rest of their world.

09 ~ Julius & Cleopatra ~ Most people fall in love with the Mark Anthony and Cleo story but not me. How these two manipulated each other in and out of the bedroom is something to behold. Their story is timeless in oh so many ways.

08 ~ Scarlett & Rhett from Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell ~ Who can have a list without these two? I know, I know...it doesn’t end happily but the story telling is so good that just for a moment, you forget that.

07 ~ Heather & Brandon from The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss~ This was the first true romance that I ever read and I was smitten. Need I say more?

06 ~ The Warriors of Spider by W. Michael Gear ~ This book is set in the far future. It has a Native American like culture, a group intent to destroy it and a man kidnapping a woman...what more can a girl ask for?

05 ~ Frank & Rachel ~ The Bodyguard ~ This is one of the best love stories around and today my personal tribute to Whitney Houston, may she RIP after her tumultous life.

04 ~ Lucy & Jack ~ While You Were Sleeping ~ This movie is so endearing and who can resist the leaning dialogue with all sexes trying on the shoes.

03 ~ Will & Anna ~ Notting Hill ~ OMG! This is one of my favorites of all time. It has some great lines and is hot!

02 ~ Martini & Kitty ~ If you haven’t read any of Gini Koch’s Alien series, all I can say is...what are you waiting for? The pairing of these two is a tango worth reading.

01 ~ Kyle & Sarah ~ The Terminator ~ Yeah, this is my all-time most romantic pairing ever. What girl can’t resist this: ‘I came across time for you, Sarah.’ My heart still flutters every time I hear it, say it or read it. I did name my youngest Kyle in honor of this movie. Yes, it did help that the name was part of my husband’s family history and we both got what we wanted. LOL!

Now, it is your turn...what are your ten most romantic couples?

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

Today It Starts

2012-02-11T03:27:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!

Valentine Day Blog Hop

Today is the first day of the Valentine Day Blog Hop promoted by The Blog Hop Spot and I’d like to welcome you all! Please go to their event page for all the details at Valentine Blog Hop Event Page. and see the wonderful group of authors that are promoting there. There are two-hundred and sixty three authors, that’s right you heard it, 263 authors who want to give things away to you! Glad you could stop by! Click on some or click on all, with each you’re guaranteed to find great authors with fabulous giveaways.

For my contribution to the gift giving, I will be giving away a $10 gift certificate to Amazon OR ARe and one copy of my latest ebook, A Lover for Rachel, each and every day from February 11 through February 14 from the group of commentors. Wait – there’s more! Everyone will be entered into a Grand Prize drawing for a $25 Amazon or ARe gift card and a copy of the entire Santa’s Elves collection in ebook. The Grand Prize drawing will take place February 15. How’s that for a fantastic Valentine’s gift?

Today, I’d love to look at the Valentine’s Day itself and its origins. While most of you might think they aren’t romantic, I would beg to differ. Valentine Day started in 496 A.D. by Pope Gelasius I in honor of the many church martyrs named Saint Valentine. Pop Paul VI deleted it off the official Roman Calendar of saints in 1969, so it has no affiliation with church at all.

We have Geoffrey Chaucer in the Middle Ages to thank for associating the day with romantic love. Chaucer wrote in Parlement of Foules in 1382 and combined Valentine’s Day with love. Here are those famous lines:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day

Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

Roughly translated that means, “For this was Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.” Isn’t old English grand? LOL! Chaucer wrote this poem to honor the 1st anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. They married when they were just fifteen years old.

A “High Court of Love” was established in Valentine’s Day in 1400 in the romantic city of Paris. That particular court dealt only with issues that involved love such as contracts, betrayals and violence against women. The judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading.

Even the Bard himself mentions Valentine’s Day in the play Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5. It goes something like this:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

—William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5

Modern day Valentine’s more than likely started in Victorian England where paper Valentines became so popular that they were assembled in factories. Leigh Eric Schmidt reinvented Valentines for England in the 1840s while Ester Howland did the same in the US in 1847. The second half of the 20th century found the practice of just exchanging cards was changing to include all sorts of gifts such as roses and chocolates, many packed in a red satin, heart-shaped box. In the 1980s the diamond industry began to take notice and prompted many to make it an occasion for giving jewelry. In 2010, there were an estimated 15 million e-valentines sent to Valentine’s all over the world.

Can one get any more romantic than that?

Please continue on with the blog hop at Valentine Blog Hop Event Page and hope to see you back here tomorrow!

Lynn

Valentine Day Blog Hop

2012-01-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

Valentine’s will soon be on us and I decided I wanted to do something different for the holiday this time. All I can say is...wow...this is very, very different from what I normally do. I decided to join a Valentine’s Day Blog Hop. The contest starts on February 11, 2012 and ends February 14, 2012 at midnight. You can find all the details on this page http://thebloghopspot.com/event-page and while you’d there, you might as well gander at all the awesome prizes that are offered.

Did you notice just how many are participating? There are over 230 authors giving things away during this great contest. This is awesome and chances are good for winning. Scan the list and you’ll find me at 206. I was slow getting into the game...LOL! The bad thing is what it doesn’t say and that’s what my prizes are for the duration of the four days.

For my portion of this contest, I will be giving away daily 1 - $10 Amazon or ARe gift certificate and 1 ebook of the readers choice. At the end of the four days, my grand prize will be a $25 Amazon or ARe gift certificate and all of the Santa’s Elves series of ebooks, which is 7 books so far. All prizes will be chosen from those who stop by and comment on this blog during the contest days. All prize drawings are random and all winners will be announced on this blog immediately after the drawing or no later than the day after the drawing was held. Any prizes not picked up within 5 days will be forfeited.

We’ll have a lot of fun during those four days as I will bring you all up-to-date with what is happening in my life. I really promise not to bore you with anything mundane. I’ll be sharing things from Vienna, how my latest books are coming along, excerpts and more. I will also be tweeting all this information so if you haven’t followed me on Twitter, now’s the time to do it.

Can’t wait to see you all hear! Catch you all for the contest!

Lynn

The Hard Numbers

2012-01-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

Hope I'm starting the new year right by telling all of you about this article. http://kriswrites.com/2012/01/04/the-business-rusch-writers-will-work-for-cheap/

You must read it as it is a good kick in the pants in regards of our writing careers. It does talk about one thing here that I do want to address and that is the cost of being an indie published author. The big thing Kris talks about is how we price our work. Now, just so you know here's how I'm going to price most of my work and I'll explain at the end.

1. $0.99 ~ 0-10,000 words
2. $1.49 ~ 10,001 to 20,000 words
3. $1.99 ~ 20,001 to 30,000 words
4. $2.49 ~ 30,001 to 40,000 words
5. $2.99 ~ 40,001 to 80,000 words
6. $3.99 ~ 80,001 to 95,000 words
7. $4.99 ~ 95,001+ words

At Amazon you'll get 35% for anything under $2.99, anything $2.99 and over 70%. B&N you get 40% under $2.99 and 65% over, at Kobo you get 60% on US and 38% on foreign sales, at Apple you get 70%, at Sony you get 60%, at Diesel you get 60% and I'm not sure yet what it is at ARe as I haven't signed up with yet. It's on the to-do list this week. At Smashwords you get 85% of whatever the rate is at the market you're selling to i.e. if you choose them to do Amazon, you'd get 85% of either the 35% or the 70% rate plus they will give you 85% if you sell it directly with them. Sony and Apple must go through aggregators as they have special software and requirements that most people don’t have. I knew long ago that I wasn’t going to attempt to do them myself.

So let's look at what you'll actually make at each of those rates. I'll start lowest to highest. These numbers are public knowledge and anyone with a calculator can figure them out. Also, it doesn’t hurt to let readers know we aren’t making that much per book even when we self-publish. For verification, as we all know, it’s even less when we do the traditional publishing route, advance or not. All my numbers have been rounded up to the next cent.

Amazon (35%)    Kobo Foreign (38%)    B&N (40%)         Kobo, Sony, Diesel (60%)
1.    0.35                        0.36                              0.40                         0.59
2.    0.52                        0.57                              0.60                         0.89
3.    0.69                        0.76                              0.80                         1.19
4.    0.87                        0.95                              1.00                         1.49
5.    N/A                        1.14                               N/A                         1.79
6.    N/A                        1.52                               N/A                         2.39
7.    N/A                        1.90                               N/A                         2.99

B&N(65%)           Amazon (70%)              Apple(70%)        Smashwords(85%)
1.    N/A                        N/A                               0.69                         0.84
2.    N/A                        N/A                               1.04                         1.27
3.    N/A                        N/A                               1.39                         1.69
4.    N/A                        N/A                               1.74                         2.12
5.    1.94                        2.09                               2.09                        2.54
6.    2.59                        2.79                               2.79                         3.39
7.    3.24                        3.49                               3.49                         4.24

The N/A indicates a price point that doesn’t get royalties in that category. This means that if you’re book is $0.99, you’ll never get an Amazon royalty rate of 70% because the book is priced too low.

Now let’s look at the book budget itself. This is the money that you put out to get the book into the different markets. We’ll use my short story A Lover for Rachel as the guinea pig here since it’s the first I’ve done and I’m sure others have or will have a similar experience. It sells for $0.99 and I won’t know for months if it will even make what I spent on it to get it into the market.

I have set a book budget of $500 per book. This is high for most people but I wanted to include advertising bucks in there. Here’s my outlay so far on this short story:

1) Formatting ~ I pay someone to put it into the proper format (epub, Smashwords, PDF, and more) for everywhere. This is priceless to me as it would take me days to figure it out and I’d rather be writing. Total cost $55.

2) Editing ~ I found an editor that does things per word and very inexpensively at $0.006 per word. That is a little lower than the going rate but she’s a wonderful editor. This included at least 5 rounds of revision and passing the story back and forth until we got it as perfect as possible. Total cost $65.

3) Final Round Copyedits ~ This is done once the book is in proper formats. My person calls it ‘Oops Detection’ and it was invaluable. Total cost $32.

4)Book Aggregator ~ I chose Book Baby to get me into Amazon, Apple, B&N as well as Sony. They give you 100% of what you earn and you pay an upfront fee of $99 and a small yearly fee for them to maintain the book after the initial year. There are definitely good and bad aspects about this. Matter of fact, even though I love the service they provide, I may not use them for Amazon and B&N after this first book. The reason why is simple: once you hit the publish key, you can change nothing. Most of the time, this is good BUT there are things such as sales and giveaways that need price adjusting. I’ve asked because I don’t think a price adjustment justifies a $50 change fee since I’m NOT changing the book. We’ll see how this one pans out and I’ll keep you updated. Still, I will need them for both Sony and Apple as I don’t have the means to get those formats into place. One final negative is that I can’t see my sales numbers in real time for at least the first 45-60 days. They say they need to wait until they get the data from the distributors. I question this as the distributors do it in real time, so I just don’t get it. Total cost $99.

5) Cover Art ~ I won’t skimp on cover art and I’ve found someone who is very good. She has a reasonable price and I will use her for most of my work. There are a few fantasy things that I’ll be commissioning special art pieces but those will come later. Total cost $65.

6) Advertising ~ My ad budget is whatever I have left over from the original $500. This time, it’s $184 and I plan to use every penny of it. In later posts, I’ll let you know what works and what doesn’t. Total cost $184.

So you can see that I plan to spend the whole $500 for this first book, which is a short story in reality. I plan to do this for any book I publish. The costs that aren’t static in those numbers would be the editing and the final round copyedits. Non-static numbers might also include the formatting for larger books. Frankly, I won’t know those costs until I do a book at each level. Next time, I might overextend myself in some areas, thus making the advertising budget sparse and that is one thing you shouldn’t skimp on either. I’ll leave that for another day’s discussion.

The final item I want to look at is just how many sales I need to recoup my investment. Looking at each of the six royalty points for a book priced in this manner: Amazon(35%), Kobo Foreign (38%), B&N(40%), Kobo-Sony-Diesel (60%), Apple (70%) and Smashwords (85%). At each of the percentage points, here are the number of books I’d need to sell:

Amazon(35%) at $0.35 per book, I would need to sell 1429 copies.
Kobo Foreign(38%) at $0.36 per book, I would need to sell 1389 copies.
B&N(40%) at $0.40 per book, I would need to sell 1250 copies.
Kobo-Sony-Diesel(60%) at $0.59 per book, I would need to sell 848 copies.
Apple(70%) at $0.69 per book, I would need to sell to sell 725 copies.
Smashwords(85%) at $0.84 per book, I would need to sell 596 copies.

We all know that in reality our royalties will be spread across all those markets but this does give an author or a reader some perspective as to the real numbers and why long time authors like Kristine Rusch thinks that the indie price points are underselling us as writers. In some ways, she is very correct while in others not so much.

My price points are based upon word count of the book for one and only one reason: that is what I feel I would pay as a reader for those word counts. I have always felt that books overall were overpriced in some areas like series romance. We are basically supporting the astronomical overhead of a big company. I don't have that overhead and can use a different pricing scheme when assigning cost to my books. When selecting my price points, I looked at the market over and over again. True, there is a glut of $0.99 reads out there. Many are better than my little story. Some aren’t. Many have lots more words than mine and surprisingly, some don’t.

The fact is that I worked these numbers over and over again in the past six months. In November, I started writing them down on paper so I would remember them. At the end of that month, I made a spreadsheet so I could look at every price point and different scenarios. Why? Because I’m in this for the long haul and I needed to know just where I was both in my traditional epublishing as well as my indie venture.

I also know just how long it takes me to write a story based upon those word counts. On a very good day, if I sat at my computer writing up to a full 8 hours, I could write a 10K story. I've done it. The max I've ever written in a day is 18K and that was over a twelve hour period. I was definitely on a roll that particular day. Still, I know what I can do and how long it will take me if I put my mind to it. With those type of scenarios, I could in theory produce a 40-50K book a week. To me, those time frames are short. They are also usually unrealistic but again a topic for another day. I considered these facts as well when coming up with my pricing scheme.

I also needed to know when and where I would make money. I needed to evaluate the amount of risk I would be taking as throwing around $500 is nothing to sneeze at but I’ve gambled before and lost. This time, I was lucky in the fact that a personal happening in my life allowed me to set aside a certain amount of money for my indie publishing venture. I’ve been watching that overall budget like a hawk. I won’t let my guard down until I’m actually making money and I don’t see that really happening for six to twelve months.

In the interim, I’ll be writing more books and getting them ready for self-publishing. I will also be submitting my contracted books to my traditional epublishers. In about a year, say January 2013, I will evaluate the whole system again to see where I’ll be going with it.

I believe in showing the money when there’s something to show. So here are the stats to this point. Remember, because I’m using a book aggregator, these numbers will not be accurate until probably March 2012. I will continue to update them on a monthly basis sometime during the first week of the month.

A Lover for Rachel ~ release date 12/22/2012
Amazon ~ Unknown on 1/06/2012
Apple ~ Unknown on 1/06/2012
B&N ~ Unknown on 1/06/2012
Kobo Foreign ~ Unknown on 1/06/2012
Kobo-Sony-Diesel ~ Unknown on 1/06/2012
Smashwords ~ 1 sale, 38 views, Money Made ~ $0.81 (Gotta figure out where that 3 cents has gone!)

See you all soon!

Lynn

Ch-Ch-Changes - Turn and Face the Change

2011-11-29T05:18:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

I know it's been a long, long time since I've posted anything here but I've had my reasons. Some of which you can see on this blog.

I've moved for those of you who haven't heard. And no, we're not talking about to just a new house. I've moved to a new country and it's had me in a tizzy for about a year now. Between this and the birth of my grandchildren, I haven't know what was up in so long. Add to that the winning of EPIC's award in Historical Erotic Romance and I've been one confused woman. LOL!

No, really, it just means I've been busy beyond my wildest dreams with life and now that it's settled down again, I'm spending time with this blog. First, you'll notice the new look. I've decided to not have people on my blog for a while but rather some wonderful color and what some are calling grunge though I can't see it. Me, I just love the colors and in reality, the night sky. I still love nekkid people a lot but as I'm looking for a designer to do up a website, a blog, a twitter background as well as a Facebook one, it might be a while. This will suffice until I can get those all in place. Besides...I like it! Second, I'll be doing a lot of things in these new colors. Like I said, you can expect a new website as well as a new twitter site. It will take me a while to get all of these things done and progress will be slow as I'm writing up a storm.

I'm sad to say that I won't be having a Christmas Extravaganza this year for a variety of things. One, I won't have an elf book out again this year and though it has me depressed, it doesn't mean I won't have a release. If all the stars align I should be having a December release from Shooting Star Books. They're waiting on a few items as they want everything perfect as this book will be their first release. You can find them at http://www.shootingstarbooks.com/ and it's a cool little story called A Lover for Rachel. It's a revamped, re-release of a very old story that first came out years ago from Whiskey Creek Press' Torrid line. It was in an anthology that didn't get much action and another author wanted out. The publisher then released us all. The story has about 2500 added words and has been totally refurbished for this new market. It's my understanding it will be on sale for just $0.99 everywhere. I'll keep you posted. Here's a copy of the draft cover...it's missing the company logo...but I've been told to start showing it around. Other than their website, you're the first to see it. Let me know what you think...as for me...I always love a Jimmy cover!

Starting in January of 2012, I will be hosting new authors and their work, holding contests and a whole lot more. Right now, you can see me at www.twitter.com/oddlynn3 and at another blog, http://www.theloglineblog.blogspot.com/ where I host authors showing off their log lines for their books. The other place I hang out is another blog called A Writer in Vienna where I showcase my adventure in Vienna, Austria with my husband and new pup, Harry. Check it out at at http://www.awriterinvienna.blogspot.com/. I hope to see you stop by when you can.

Until next time...

Lynn

The Haunting of Maggie Grey

2011-03-13T08:40:00.000-07:00

Last night, I along with many others watched the tweets flow fast and heavy from EPICon during the awards ceremony. I couldn't be there and was on pins and needles waiting for the announcement of the Historical Erotic Romance, the category I was a finalist in. I was completely shocked and amazed at the announcement: I had won the award! Here's the speech I would have given had I been there:

If is reading this, I must have won this award. Just my luck that I've attended the last six years and the year I win, I couldn't attend. Family is important and I'm spending this weekend with my grandsons who turn one. Thanks go to my family and friends for being so patient and putting up with me over the years. A big thank you to eXtasy Books, especially Tina Haveman and Jay Austin, who allow me to write the stories I love. Also, thanks to EPIC for running the best damn eBook Contest ever! Hope to see you all next year!

I didn't know who would read it, so left it blank for the accepter to put in their name. LOL!

Here's an excerpt from my award winning Scottish historical book, The Haunting of Maggie Grey.

The Haunting of Maggie Grey

Available NOW at eXtasy Books!

http://tinyurl.com/Haunting-of-Maggie-Grey

Part of the Tarot Series

BLURB:

Maggie Grey had wanted to be a doctor all her life. She achieved her dream along with her husband, Justin. Together they planned to build a clinic on his ancestral home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. But women doctors in the year 1882 didn’t have many options and even fewer if they were widowed like she had been recently. Arriving in England to visit Elizabeth Blackwell, founder of the London Medical School for Woman, she is discouraged to find that the only real health care on the remote Isle of Skye will be herself, a few aging doctors as well as veterinary doctors.

But she must build a clinic there to escape her memories and fulfill her late husband’s dream. Maggie goes by train and boat to the rather bleak Isle of Skye. The island is almost as barren as she feels and she isn’t sure if she can even fit in. Add the fact that her dead husband is haunting her with the request for her to fall in love again and she knows she’s losing her mind.

But the people of Skye need her…and she is determined not to let them down...but they are slow to accept a widowed woman doctor. Now if she were married again…that would be a different matter…and her dead husband, Justin, knows just the right man for the job, Conall MacGryman, his childhood friend and cousin, a veterinary for the island. Now all Justin has to do is to convince Maggie to give the man a chance so she can fall in love again…for both their sakes.

TEASER EXCERPT:

“Maggie,” the seductive whisper of her name brought her soft brown eyes to glance quickly at him. “Do not turn away from me, girl.” His hand curled completely around her head, filing his palm as if she were a small child, holding her where he wanted. He was so large and she was so small. Never had he felt like he held a fine piece of fragile porcelain. Winding his fingers into the silk of her hair, he slowly, he forced her to face him, gazing deeply in her brown eyes.

“I am going to kiss yeu now.”

He lowered his lips to hers, devouring her bottom lip in one swoop. Nibbling at the edges, he gained access to her mouth and groaned. Conall did not want to scare her off. But he needed her in the worst way and he was sure if she would just press herself against him, she would feel his hard shaft, would know his body wanted her much in the same way he was sure she wanted him. They had danced around each other for two months but the woman acted like a virgin instead of the widow he knew her to be. The deep red color of her hair should indicate her passion ran hot instead of the shyness she displayed with him on many occasions..

“Open up completely, girl,” he whispered even more seductively than the first time, as he softened his mouth to stroke against her soft lips. He was surprised when it took little prompting on his part to get her to open her mouth as his tongue slid in.

Neither of them was naive as to what happened between a man and a woman. He had wanted her from the moment he saw her at the train station in her widow’s robes. He’d know she’d suffered a great loss and knew he must bide his time until she was ready to give herself to him. The storm had provided the perfect situation for them to be together and if she was willing he was going to take full advantage of it.

He only prayed she felt the same about him as he did about her.

Thanks also go out to all the readers who have supported me over the years. I really do appreciate it!

Lynn

Experience the Magic
www.lynncrain.com
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/oddlynn3

Christmas Extravaganza

2010-12-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful time at XtraOrdinary Romance on Thursday. Wow! What a fantastic day! Lots of fun things happened there and I hope you can join in the fun sometime today as it's the last day.

We had tons of messages, great talk and fabulous giveaways. Drop by during the fun we're having today!

Here's the schedule for Friday, December 17, 2010:

10:00 am Free eBook - Violet Visions
11:00 am Free eBook - Atlantis Allure
12:00 pm Free eBook - Sanguinary Seductions

End of the day drawings start at 1:00 pm with names for all drawings picked at 11:59 pm
     Gift Certificate from Borders books
     Free goodie bag stuffed full of goodies
     5 extra entries into the Cruz eReader drawing on Christmas day
     Surprise gift

All the giveaways are being done closely together and they, as well as the rest of the drawings, will be very easy today. I'll be doing Christmas things at home here, which is why I'm making it easy for everyone!

I sure do hope you all are having fun and enjoying the Christmas Extravaganza. I appreciate all the support you have given me over the years and I hope to make your Christmas a little brighter. Hope you and your family are having a happy holiday season.

If you haven't joined the yahoogroup XtraOrdinary Romance, just email me at lynncrain@cox.net and I will send you a direct invite.

Hope to see you all at XtraOrdinary Romance throughout the day!

Again, may your holiday season be filled with love, laughter and joy.

Lynn

My Christmas Extravaganza

2010-12-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful time at XtraOrdinary Romance on Wednesday. All I can say is wow! What a day! Lots of fun things happened there and I hope you can join in the fun sometime today.

We had almost 300 messages, some great talk and fantastic giveaways. But more than that...we had fun! You should come and join us.

Here's the schedule for Thursday, December 16, 2010:

9:00 am Free eBook - Fluke
11:00 am Free eBook - More Than Robotics
1:00 pm Free eBook - Shopping Spree

End of the day drawings start at 6:00 pm with names for all picked at 11:59 pm
     Gift Certificate from Borders books
     Free goodie bag stuffed full of goodies
     5 extra entries into the Cruz eReader drawing on Christmas day
     Surprise gift

Please note the changes. I'm doing all the eBook giveaways two hours apart and lumping all the drawings at the end of the day. This allows for more people to enter the giveaways and really spreads them out. Plus it seems to be working out for me as well. I get to spend time with you all in the morning then I spend dinner time with the family then it's back to you all. Tomorrow, this is good as I have to take my friend again to the doctors at about 2:30. Changing the schedule is the only way to doing it all. And heaven knows, I need to do it all...LOL!

I sure do hope you all are having fun and enjoying the Christmas Extravaganza. I appreciate all the support you have given me over the years and I hope to make your Christmas a little brighter. Hope you and your family are having a happy holiday season.

If you haven't joined the yahoogroup XtraOrdinary Romance, just email me at lynncrain@cox.net and I will send you a direct invite.

Hope to see you all at XtraOrdinary Romance throughout the day!

Again, may your holiday season be filled with love, laughter and joy.

Lynn

Lynn Crain’s Christmas Extravaganza

2010-12-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful time at my yahoogroup XtraOrdinary Romance on Tuesday. Can you tell I like that name? LOL! Lots of fun things happened there and I hope you can join in the fun sometime today as I have seven giveaways scheduled.

9:00 am         Free eBook - Giselle's Elf
11:00 am       Free eBook - An Elf's Love
3:00 pm        Free eBook - The Haunting of Maggie Grey
4:00 pm        Gift Certificate from Borders books
5:00 pm        Free goodie bag stuffed full of goodies (Drawing)
9:00 pm        5 extra entries into the Cruz eReader drawing on Christmas day
10:00 pm      Surprise gift (Drawing)

If you haven't joined the yahoogroup XtraOrdinary Romance, just email me at lynncrain@cox.net and I will send you a direct invite.

Hope to see you all at XtraOrdinary Romance throughout the day!

May your holiday season be filled with love, laughter and joy.

Lynn

Lynn Crain’s Christmas Extravaganza

2010-12-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

We had a great first day at my yahoogroup XtraOrdinary Romance. So far, there have been ten winners. Everyone needs to drop by to get a chance at the rest of today’s loot. Here’s what’s happening there today:

9:00 am       Free eBook - An Elf's Desire
11:00 am     Free eBook - A Love For Eggther
1:00 pm       Free eBook - An Elf's Magic
3:00 pm       Gift Certificate from Borders books
4:00 pm       Free goodie bag stuffed full of goodies (Drawing)
10:00 pm     5 extra entries into the Cruz eReader drawing
11:00 pm      Surprise gift (Drawing)

Obviously, the 9 and 11 am drawing are already complete but there are six, count them, 6, more chances to get in on this fabulous giveaway contest. I promise to get this up earlier in tomorrow. To recap what’s going on:

I didn’t have a Santa’s Elf book this year and it made me very sad. I love Christmas so came up with this fantastic plan for a giveaway. Everyone loves to receive gifts...right? Looks like I wasn’t wrong at all. So far, I almost have 100 entries into to Cruz eReader giveaway. That rocks!

I’m giving various items away everyday this week with the last day being December 17...items like gift certificates, free ebooks, bags full of goodies with ornaments and more. Then on Christmas day...I will announce one lucky winner of that ereader...the Cruz Reader from Borders. You can check it out here:
http://www.borders.com/online/store/MediaView_cruz-reader

And if that isn’t enough, the contest for the Cruz Reader is easy. Every time you comment in one of my groups, you get an entry. Winner of the Cruz Reader will chosen randomly from all entries on Christmas day, exact time to be announced. It’s that easy! Once the giveaway week is over, I’ll be at specific places, like Twitter, Blogspot and more, where you can get even more entries for the Cruz.

Have fun! And don’t forget to invite your buddies!

Here are the places you can join or follow to get entries for the contest:

My yahoogroup XtraOrdinary Romance and you really want to be here for the daily giveaways. You join here by sending an email to this address:

XtraOrdinaryRomance-subscribe@yahoo.com

If that doesn’t work for the yahoogroup, just email me privately at lynncrain@cox.net and I’ll send you a private invite.

I’m on Twitter and I'll be honest, it's here you'll find me all the time as tweet night and day from anywhere:

@oddlynn3 or www.twitter.com/oddlynn3

I have this blog of course:

http://www.lynncrain.blogspot.com/

I’m on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/oddlynn3

I have a YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/lynncrain

And if you need more than that...let me know...I’m sure I can find something else to sign up for so you can join me. LOL!

Here’s hoping that you all have a very happy holiday season filled with all your dreams and wishes. And if you want me to send you a Christmas card this holiday season, don’t forget to privately email me your snail mail address to lynncrain@cox.net.

So join in the festivities for the holiday. Don’t forget, I’ll be at XtraOrdinary Romance yahoogroup every day December 13 through December 17 with daily giveaways. Every time you visit, it will be another entry into the Cruz Reader drawing.

Thanks for giving me a wonderful year! I look forward to the next!

Lynn

Lynn Crain’s Christmas Extravaganza

2010-12-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

This year is the first year I didn’t have a Santa’s Elf book. Yes, I have two more books in the series but the series isn’t just about Christmas any more. But I love Christmas and it pained me that I wasn’t having anything special. Then I decided there is nothing wrong with having five days of giveaways. You, as a reader, will definitely get some fine gifts just by joining me at my XtraOrdinary Romance yahoogroup.

I’ll be giving items away everyday December 13 through December 17...items like gift certificates, free ebooks, bags full of goodies with ornaments and more. Then on Christmas day...I will announce one lucky winner of an ereader...and the ereader I’ve chosen is the Cruz Reader from Borders. You can check it out here: http://www.borders.com/online/store/MediaView_cruz-reader

And if that isn’t enough, the contest for the Cruz Reader is easy. Every time you comment in one of my groups, you get an entry. Winner of the Cruz Reader will chosen randomly from all entries on Christmas day, exact time to be announced.

Have fun! And don’t forget to invite your buddies!

Here are the places you can join or follow to get an entry for the contest:

My yahoogroup XtraOrdinary Romance and you really want to be here for the daily giveaways. You can join by sending an email here:

XtraOrdinaryRomance-subscribe@yahoo.com

I’m on Twitter and I'll be honest, it's here you'll find me all the time as tweet night and day from anywhere:

@oddlynn3 or

www.twitter.com/oddlynn3

Of course on this blog! Comments will be accepted until December 17th 11:59 pm PST.

I’m on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/oddlynn3

I have a YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/lynncrain

And if you need more than that...let me know...I’m sure I can find something else to sign up for so you can join me. LOL!

Here’s hoping that you all have a very happy holiday season filled with all your dreams and wishes. And if you want me to send you a Christmas card this holiday season, don’t forget to privately email me your snail mail address to lynncrain@cox.net.

So join in the festivities for the holiday. Don’t forget, I’ll be at XtraOrdinary Romance yahoogroup every day December 13 through December 17 with daily giveaways. Every time you visit, it will be another entry into the Cruz Reader drawing.

Thanks for giving me a wonderful year! I look forward to the next!

Lynn

The Lure of Twitter

2010-12-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I haven’t been around her much recently, if at all. Some of you might have asked, what happened to Lynn or even wondered why I had abandoned you and my blog.

I can tell you there were many reasons with the biggest being the time investment versus the return on that investment. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate each and every one of you, I did and I still do. You have to admit posting daily, even when I schedule those posts, can be a tedious thing to do. I was tired of tedium as well as writing.

Don’t get me wrong. I still wrote. I made attempts to move my career forward but I just wasn’t motivated to do so. Again, the reasons are many. I had new grandsons and needed to spend time with them. I was finishing a really big novel. I’d had personal upheaval in my critique group. You name it, I had it all in a six month span.

And I was tired, so tired of just doing things day after day for a career, which seemed to be giving me little in return. I know I’d gone through writing funks before but this one was different. Life was different.

In August, my husband came home from his Vienna trip to announce they had invited him to apply for a job. No big news there as my husband is good at his job. Then I discovered where the posting would be...Vienna, Austria...we’d known a long time it would be coming. Now, I was angry as I felt comfortable in my position: comfortable in writing, comfortable in family, comfortable in life.

Too comfortable. So much so, I made a run for it. I pulled back from a lot of my online social things. I didn’t want to blog, I didn’t want to post in my yahoogroups. I didn’t want to try any more because it would all change if I moved. A lot. Sigh.

Then I decided to go back to the account I’d started on Twitter earlier in the year. Here was something I could do. It didn’t require much effort at all. I mean, how difficult was it to type in 140 characters of good stuff?

Suddenly, I was hooked. I tweeted and tweeted and tweeted. Sometimes hundreds of messages a day. I started to follow other authors, editors, publishers. I got to know some of them. A lot of them. If truth be told, I was spending more time on Twitter but was it quality time.

Then I got my first royalties after I really put my all into the program. Wow. Sales are up. This is good very good. But now, how to make them better. I started attending Twitter classes at places like the Indie Book Collective on how to get more followers, how to turn those followers to buyers and so on. I even do Twitter giveaways. The point is, those 140 characters gave me my writing mojo back. There is just something about 140 characters that pulled me in and makes me stay.

So, I haven’t abandoned any of you. I’ve just shifted to a new medium, Twitter. You can find me there every day at @oddlynn. Come visit me and I’ll answer you. My blogs will be sporadic but I tweet daily.

Now, I just have to find the off button so I can get some real work done. LOL!

See you all next time...actually...send me a tweet!

Lynn

Sunday Blues

2010-08-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

My DH has been gone for a week and every time he leaves, life goes in the crapper. I don't have time to do my work and the rest of my family sucks the life out of me because they can't seem to do anything while he's gone. I always realize just what a good buffer he is but this time I'm really going to suffer. I have a book due that may or may not get done by the end of the month. I have an 18 yo I have to drive to college because he and DH didn't get his driver's license before he left and it takes almost a month to get an appointment.

The oldest is only working part time because he's a surveyor and we live in the worst place in the world right now for construction, Las Vegas. I don't mind helping but they always come to me when my DH is gone. And yes, that is his Dad we're talking about. The DH told me I was much too much of a soft touch. Maybe so but I can't allow anyone to starve. Right now, I'm thinking about going back to school to get a skill in the medical field as it is the only one hiring in this area.

Then I just got a notice from a contest I entered. Close but no cigar. Sigh. It makes me wonder just what I'm doing and if what I've wanted to be all my life is worth it. I started writing when I was 11 years old and sold my first piece at 12. Didn't sell again for many, many years but the fact I did had me jumping for joy. I can understand wondering just why one sits in front of the computer writing as there are days when nothing goes right. Recently, I had someone tell me that everything I wrote was awful and it's almost made me stop writing altogether for a while. I write dirty when I write fast then I clean it up afterwards. I've always been that way as I just have to get it down then rework it. I never thought it was something to worry about until this person made me feel awful.

Add the pirates to this and it makes life horrible in a lot of cases. I don't get as many pirates as most but the ones I do get are totally annoying and without scruples. It makes me wonder just why these people think they are entitled to have things for free. People aren't entitled to anything for free, as someone will have to pay for it somewhere. Life just isn't free at all, in any way, shape or form. I do believe we need to help people when we can but there are just some times we can't. I know most of the very rich don't think about this at all. There are weeks I pray for the lottery and I don't even live in a lottery state.

I read an interview once about Kate Winslet and its stuck in my mind. She had said in this interview that she woke up every day thinking that someone would find out she was a fake, that she couldn't act and didn't deserve the accolades or lucky breaks she'd been given in her life. When I get this low, I think about that often because it makes me realize no matter who you are or what you have, self-doubt is part of life when you're in a creative field. Luckily for me, it doesn't come often but when it does, it's hard and bad. I just stop writing and a part of me dies.

Then something happens. I see a movie or read a book or play on line and I remember I have a story similar to what I've seen or read or done. Maybe, just maybe, someone along the way will like what I wrote and read it. Maybe they won't but surely someone will love the hunky hero or sexy heroine which is out to save the world or kickass or whatever they do in the story. Maybe my story isn't so bad and it will get out there. Just maybe. Yes, I flip-flop through the emotions of the whole thing and slowly but surely, I'll land back on top.

But the journey is incredibly bumpy and long sometimes and sad. But I always get back to where I need to be somehow and it certainly helps to know I am not alone.

Thank you all for being with me on this journey. I do appreciate your support.

Lynn

Sexy Saturday

2010-08-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Sexy Saturday. Today we have the wonderful anthology, Violet Visions, which is currently available, though a few years old. Just look at what you get when you purchase this one! Eighteen wonderful stories from fifteen great authors! This is perfect for those wanted to add new authors to their TBR list!

I hope you enjoy!

http://tinyurl.com/VioletVisions (print)

http://tinyurl.com/Violet-Visions-ebook

Flame Rating: 4 Flames

Pages: 350

Category: Science Fiction/Paranormal/Fantasy/Romance/Gay/Menage a Trois

Cover Artist: Martine Jardin

Violet-of-the-Night by Astrid Cooper

Violet is Queen of the Netherworld, but when Vallejo invades her domain, succubus and vampire are captured by passion’s darkest desires.

Damson Rapture by Evelyn Starr

Dinner at ‘Tavern On The Green’ or ménage a trois? Did Twila ever really have any doubt which it would be?

Everscape - Dark Night of the Soul by K.A. M'Lady

Secrets lie in ancient bloodlines
Darkness awaits in the Lands of the Dead
Some journeys are better not taken alone

Grape and Gravity by Viola Grace

Held up as a prize for any fighter who would choose her, Tara is secure in her lack of attractive properties. Until Galeno fights through the alien horde to claim her as his own.

The Purple Heart by Madeleine Grant

Terrified of her fate at the hands of a lecherous King, Princess Vanessa has no choice but to submit to the king’s Chief Procurer, Derek Hanford. Derek initiates her into the pleasures of passion, but can he save her from the king’s clutches?

Lorelei by Astrid Cooper

When Lorelei lures Reilly with her siren’s song, he is more than willing to play her game. But when flesh meets flesh, songs are forgotten as passion burns brighter than a supernova.

Servicing the Sheika by Tianna Xander

A queen needs a child and sends out her priestesses to bring her a man to fulfill her every carnal need. Will he succumb to her demands, or will he force her submit to his every waking desire?

Loving the Sheika by Bonnie Rose Leigh

A woman from another world seeks a human for her mate. Will he let her leave him behind or will she choose to stay with him on Earth?

The Last Assignation by Sean MacReady

Azulema’s contract was explicit: She could not enter the tower with anything holding electrical current. The paranoia quotient for this assignation was one hundred percent.

Private Dancer by Lynn Crain

On her way to Araelus Prime, Aeryn first has to complete a temporary private dance assignment on Janus 345. But it turns into a hellish nightmare and she is trapped on Janus--until she and her dancer friend Diana become violently ill. They see the doctor who tells them they’ve been chosen and there is only one method to cure what ails them.

The Reliever by Jojo Brown

A world without intimacy. A world without touching. A world where The Reliever was truly needed!

Saloon on the Moon by Alexis Anthony

Sylvia Foster, winner of the Miss Nude Australia contest, now competes for the Miss Nude Galaxy. She finds a lot more on the moon than just the competition.

Star Of The Show by Stone Richards

Beneath the violet costume, the purple lipstick, and the lilac tinted powder, Jonni Marlow is all male.

Psiber by Viola Grace

Psiber - It's all in your head, and we bring it out.
In an exclusive environment, we invite you to Psiber. The ultimate way to live out your fantasies in a perfectly safe and contact free manner. Enter our facility, have your experience, and leave with a memory of the perfect sexual encounter, orchestrated by your own mind.Psiber - It's all in your head, and we bring it out.

Vylet Ultra by Astrid Cooper

Vylet rules by pleasure and when Gold is presented to her, she sees that he has a soul as dark as her own; but in their confrontation, who is captor and who is captive?

The Artists's Model by Fawn Lowery

The naked human body is the truest form of art. Can Gina seduce the hot artist she’s hired to paint her portrait?

Chaos by D. J. Manly

Gareth thinks he has blown a tire or ran over something with his truck. As he gets out to investigate, he is approached by a grubby young man who accuses Gareth of near killing him. The young man blackmails Gareth into giving him a ride to the next truck stop. Little does Gareth know what the gods have in store for him and his new companion.

Twisted Ice by Gabriella Bradley

When Nittya embarks on a boring mission to an unexplored galaxy, she runs into trouble. Her ship crashes on a frozen planet, and she’s sure her last hour has come. But…she wakes up naked, strapped to some sort of table and undergoes experimental exploration of her body, and…the ice planet’s silent alien population is quite perverted, as she’s soon about to find out.

Excerpt

Private Dancer

By Lynn Crain

Letting out a big sigh, I wasn’t all that sure my bravado would hold out while I talked to Darren. The man could be damn convincing when he wanted to be. Knocking quietly on the door to the office, I remembered the last time I was here. I had spent most of the time evading Darren’s roving hands and mouth. This time I knew I didn’t have a chance if I wanted to take Di to the doctor.

“Who is it?” His deep voice could still send tingles of pleasure down my spine though his brand of sex was too kinky even for me.

“Aeryn.”

“Come in.”

Placing my hand on the door knob, I sucked in one last breathe, forcing myself to concentrate on the task at hand, not what Darren would want. “Hi, Darren.”

He sat behind a huge desk meant to intimidate anyone who came in. Thank god, I wasn’t intimidated by much. “What can I do for you? As you can see I’m really busy today and don’t have time to be dallying with the likes of you.”

And he was in a definitely foul mood today. It briefly crossed my mind that the new girl didn’t put out like expected. He’d been in a foul mood for weeks when I wouldn’t give into his desires a couple of years ago but even then I could sense something dark and sinister behind that pretty boy face. And pretty much vanilla sex was all he’d ever gotten from me even though I knew he had wanted more. “Diana is really sick and needs to go to the doctor.”

“You’re telling me this because?” Irritation flashed across his face.

“I’m getting what she has, so I’m taking her there. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

A scowl flashed across his face. “I can’t spare both of you. There are plenty of reservations tonight for private dancers.”

“Would you rather us puke in their faces?”

Eyebrows went up and he sat back in the chair. “Is it really that bad?”

I sighed. “I think so. She looks like death-warmed-over and I’m starting to feel the same way.”

“You do look a little washed out.” Getting up from the chair, he walked toward me. I knew that whatever came my way, I’d just have to deal with it. “I’ll let you both go on one condition.”

I swallowed hard. “What’s the condition?”

“You have to fuck me right now.”

This time I was surprised. “Straight fucking, nothing kinky?” I questioned.

“Maybe a little anal but I don’t have time for anything else today.” He started to remove his tie as he knew that I would do anything to get out of dancing for a night. Especially if it involved Diana. “Lock the door.”

I swallowed hard and turned to lock the door. Anal might be a little tough as I hadn’t done it since we’d had our last encounter about eighteen months ago. Besides the man was huge and I was tight. Sliding his hand under my shirt, he tweaked my nipples until they were tight buds. The feeling flashed all the way to my groin and I knew I was in trouble. Not the bad kind but the really good kind.

“Is the privacy field on?” I managed to ask and reached around to hold Darren’s head as he began to kiss my neck. This was going to feel wonderful. When did I get so much into sex? Usually, I was the one who held back but suddenly I craved it.

“Always,” he murmured and continued to caress my boobs. Working his way down, he slid his hands inside my pants and spreading my vulva to caress my already hard nub. It had been a long time and I was dripping with need and anticipation. “Let’s get these things off.”

Slowly, he undressed me, caressing my body as he removed each piece of clothing. Even though he was kinky, he was a damn good lover when he wanted to be. Leaning down, he popped my nipple in his mouth, licking first one and then the other. Pushing me back into the closest chair, he went down on me, licking my slit with expert precision.

“You know I’m going to want the same,” he whispered as his hands reached up to pinch my nipples until they were pointy and hard.

“Not a problem,” I murmured between breaths. Pulling my ass closer to the edge of the chair, he put two fingers inside me, dragging the wetness up to saturate the area before thumbing my clit. I nearly flew out of the chair and began panting. My hips wiggled and arched more into his mouth as his tongue did me in the slowest, most sensual tongue fuck I’d ever had.

Pounding his fingers in and out of me, he licked my clit, pulling and teasing my body toward orgasm. Pulling back, he continued to caress me with the big pad on his thumb. “Let’s get on the floor and do a sixy-nine.” His beautiful smile enticed me to do things I wouldn’t normally do.

“Sure, as long as you’re not pumping that big dick of yours into my mouth from the top. I need to breath, you know.”

I felt his chuckle on my abdomen. “Have it your way.” Pulling me onto the floor, he hovered over me. “Undress me the rest of the way and make it good.”

Licking my lips, I looked at him and ran my hands up his chest to caress his already hard nipples. With one hand, I unbuttoned each button and placed my lips on him, kissing all the way up. Laving his neck with my tongue, he rewarded me with a sigh of satisfaction. Taking his mouth with mine, I kissed him long and deep, allowing my tongue to war with his as I caressed the inside of his mouth.

Purchase your copy today!

Thanks for joining me for Sexy Saturday! See you all next week!

Lynn

This & That Friday

2010-08-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Glad to see you all back for another rousing This & That Friday!

Today’s links run the gamut of interesting writing tidbits, other industry news and some downright wacky things!

Now here’s the story behind the numbers and poll mentioned last week.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2010/ebook-vs-hardcover-beyond-the-headlines/

Now we know that blogs are subject to shut down. Not that I don’t believe it was a good thing, I just think things could have been handled differently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10692501

Interesting article about your stuff.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200906/what-your-stuff-reveals-about-you

Things you never knew about Star Trek.

http://blastr.com/2010/07/14-things-you-might-not-k.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Some great, sexy Scotsmen! Now go drool! LOL!

http://www.celticqueens.blogspot.com/

Lots of great articles for the writer.

http://hollylisle.com/fm/

An interesting ploy from Sourcebooks.

http://www.idealog.com/blog/the-sourcebooks-experiment-with-bran-hambric-publishers-in-the-early-establishment-stage-of-ebook-adoption

Article on ebook royalties.

http://www.blackplasticglasses.com/2010/07/15/ebook-royalties/

Always love to hear anything from Jennifer Ashley.

http://jenniferonwriting.blogspot.com/

Twitter to the rescue!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-08-03-twitterrescue03_st_N.htm?csp=usat.me

More interesting ebook news.

http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/2010/08/changing-e-book.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

See you all next week for another This & That Friday!

Lynn

Guest Author Thursday

2010-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday. I’m here today with the multi-talented Autumn Dawn author of the steampunk eBook, Iron and Hemlock. Please help me in welcoming her to XtraOrdinary Romance!

Welcome, Autumn!

Iron and Hemlock
Ebook Price: $1.99 USD. 13220 words. Fiction by Autumn Dawn on July 27, 2010

BLURB: Life can change in the blink of an eye. It was just an ordinary day when lightning struck and sent Jordan spinning back in time. Trapped in Victorian England, practical Jordan will have to abandon her disbelief in magic. Pursued by a sexy golden griffin and a dark fae who wants her blood, she just might rediscover the thrill of falling in love.

Thanks for letting me hang out on your blog. I thought I’d discuss how Iron & Hemlock came to be on Smashwords and Amazon.com.

It all started with an RWA Pan post. Someone was excited because they’d gotten their out of print stuff set up with Smashwords. Then they quoted a guy named Joe Konrath. What was the deal? Why would anyone want to self-publish? Ever curious, I looked up Konrath and discovered he’s a guy making buckets of money publishing on Kindle.

How nice for him, I thought. As he pointed out, it’s not like that’ll work for everyone. And um, wouldn’t that make me look kind of cheesy?

After some thought, I decided that no one should have to worry about looking cheesy after 35. What’s the worst that could happen? Will the popular girls laugh at my corduroy pants? Survived that already.

Besides, I’m too curious for my own good. I decided to see what happened. I figured I might not sell any books, but it would be fun.

After putting myself through the Smashwords and Kindle formatting ordeal, I’ve decided I have a warped sense of fun. Of course, most people don’t make a cover and place their books with both publishers in one day. That might have something to do with my crossed eyes and stiff forearms. Who knew a mouse could be an instrument of torture?

So here it is. Originally a short story for the Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance with Trisha Telep, I present you with Iron & Hemlock.. Let me know what you think, readers.

Autumn’s Bio: I'm a stay at home mom with three kids, a dog and an active imagination. I spent the first 34 years of my life in Alaska, land of the midnight sun, but these days I'm located in Washington, and am enjoying a much warmer sun :) I'm married to my high school sweetheart, John, who is known to bring me flowers "just because".

My leisure time is filled with gardening, crochet, knitting, sewing, art and reading.

Hope you all enjoyed this little bit into Autumn’s world. You can find her at the following places:

Website: http://www.autumndawnbooks.com

Blog: http://authorautumndawn.blogspot.com/

See you all tomorrow for This & That Friday!

Lynn

Wednesday's Classroom

2010-08-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes - Lesson #3

Here we are, back again with the third lesson in my Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes class. I do hope you are enjoying this as I haven’t gotten much feedback so far. But what I’m seeing is allowing me to make this class better!

Please enjoy this lesson!

Lesson 3

Add love scenes when the characters want to make love, not when you want them to make love.

This is one of the hardest things that an author has to do and that’s called pacing. Again, I relate it back to your own experiences. What happened when you rushed something? Did it work out well? Chances are it didn’t. It’s like rushing a cake; if you take it out too soon, it’s not done, too late and it can be burnt to a crisp.

Everything has a pace, be it fast or slow. When you truly listen to your characters, they will tell you when they need to make love and when they need to argue. Part of adding steam is to know when things are right for the characters, not when a ‘formula’ tells you a love or sex scene needs to be added.

I’m a pantser and all of my stories are character driven.

Some of you may have heard of this term and some of you may not. When I started my writing career, I was anal about planning. I had charts on characters, charts on plots, I played the ‘what if’ game and twenty questions for each of my chapters. I would plan every detail to the nth degree because I wanted things as perfect as I could make them.

Now days, I write by the seat of my pants most of the time because I work things out in my head and follow that plan but not so stringently because I’ve learned to listen to my characters. I know more about them sometimes than I do my own kids. I write what the characters want me to write, which is their story. Nothing more, nothing less.

It is true, however, that there are some stories I still plan to the nth degree and those would be my heavy fantasy or futuristic stories. Those are just as much about the world building as they are about the characters or the plot for that matter. If you don’t plan those, you can get caught in your own plot pitfalls because you haven’t done your planning.

What is right for the characters needs to be right for you as the writer.

There are times when your characters might ask you to write something controversial or not right for you to write. I know it sounds strange but if your characters need to do something that you find objectionable, then maybe their story needs to be written by some one else.

Now this isn’t the same as you being embarrassed over a love scene or something of that nature. When first learning to write love scenes, they can be very disconcerting if you’ve never done that before. I know that the very first time I wrote a BDSM scene, I would get up, walk away from the computer and mutter, ‘I can’t believe I just wrote that’ and mean it. It wasn’t until I had been writing the story for a month that I felt comfortable with it.

Part of the reason that I could continue to write their story was that I didn’t feel bad about writing something done in an adult consensual situation. Adults can and do make their own decisions. My characters were adults. They had adult minds and adult thoughts. They could handle what was going to happen to them. True, you say they were just characters but to me they weren’t and it’s all about perspective.

Listen to your characters as they will tell you what they need.

This is just as important as any other issue talked about here. Characters will tell you what is important to them. In the story I mentioned above, the heroine needed to have a deep, dark fantasy fulfilled to fall in love with the one man she could. I gave her that situation and what happened in it was fulfilling for her.

Your characters need to be as satisfied with the outcome of your story as you are. Sometimes it won’t be a happily ever after but it will always be satisfying.

Exercise

1. Give me a scenario where a love scene would be appropriate for your characters.

2. Give me a scenario where a love scene would be inappropriate for your characters.

3. What type of writer do you want to be and why? (Pantser or planner)

4. Why do you think it’s appropriate to listen to your characters?

5. When wouldn’t it be appropriate to listen to your characters?

See you all next week for Lesson #4 in Wednesday’s Classroom!

Lynn

Looking 2 The Future

2010-08-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Tuesday and my input for the day. Notice the 2 instead of the word to...yes...in many ways I’ll be going totally digital. I believe I told you all about the new phone I’ve gotten, which is the most kick-ass item I’ve had in a long time. Once I get Twitter loaded on it, I will start using it almost exclusively for those posts with very little time on this computer. And since I’ve learned to abbreviate things to the max, I might just use it here. LOL!

What does that mean for this blog? Not much. The blog and most everything will stay the same but what will happen is that I will be doing business here first thing in the morning and then go to a non-internet computer to do my writing. IMHO, I am on this machine way too much and it does take a lot away from my writing time. And right now, I’m behind on my personal word count. But mail always has to be answered from this very spot as this is where my Outlook resides, another program I just can’t do without.

True, August is a happening place around here with the DH being gone and me helping the youngest get ready for college. This is a first for me because the oldest took a totally different route since he really didn’t know what he wanted to do. He took one semester in college then decided it wasn’t for him. He continued to do roofing with my brother then one day woke up and decided he wanted to do something else. Freaked out me and my brother immensely but he knew himself. For a while, he did sales and then got the offer of a lifetime for him. The Surveyors union was looking for apprentices and one of his high school buddy’s Dad who owned a surveying company asked him to apply.

That one phone call took him on a journey he’s loved. The union paid for all his training resulting in a AA in Surveying and continues to pay for his classes. Even though the job market in the Las Vegas area is way down, he knows he’ll find work as he was the Apprentice of the Year as well as one of the two graduate surveyors to pass the national certification from his class. I think he hopes one day to teach the trade but doesn’t know when that will or can happen.

Now the younger one has a completely different path charted out for himself. Along the way through high school he discovered math then physics. Heaven help me but he wants to be a physicist. I hate physics but love Math where as my DH loves physics but could take or leave math. He has declared his major as Physics and we’ll find out on Thursday just what classes they are going to put him in for the first semester. I think he’s looking forward to the adventure with a lot of trepidation. He’s never been a real go-getter and tends to be very shy when with new people. College will be good for him but a bit traumatic at times I’m sure. We’ll see.

As for myself, I want to take some classes this year but have decided that the MFA at the local college isn’t the one for me. Unless I want to do a Gaelic translation of something. LOL! The interesting thing about the program is it has an international component to the offerings. Students can actually go into the Peace Corp and use that experience to get some class credit. But I’m a genre writer and will need to find a different program to actually look into before I commit.

The only class I know I’ll be taking so far is one for my phone. Yup, can you believe it? Verizon actually has a free class in regards to this phone I just purchased. The Droid is very cool and I hope to get really savvy at it so I can show off in a variety of places. LOL!

What all are you guys doing to prepare for the coming school year? Do any of you have children that need to get ready? And how about yourselves...any of you considering classes to take?

I’d be really interested in knowing what you all are thinking about during this very eventful part of the year. See you all tomorrow for Wednesday’s Classroom!

Lynn

It’s Monday...again!

2010-08-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Heavens! It’s Monday again and already, I’m having a week. The youngest and two of my animals are ill today, which means survival is the key. LOL!

Now, the youngest, I can understand as he’s diabetic and gets frequent mornings where he’s not functioning well. Most of the time, these incidents are over by the middle of the day and he’s perfectly capable of functioning normal on his own by early afternoon.

The cat and dog who are ill are another matter. Now I have to figure out why and as we all know, animals are hard. I am just so hoping they will be feeling much better soon. Especially because they nip and fight each other constantly when they are in a bad mood. This makes my day even more tense.

Of course, all of this always happens when the DH is off on one of his trips. It never fails. When he’s home, everyone is always well, happy and generally get along. I don’t know what it is but the kids disagree, the animals are ill and I got hives. Lots of stress on all fronts if you ask me. LOL!

So today, I took off and just slounged around the house after my shower. I finished a book I was reading and started a new one. Is there no better way to get back into the swing of things except by reading? I love reading almost as much as I love creating these new and different worlds. Both are necessary to me.

I was recently asked what I had in my bookshelves and I had to laugh. In the bookshelves, I only put books where I would read again or those used as reference. The question to ask me would be ‘How high is your to be read pile?’ or something of that nature. That pile is huge and many times I will get after the cats as they knock it down. Then I have to reorganize the books in their relative position, usually by when I purchased it.

I don’t pick and choose from the stack, I actually read or attempt to read every book in that pile. Sure, there have been some real stinkers but most of all every book in that stack is enjoyable. And just because an author has a stinker, it doesn’t mean I won’t ever purchase something by that author. What it means, is that I will be a little more cautious than normal when picking up their next book.

Some are automatic adds. I can just see an author’s name and know I need to get that book to put into my TBR pile. On the flip side, there are others which I will never read again. Mainly those are books which have heroines that are TSTL. In all my years of reading, there has only been one author in this category which I gave a second chance and purchased another book. The second book was not as bad as the first but the author did not get on my automatic buy list.

So, how do you all add books to your TBR pile? Are they ones you’ve chosen yourself or recommended by others? Let me know and I’ll give you more entries.

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

A Working Sunday

2010-08-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Well, today has turned out to be a working Sunday. Most of the time, I reserve Sunday for reading or lazing about. Not so today. Today I have to edit and prep manuscripts for submission. I actually feel lucky to do this. Not many people work in a job they love.

For years, my husband was the only person who loved their jobs. I mean what’s not to love...LOL! My DH works outside of the country a lot and has visited some very beautiful places in the world. Right now, he’s in Vienna and I’m extremely jealous. I was supposed to be on this trip and am quite sad. But there was no way I would pay over $1000 for a ticket and that was the crux of the problem. Tickets were expensive and I couldn’t bring myself to pay that much as I’ve never paid more than $500 to go overseas. Even my DH had trouble with his tickets, as he wanted a specific airline, which cost too much for even the government. LOL!

Which brings me right back to being here, at home and preparing to do things I don’t normally want to do. Sigh. There are days I love editing and there are those times where I hate it. Right now, I’m in a hate mode so I just want to get it all done. It will probably take me better than a week to get it all together and sent off. Then again, maybe I’ll surprise myself as I have some other stories I need to finish pronto.

How many of you put off items that you really need to do? Sometimes I do and most times, I don’t. There are a few times where I’ve just been pigheaded and didn’t want to do anything. I would much rather play with my new phone or surf the internet or who knows? LOL!

Yeah, that’s right...I now have a phone, which sounds like a cylon...and it’s so very, very cool. My youngest got one too but he’s not sure what to think of it. Well, the first thing I did was download Google Sky Map so that I can look at the stars and know what one I am looking at in the sky. Next, I got a bunch of games, registered my QuickOffice so I can write ideas and my stories there. After this, I slowed down a bit since I felt I would overwhelm the poor thing.

I have yet to decide what ebook reader I’m going to download. You heard me...I get to choose between the Kindle reader or the Nook reader or I think anything I want...yeah! This phone will be my first true ebook reader. I’ve had a Pocket PC before but it was hard to sync and load all the stories on it. And to be honest, I really loved Microsoft’s Lit Reader as far as software. The library feature was fantastic and to this day, I had it on my computer and have tons of ebooks in that format.

I am still shooting for an iPad and can’t wait to get one very soon.

What is your favorite format for reading ebooks? How do you purchase those ebooks...straight from the publisher or a third party distributor? Again, more entries for those who answer!

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

Sexy Saturday!

2010-08-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

Atlantis Allure

Available NOW!!!

http://tinyurl.com/AtlantisAllure (print)

http://tinyurl.com/Atlantis-Allure-ebook

Below the Sea

Lynn Crain

I just couldn’t believe my luck. Jonas, the man, I had pursued for months had become my lover with a deep kiss and the clasp of my palm. Even now, I could remember just what happened as it would be forever etched in my brain.

The day had dawned bright and clear as many Caribbean days. But this one was special and I knew it. No matter just how much he had protested, I knew he was the man for me and I pursued him from the moment I saw him. He was smart and knew his way around a small submersible. What more could a woman ask for? He had no problem standing up to me when he felt I was wrong, or up for me when I needed defending.

And defending was something I seemed to need more often than not recently. But then again, who wouldn’t if they were determined to find the lost continent of Atlantis? Then again, maybe it had been just a city as many of the new theories proclaimed. At any rate, I would be the one to fully realize the dream. I was so close, I could taste it.

Still, today was not the day for lovers, it was the day for exploration. I should have known something was up when he arrived bright and early that morning, bearing gifts.

“Hey, sleepyhead, wake up.”

The fresh aroma of coffee filled the air and it was followed by a gentle nuzzle at my neck. I sighed and leaned into the gentle kisses as my crotch ached to be touched. Jonas couldn’t come into a room without me becoming aroused. In some ways, it was very much a nuisance while in others it made me remember the promise of pleasures to come.

This morning was no different except I had had another agenda in mind for the day. This time he wouldn’t dissuade me from achieving my goal. I’d just do it after the lovemaking, I suddenly decided. I stretched and put my arms around his neck, pulling him closer to me. I could feel the bulge in his shorts getting bigger. It didn’t take much to turn on my big boy. Pulling him away from my neck, I nipped at his bottom lip.

“So that’s how we’re going to play it today,” he growled and nipped me right back.

“And just how is that?” I whispered, my breath coming out slightly faster than intended. A girl didn’t need to appear too anxious, no matter who the lover might be.

Jonas Adaria was a glorious lover, the best I’d ever had and I have never been one to turn down a little nookey in the morning. The man was a virtual god, with golden blond hair, turquoise blue eyes, and muscles in all the right places. He reminded me of the perpetual surfer boy who had always been the man of my dreams. He was especially the one who would matter more than most to me in a few minutes time, I thought, and smiled to myself.

He’d shown up on my doorstep one day about two years ago and just didn’t leave. At first, all I wanted to do was shake him because I felt he was like every other person who swore they wanted to look for Atlantis. I didn’t need another soothsayer, as most were not serious researchers and were downright nuts when you started digging into their past. But Jonas, now he was different, as he didn’t give up, and hounded me again and again until I gave in, because at first I just wanted to shut him up.

But every day we worked together, I became more and more aware of him sexually. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anyone else. At first, he resisted my feeble attempts at flirting, but eventually he started responding, until I finally enticed him into my bed. And it had been magic. There was no other way to describe it. It was the best sex I had ever had in my life and I was determined to get as much as I could for as long as I could. If I had my way, it would be forever, but just not now.

See you all next week!

Lynn

This & That Friday

2010-08-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here are the links this week and I promise, I didn’t have hoof and mouth this week! Although, I did say some interesting things during the week, which I hope you all caught.

Enjoy!

Here’s another on self-promotion.

http://1stturningpoint.com/?p=4330

Let me say something right here about 1st Turning Point. If you don’t belong to this group, join. It is an eclectic group which help each other out through blogs mainly. There are tons of great articles here and I read them almost every day.

Here’s another great writing loop. They talk about everything.

http://www.writerprofits.com/wp-blog/

An interesting view about a conference I never heard about and I should have. Sigh. I’m still such a newbie at times. http://www.paulcornell.com/2010/07/ten-things-about-convergence.html

A good poll for you to get in on.

http://mashable.com/2010/07/19/reading-faceoff-e-books-vs-print-books/

Great blog on writing a synopsis.

http://thebookboost.blogspot.com/2010/08/get-synopsis-savvy-with-guest-blogger.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Amazon has 60-70% of the market...really? How so? This article explains it all.

http://thebookboost.blogspot.com/2010/08/get-synopsis-savvy-with-guest-blogger.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

New type of punctuation called the snark. Yeah, you heard me. LOL!

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/08/dear-snark-with-love.html

Very interesting bit about a NYU class.

http://www.magellanmediapartners.com/index.php/mmcp/article/making_frenemies/

B&N up for sale. Where will I get books now?

http://ebooks.epicauthors.com/?p=381

Very interesting roundtable discussion.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/events/roundtable/

See you all next week!

Lynn

Thursday Blues

2010-08-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know I’m usually an up person but some days, even those who are happy have a down day. Today is mine and it had such promise when I woke up. Sigh. It is so not a great day here. The DH is getting ready to go to Vienna and this was a trip I should have been on. But I’m not, so I have to deal with all the computer problems I’m suddenly having.

Blogger is being a bear and while I can upload the actual blog information, it immediately goes to draft and won’t post. I’ve got a help ticket into Google but I’m not very hopeful as it takes them forever to answer questions it seems. I’m hoping it will resolve itself but with the latest issue of me not being able to upload pictures as well, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

Then there is yahoo...what the heck happened to it while I was gone? :-( This is not good and again, things I thought I posted aren’t there and it took forever to get last Saturday’s post to show. All I tried to do was let everyone know I was out of town. There are some days where I wonder if computers are a help or hindrance.

And I remember the dark ages. No, not those times between the Roman Empire and the start of the Anglo-Saxon realm, but when computers were just beginning. Recently, when cleaning out an old box of odd things, I ran across an eight-inch disk. You heard me. I had an old eight-inch floppy disk stuck between two books in a box and I had to laugh. First, floppies were – well – floppy for one. Later they had a hard shell and now they’re flash drives or DVDs. But I know very few people who actually use anything but a flash drive.

I have what my husband calls the flash disk. It’s a passport that I transport between computers instead of saving everything on one machine. It actually saves on the problem of losing things when the box dies or the brain of whatever machine you might be on goes belly up. Right now, I have three backups and there are times when I wonder if that is enough. I’m praying it is. I never want to lose another story again. I haven’t recovered from the last one yet.

Now, back to the internet issues. The thing that gets me about this is these aren’t mine but extensions of what I do. Amazing how two things that are free on the net have become very important to authors and their promotion efforts. In many cases, these are the very essence of promotions. I know I do the majority of my promos on these groups and they give me access to thousands of people.

What’s an author to do when these freebies are bombarded with problems? Punt? But who can we punt to? The fact is that these two social media, along with a few more, are the basis of many an author’s web presence. And if you don’t have a web presence these days, you won’t have readers. Just think, if market standards hold true you will actually hook point one percent (0.1%) of all the people who see your name on the internet. If you can get that number to around ten thousand, that means a thousand people will look at you and supposedly one percent of those will purchase your product so about one hundred people will buy your novels. Therefore, you have to been seen by at least ten thousand new people a day in order to get any real sales.

All I know is that if my web promotions keep getting hit by mysterious ailments, I won’t even get the chance to be seen. And I apologize for not being where I’m supposed to be this week. I’ve been tired from my trip and then having a slew of computer issues, which are slowly getting resolved as I’ve outlined here.

Have you ever had computer problems so bad that all you’ve wanted to do was pound your head against the desk? That’s been my week since I got back. Tell me about your worst time and I’ll put your name in for another five entries for this month’s drawing.

See you tomorrow for This & That Friday.

Lynn

Wednesday's Classroom

2010-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes - Lesson #2

We’re back for lesson #2 in the Adding Steam workshop. I sure do hope you all are enjoying this as I do love to share my information!

Lesson #2

Use your own experiences

I’m sure at this moment, you are wondering just what am I talking about. Your own personal experiences can’t be what people want to really see. Well, I’m here to tell you that they do. People must relate to your characters; they must find some common ground or your characters will be meaningless to them.

Have you ever caught yourself while reading a book saying some thing to the effect of, ‘I can see myself doing that’ and know you mean it?

And I don’t mean using the experiences literally…you all remember that blush first being in love…use it, use it to your best advantage because people like to read about other people. How many of you are sick of the heroine or hero always being perfect? I know that I am. Why? Because people are flawed, even the really great people have flaws. They put their pants on the same way we do. They wear underwear, they shower, they go to the bathroom and for heaven sakes’ most of them fart too.

But the point is that you know and can relate to all those things. Use what you know. There is an old saying ‘Write what you know’ and the reason is that if you write about what you are good at, it comes more naturally.

If you are writing romance, there are some things that only women know. Most women remember their ‘first time,’ so use it. You can remember what it was like seeing your spouse for the first time. I do. I thought he was crazy because it was freezing and he was wearing shorts. I also remembering me thinking he wasn’t bad looking and maybe I should get to know him. I’ve used different version of this again and again.

Another one, most women remember the first ‘real’ date they were on, so use it. My husband and I didn’t date at first, we gang dated meaning we went out with a group of people. And we always seemed to pair up differently. Sometimes I look at my husband and don’t know how I ended up married to him. But I do know I worked my butt off to get him. This is something I can use.

The same can be said for men. When I decided to write from a man’s point of view, I realized I was out of my depth. I don’t know what a man feels during sex. But I do know my husband and trust his judgment. When I’m writing from the male point of view, he reads everything. He tells me things like ‘a guy wouldn’t think that emotionally about this’ or ‘no way would a guy do that.’ To be accurate, you have to have resources you can fall back on.

You can use anything you have experienced to make your writing richer and fuller. Everything you do in this mode just makes it so a reader can more readily identify with your characters. If the reader can’t identify with your characters, they won’t finish the book or maybe they won’t even pick it up.

Exercise

1. List ten experiences that you can use in a novel, be it romance, erotic romance, sensual romance or just a regular book.

2. Take one of those experiences and write me a whole paragraph about one of your characters doing the same thing.

3. What did you get out of the experience? Can you apply this to your writing.

4. List one outside resource you can use when you need it. It can be a person, a book, a library or even a place on the internet. The point here is to get you thinking about how you can find out the information you really need.

See you all next Wednesday!

Lynn

Home Again Tuesday

2010-08-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’m here but just barely. I am tired and grumpy and don’t feel too well. I know I’ll be sleeping most of the day. And wouldn’t you know it, I can’t find my steampunk excerpt I wanted to put up today. Sigh. It is already one of those days. LOL!

BUT the trip home was lovely and I couldn’t ask for a better drive. For once, it was fast through Salt Lake City, the city of perpetual construction. In all the years I have gone there, and I started in the mid-80s with skiing trips to the area, there have always been a portion of the main road under construction. Matter of fact, my husband and I talked about one trip where the icicles were making the powerlines bend under the stress. That was when the freeway wasn’t complete between place called Fillmore and Nephi. It was still a two lane road. Boy, does that date me! LOL!

Now the whole way is one hundred percent freeway and should be a breeze to travel. Not so with all the construction as it makes traffic move at a snail’s pace. And it shouldn’t be that way at all. But there are so many people in the area, traffic can be a zoo. When we left, we knew we’d be out of the traffic zone, or so we thought, as we were traveling through the city late on a Friday night. This isn’t a slur against people who live in Utah, but I’d like to know what you all do around midnight of Fridays? There were thousands of cars lining the freeway which made rush hour look mild. I don’t think there was a college game or anything that I could discern.

Still, coming home had none of those problems and we traveled in the middle of the day and had hit SLT well before noon. We rushed through the city and kept a steady pace the whole way. Go figure. I had actually been hoping to go to Dinosaur National Monument which meant we’d pass SLT altogether but I was vetoed. Yeah, it would have been six hours out of the way but boy a wall of bones would have made the trip worth it.

And for those of you who have never seen a dinosaur graveyard, this would be the one to go to. The whole museum is built around a wall of rock so visitors can easily see all the exposed fossils. It is one of the coolest places I’ve ever gone to and we’ve been trying to get back for years. I thought this would be the trip but I was wrong as everyone wanted to get home as quickly as they could. Sigh. So much for travel plans.

Where have you all gone recently? Any special trips planned? What was the best trip you’ve ever been on? Or the worst? Answer these questions and you’ll get five more entries into the drawing for this month.

See you all tomorrow...I hope...LOL!

Lynn

On The Road Monday

2010-08-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, today I am on the road coming home from my visit to my Dad. We had a great time and I enjoyed my visit with my family immensely. We weren’t able to get up there the whole year. We’d tried at Christmas but the snow storms heading in made us rethink our decision.

Now a friend and I had managed to breeze through in June when we took some things up to her son in Montana. That was a trip as we did 2300 miles in three days. Yeah, we basically started at around noon on a Friday and was home by Monday late evening. We had a great time but the whole thing was very, very rushed.

I was wonderfully surprised by the weather this time in Idaho. We had a wonderful cool streak which is apparently rare for Idaho Falls and August. My husband and I got to do morning walks though he added a run to his exercise as well. The only bad thing about the trip has been the fact we had to leave our puppy home. But he needs more socialization as well as training before we make the family deal with him on anywhere but his own home turf.

Today, I had originally planned to have a wonderful steampunk excerpt for you from a great new author. Unfortunately, it’s at home on my other computer. When I went to look for it, I was severely bummed as I had really wanted to post it. Have you ever had that moment right before you realize you’ve forgotten something very important? I got that this morning as I ran through all the spots I might have saved it on my travel machine. Ugh, it wasn’t there and I just had to come up with something new and fresh.

Now, I have a lot of fresh ideas but most of them have to do with my writing. Again, I have been pleasantly surprised as my idea file filled up even more and stories I’d been plotting on for months, who had run into dead ends, have gotten some new life after this trip. Yeah, team Lynn! One of the hardest things a writer can do is to not come up with new and fresh ideas. This can be frustrating and downright disheartening for those who need the ideas to flow so they can be creative.

I will never have the idea problem as I’ve said before. Maybe I should auction some of those ideas off as I have way too many to ever write. And that would include me being able to do a short every couple of days to finish all those ideas. I usually go sifting through those ideas once a month or so to see if something is calling me as I do finish a story once a month. It’s the editing and fixing and cleaning up that’s the problem.

I write fast and I write ugly but when I edit I am through. I try to get everything my critique partners tell me is wrong fixed then I run it through my own special brand of cleaning. This involves a whole set of rules and highlights and other things I run the finished product through. I can take almost a week, sometimes more to get the work into shape for me to turn into my publisher. Then there is their rounds of edits. It’s a thorough process which produces some good work.

Again, I’ve put in pictures throughout this blog of Idaho and the places I’ve been on this and precious trips. What are some of your best memories of vacations? Long or short…a vacation should be a restful experience…LOL! Have you ever had those trips where you need a vacation from the vacation? Let me know some of those and the one who gives me the best story will get an extra five entries into this month’s drawing!

See you all tomorrow with that steampunk excerpt. Have a great Monday!

Lynn

Lazy Sunday in Idaho

2010-08-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

I came up on Friday to visit my Dad as he turned 76 this week. We’re taking him out tonight to celebrate and I couldn’t be happier. However, to my Dad, it’s just another year, which makes me very sad.

I read an article once about how an older man had cared for his wife until the end and it made me cry. What really made me cry was to realize that article could have been written about my father. I’ll relate a little of the story here.

My parents married when they were fairly young and lived in a small Ohio town where they raised their children, me and my brother, until 1969 when they moved us to the southwest and Sin City. My parents did everything together and a day didn’t go by without them saying they loved one another. Yeah, living with my parents was hard at times but I always knew they loved us.

Fast forward to when my mother turned 53 and Dad 58. They were going to retire but Mom had been having issues for a few years. Lots of memory problems and I knew where that one was headed. She asked me once if I thought she was going crazy and all I could say was I knew she was ill. They had it confirmed when she was 53...Alzheimer’s...and medicine she couldn’t take. My father dug in for the long haul and cared for her until her death in 2005. He was then and still now, my hero. If you ever read a book called The Dragon’s Lady in the near future about a dragon named Alfred, you’ll know that’s for my Dad.

That same year my mother died, Dad fell in love with a wonderful woman who loved to travel and hanging out with him. I didn’t know Patti well but the very fact she made my Dad happy after the experience with my mother, made me joyous. Unfortunately, she had a reoccurrence of her cancer and died August of the same year as my mother.

Dad was devastated and I didn’t know how to help him at all. I would have taken all his pain away if I could. I would have done it for him but I couldn’t. He stayed here in Nevada for another year and a half before he pulled up stakes and moved to Idaho to be near my brother. We helped him buy a home there and try to get to visit him as much as we can. The pictures are from our various travels there. It’s cool and green and I like it to a point. The mountains are much too far in my opinion so I could never live where he does, but I could live close. LOL!

We’ve had a great visit so far and hope to have many more! Have you talked to your parent(s) today? If not, make the effort...it’ll do wonders for your heart...have a great day!

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

Welcome 2 Sexy Saturday

2010-08-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone and I hope you’re having a great day! I’m in beautiful Idaho and enjoying every cool moment. Apparently it’s still hot and dry in the southwest where I live. Well, didn’t expect any less as it is the middle of August. LOL!

Today, I’m bring you the second in my Orchid series, More Than Robotics. This is another of my sci-fi novellas. I just loved writing it and am at work on the next in the series, Not Quite Human. Yeah, that one’s going to be kick ass. I can’t wait to bring it to you.

Hope you enjoy!

More Than Robotics

(Book 2 in the Orchid Series)

Lynn Crain

Available NOW!!!

eXtasy Books

http://www.extasybooks.com/

http://tinyurl.com/MoreThanRobotics-ebook

BLURB: There were only three things in life that Captain Bekka Taylor wanted: 1) Command of a Warrior Class Star Marauder, 2) To grow old gracefully and 3) A lover who understood her fiery nature. She was accomplishing two out of her three objectives very nicely when an internal IUA conflict begins to encompasses the whole world as she knows it. Then Lieutenant Javed Malik comes aboard, clearly younger than she, with dreamy eyes and a secret meant only for her. But letting him in means getting rid of years of frustration and anguish and maybe her career. Can she survive another war or the smoldering looks from her junior officer sent to protect her 24/7?

LOG LINE: Captain Bekka Taylor must learn to trust Lieutenant Javed Malik but in a world where mistrust is rampant, can she trust her feelings enough to love him?

TEASER EXCERPT:

I grabbed his hair and pulled him back to look at me. “Have you ever made love to someone while you’ve had this technology?”

“Never. You’re my first.” He kissed me again and I knew the time for talking was long over.

Moving once again to my breast, he sucked on one until the nipple popped into his hot mouth, lolling his tongue around the tight aureole before his gentle bite sent a shockwave of desire through me. All I could do was gasp as wave after wave of sensation surged over me making every nerve in my body tingle with pleasure.

A fire was building in my crotch and I sensed I would die if Javed didn’t get there soon. Down, please, go down further, I thought, forgetting he heard me, as my breaths came in short gasps filled with pleasure.

Patience. Good things…

Screw the good things…it’s been way too long…I want the bad things. And I want them now. My hands grabbed his head and tried to push him down to my crotch.

His hand moved further down my body reaching into my underwear, but he kept his eyes focused on mine for a moment longer. We don’t need these clothes any more, do we?

As long as you take yours off as well.

Deal.

He was up in a flash, peeling his clothes off his cinnamon colored flesh, his cock jutted rock hard from his firm body. I reached up and stroked him, moving my mouth to caress the soft head of his penis, reveling in the groan he elicited as my tongue moved on the tender piece of flesh.

You still have your clothes on. His thought conveyed a hint of heat as it singed my mind with its heat.

I know. I continued to lick his cock, running my tongue along the rim before plopping the head into my mouth for a second time. I used my tongue as a weapon for sexual torture and if the movements of his body were any indication, I did quite well.

No fair. I wanted to do you first.

You’ll have your turn. That’s what you get for still being the one standing. I nipped and stroked his cock with a firm hand, continuing to rub him with my mouth, feeling him grow stronger and bigger with each lick and nip. I reached down between us and squeezed his balls and he groaned in pleasure. He placed his hands on the wall behind me and leaned even more into me, his cock sliding deeper down my throat.

Your mouth feels so good…so right…lick the head some more.

I perceived the want and need in his thoughts as I complied with his wishes as his body arched into me. I continued to nip and stroke his hard shaft with my hands and mouth, bringing even more moans. I returned to the purple mushroom head and rimmed him with my tongue yet again and again. I couldn’t wait to feel his tongue on my body, to feel him inside me as he turned me on like no other had ever done. Heck, I got a thrill sucking his cock, which had never been high on my list of priorities before. He was right, I had always been the one in control.

I can hear you. His heavy breathing hot on the top of my head. This is the one time where it’s hard to shield another from our thoughts. Remember you said so yourself. Thoughts…feelings get so intertwined.

I understand. I continued to lave him with my mouth wanting even more.

I can’t wait any more. I need to be inside you now.

See you all next week for more, Sexy Saturday!

Lynn

This & That Friday

2010-08-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

As you all know, today is the day where I put up links that I’ve received across my desk over the past week. Well, those links are extensive and I’ve had a running list for weeks. So this week, I’m trying something a little different. I am taking five to seven from the beginning of the list and the last five to seven from the end of the list as well.

Even with that modification, I’ll have more links than I’ll ever need for this blog day. There is so much which comes across my desk that I think you all might find interesting, it overflows the file I put it in. Right now, that file runs anywhere from four to eight pages. Big file, lots of news.

The biggest bit of news on this list is the fact that Dorchester is going e. Yes, you heard me right e first then print should sales be sufficient enough to go into print. That print book will be a trade size and won’t be released until about six months out at the earliest. This is great news for us already in e because that means we are actually being noticed for who we are. Hopefully, some of us can get in on this new publishing model if you aren’t already.

And I really have to apologize publically to Angela James yet again. I had heard about this last night from an agent friend of mine. I offered to go to the Dorchester authors I knew about it and got the answer that it was a rumor, not fact. Angela tweeted about it this morning and I wasn’t reading carefully enough as her information came from PW who had the breaking news. Okay, so I have hoof and mouth BUT I came from the perspective of Dorchester published authors, who were clueless. The article even states that the editors were just breaking it to those authors. What a difference an eight hour period can make.

I wouldn’t have a problem with this at all but some of those authors might. My heart goes out to them. I hope the transition goes well for them.

To Angela James, again I state I am sorry for my transgression. I really didn’t see the PW reference until you pointed it out. Damn Twitter for going so fast and me for not being about to keep up. Yes, I am groveling to an editor I want to submit to one day. Sigh. At least I know how to grovel. I think. LOL!

Here are your links for this week...enjoy!

Just a recap of the fast track for Harlequin Medical Romances. http://harlequinblog.com/2010/07/mid-summer-madness-were-fast-tracking-submissions-at-medical-romance-in-august/

Great article from a new agent. http://www.phoenix.edu/uopx-knowledge-network/articles/executive-success-stories/digital-books-making-the-world-of-literature-smaller-while-expanding-your-access-to-imagination.html

Some ROTFL response letters to agents. http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2010/07/lol.html

What if movie titles told the truth? Look what I found at Sci-Fi Wire, now called blastr...don’t ask me...LOL! http://blastr.com/2010/07/what-if-hollywoods-sci-fi.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Intelligent sci-fi...imagine that...the best twelve of all time. http://blastr.com/2010/07/the-16-most-intelligent-s.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Another author’s view on why ebooks make readers big winners.
http://www.theromancebookclub.com/guest-blogs/2010/7/18/readers-are-the-big-winners-in-the-ebook-revolution-by-julie.html

One of the best articles I’ve seen on blogs in a while. http://1stturningpoint.com/?p=4394

I so want to go to this party...again! http://www.bizbash.com/orlando/content/editorial/18870_harlequin_puts_focus_on_photos_at_romance_writers_conference_party.php

Interesting publicist. http://publishingperspectives.com/?p=18472

Nice read about the phrase ‘not right for our list’ meaning. http://www.bookpage.com/author-enablers/2010/06/10/youre-books-not-right-for-our-list/

Literal Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsZ-BMKVbSc&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HE9OQ4FnkQ&feature=related

Dorchester to move to ebooks only! http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/44085-dorchester-drops-mass-market-publishing-for-e-book-pod-model.html

Interesting apology from people working in publishing industry. http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/2010/08/benefit-of-experience.html

Have a great weekend everyone!

Lynn

Heck...It’s Thursday Already!

2010-08-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it’s been one of those weeks where I wake up with an allergy headache before my feet hit the floor. It’s annoying and I barely get anything done but it is that time of year. The only thing which will make it go away with any frequency is rain, as strange as that sounds.

The problem for me is humidity. I live in a place where there isn’t very much, about one to ten percent all year long. When it pops up to the thirty percent range with temperatures over a hundred, it’s very bad for me. My optimum is about eighty to ninety degrees with about forty percent humidity. At those numbers, I perform perfectly. Anything else and the balance is upset.

High temps and high humidity makes me nasty whereas places with a low temp and high humidity make me put on a sweater. I can function there, like in Scotland, but some days I just feel cold and it’s the same for a low temp and low humidity.

My husband asked me recently where I would want to move when I declared if the immigration issue on being born here isn’t settled correctly. I only had two choices and that was Canada or Scotland. Maybe Europe but I haven’t been there and don’t know enough about it to declare it somewhere I want to live.

I just take issue with penalizing a baby for its birth status because of what it’s parents did. It also leaves me with a strange feeling that those kids will never have a homeland because they wouldn’t be US citizens and certainly the country their parents came from wouldn’t let them be citizens there either. It would be such a no win situation for that child, it makes me shudder to think about it.

But then again, I didn’t know that Indians weren’t considered citizens until an act of Congress made them so in the 1920s.How did I miss that one in history class? What’s going to happen when we start colonizing the moon? Moon citizens versus earth citizens? That one sounds ugly and maybe something I should note for a future sci-fi story of some sort.

Oh, yeah, I did promise you all something...and here’s an unedited excerpt of upcoming book...The Harvester. No, I don’t have a cover or a publication date yet, I’ll let you all know when I do. And yes, it is a sci-fi erotic romance, which IMHO one of the best things I write. Enjoy!

The Harvester

(Unedited Excerpt)

Lynn Crain

Prologue

It had never been her intent to be at odds with her mother. The gods knew her mother was a formidable opponent and no one in their right mind would want to stand against the woman, least of all her. But life at home got increasingly hard as the days went by, so hard Sky understood she must leave, get out on her own or she’d never get the chance again.

She stood in the Hall of Eternal Beauty and felt very much out of place. The room was one of the many side chambers to her mother’s main receiving hall and a good place for a private conversation. Her mother immediately took her here upon her request for a private audience and she wondered why as the room was garish beyond all belief with hedonistic gold carvings along the upper part of the wall.

As she looked around the couples displayed in all sorts of sexual positions, she speculated if they were meant to arouse dignitaries from another planet or turn on the royals present. The cold marble floor would douse any erotic thoughts in her mind the moment her bare backside touched the cool surface. It took a minute for her mother to join her and she drew her eyes back to the door once she heard the woman’s footsteps echo.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” The fierce look on her mother’s face could make anyone tighten in fear but she had withstood worse.

“Absolutely, Mother. You told me I would have to make my way someday. I chose to do it now and in this manner. Is that a problem?” Her arms were casually locked behind her back.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Not a problem, Daughter, but I do wonder if your motivation is something more. You are my oldest and my expectations for you are different than your sisters as you need to prepare yourself for my position some day. Travel may not be conducive to that end.”

She tried not to swallow hard. Any weakness on her part might clue her mother into her thoughts thus giving her a reason to deny her request so instead she smiled slightly. “Nothing more than the need to be on my own for a while. Surely, you understand my need. It is my hope my sisters will more than make up for my absence.”

She listened to the stories over and over again where her mother asked her grandmother for some freedom and that freedom denied more than once. Her mother told her daughters repeatedly, she would never disallow them such a basic need.

Her mother relaxed, returned her smile and patted her shoulder. “I understand, Daughter. I will expect to hear from you at regular intervals.”

She bowed her head. “Understood. Are there any other instructions you might have for me?”

Her mother shook her head. “Not really. Pick up a standard packet before you leave. Good journey.” Her mother drew her close and placed a kiss on her cheek. “I expect good things from and about my Daughter.”

Sky attempted to control her facial expressions as the statement shocked her. Affection wasn’t one of her mother’s strengths shown towards her offspring. As far as she could tell, her mother considered her daughters only in terms of political maneuvering. Whatever the motive, she could not risk offending her. “Thank you, Mother.” She returned the kiss and backed away. “I won’t disappoint you.” She did a full bow and backed from the room completely before turning to make her way down the hall in slow, sure steps.

Her happiness was hard to contain, as she understood she was free to pursue her own agenda. Free of her mother’s overbearing manner. Free of her insufferable rules and regulations on how one should live their life. As she walked down the corridor, she made her plans, those plans didn’t include any of her mother’s teachings or wants or desires. Sky realized the moment she was able, she would drop off her mother’s wide-ranging radar.

Then, her life would in fact begin.

See you tomorrow for This and That Friday!

Lynn

Wednesday's Classroom

2010-08-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Lesson #1

Welcome back to Wednesday's Classroom. Last week I told you all that I would be presenting the free online workshop, Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes. Here is the first lesson. There is an exercise at the end of the lesson which I would love you all to do. You can post it here for everyone to see, or you can send it to me privately at lynncrain@cox.net. At the very least, please leave a comment so I know you've been there!

Lesson #1

Set the mood for both you and your characters

So what do I really mean by setting the mood, you might ask. Most of you do this without even thinking about it. Remember when you took that long bath putting bath salts in the water and lit the candles around the tub to create that ultimate experience? Yeah, I know you do. You wanted something relaxing and at the same time exhilarating. Remember that first date with your loved one? How about that first dinner? Or first night?

No matter what you’re doing you need to set the stage in order to get ‘into the mood’ for writing, especially writing love scenes. There is nothing worse than trying to write a witty, sexy tryst when you can’t get out of the doldrums.

Here are some sure fire ways to get yourself in the mood for writing great love scenes.

1. Read books the day before in the genre for which you’re writing.

Now I realize that this may sound hokey BUT there is nothing more stimulating than reading something that gets the creative juices flowing. Pick up that latest book by your favorite author. Or even get something new and different by some one you haven’t read before. Make sure that whatever you pick up, it is in the genre you are writing at the moment. There is nothing more frustrating than to be writing a romance when that erotic love scene is rolling around in your head.

Some of my favorite authors are Morgan Hawke, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Debbie Macomber, Emilie Richards, Nora Roberts, Melissa Schroeder, Joy Nash, Jennifer Ashley and Nikki Rivers to name a few. All of those people write very different things so it would depend on what I am writing the next day just what I’d be reading.

One other thing, do your best to turn off your internal editor. You know that one where you pick apart the book you are reading. This is for enjoyment and if you find yourself editing or being critical of the book you’re reading, find another book.

2. Watch a romantic movie.

For me, I just love watching a romantic movie. And it doesn’t matter when it is as the day before you write, the day you write or even the day after you write will work. It can be an old classic like An Affair to Remember or a new classic like While You Were Sleeping or Notting Hill and it can even be a brand new movie like Sweet Home Alabama. It can even be an autobiography like I Walk The Line. There’s just something wicked about Johnny Cash when you see him as a young man. But the point is, to lose your self in the romance and the story. It’s easy to write about something when you’re feeling the same emotions.

Oh…almost forgot one for those erotic romance writers…there’s nothing so sexy as the stair scene in The Thomas Crowne Affair. It burned up the screen.

3. Listen to music while you write that all important scene.

It has been said by many, many people, and proven too, that music can set the mood. Every wonder why the Scottish took their bagpipes into battle with them? It’s because just the sound of the pipes could work the men up into a frenzy and I mean frenzy. My husband is Scottish and when we went to Scotland, we stopped to hear the pipes any time we could. When we saw the lone piper at Castle Eileen Donan, we felt lonely, when we saw the bagpipe brigade practice for the Edinburgh Tattoo, we felt invigorated. There is nothing like a good song to put someone in the mood for anything. Think about how music is used to set the scene in a movie. You know exactly what is happening just from the music. Think Jaws, think Somewhere in Time and you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

I always listen to music when I’m writing and I am definitely more productive. If you go to my MySpace, you will find a band called the All American Rejects belting out their latest hit. I saw this music in a Battlestar Galactica announcement and traced it down because I loved the sound so much not to mention the really sexy scenes depicted in the commercial. My daughter-in-law was so surprised that I like this band she called my son right away and told him. I love music. Any music.

My kids gave me an IPOD for Christmas a couple of years ago and to be honest, I listen to it a lot but while I’m at my computer, I just turn on Itunes. I frequently spend an hour or so downloading music because I never know just what I’ll find interesting some days.

For me, a day without music is like a day without sunshine.

4. Look at phrase books.

Again, this may seem a little strange but when you are stuck in a scene and nothing seems to work, pick up a phrase book and see if it can jolt you into thinking up something on your own. The two that I use are ‘The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book’ compiled by Jean Kent I believe. This is a really, really old book. It’s from 1984 and I have two copies which are both falling apart. The ISBN 10 is 0399510028 and the ISBN 13 is 978-0399510021. It’s available from Amazon.

A new but similar book, The Millennium Phrase Book by Rebecca Andrews, is done very well. The author has updated many things and has taken into account the change in the market. This book is published by Highland Press and the ISBN 13 is 978-0-9787139-5-9.

Sometimes, I will just look at either of these books and get lost in the phrases as I roll them around in my mind to see if they will fit the story I’m working on at the moment. And since they are phrase books, you can copy things word for word if you’d like. Me, I just get the general idea and put it into my own words.

5. Look at sexy pictures.

I’m sure that many of you are thinking by this time that I have truly lost my mind. But humans are sense oriented creatures. We have to be able to touch, taste, hear, smell and see something for it to mean anything to us. Most of us tend to be very visual creatures in this day and age with everything being in our face. Why do you think that kids are so zoned into the computer games? A lot of times our visual perceptions supersede any of our other senses. Think of the car accidents because someone is not paying attention to what they are doing. Most of those people are looking the other way because had they really been looking at what they should have been looking at, the accident or incident probably wouldn’t have happened.

Last week when I was uploading something to offsite storage, I couldn’t figure out why the link would not work correctly. I worked with it over an hour before I sent it off to a colleague who immediately fired back, ‘Why is there a CW at the end of the filename?’ I had looked at that name for over an hour and had never noticed the extra letters. Talk about a ‘Duh’ moment. Our eyes tend to see what they want to see and sometimes what they see really isn’t what is there.

So just what do I mean by looking at sexy pictures, you might ask. Well, you can get some reference books like I have, The Better Sex Guide, The Kama Sutra, and Ultimate Sex to see the really erotic sexual positions as well as some great description. These books visually show us just how sexy and erotic sex can be. Now for the tamer side, I look on photo sites like www.istockphoto.com or www.canstockphoto.com. These places have some of the sexiest pictures you will ever see. Some people are fully clothed and others aren’t but you don’t see a thing because most things are rated PG on these sites. Matter of fact, one whole lesson will be on less is more because you don’t have to see everything to know it’s sexy.

Exercise

1. Give me a list of your five favorite authors and tell me why you like to read their books.

2. Give me your five top picks for most romantic movie. Again, give me a little insight as to why you think this movie is great.

3. What is your favorite music and why. Do you listen to any of the current bands? Why or why not?

4. Do you think phrase books would be useful? Why or why not?

5. Do you think as a writer you would find looking at pictures useful to writing a novel?

Hope you all enjoyed this first lesson in the workshop.

Until next week…

Lynn

Heavens! It’s Tuesday!

2010-08-03T13:57:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone...and I’m sorry I’m terribly late on this one. Today, I am in computer hell because I apparently have some sort of virus type bug on my computer. The program caught it but states I must erradicate it but I can’t seem to find it.

So, it would seem I am in a pickle as to what to do today. I have other computers I can use, and am doing so right now, but still it is such a hassle to move from place to place getting what time I can on a machine. This is not the optimum thing for a person who writes all day long. Matter of fact, this is downright annoying when it comes down to it.

So this will be short and sweet today...and I so apologize for it...I just have to be doing other things with that infernal machine.

But you have a lot to look forward to this week.

Tomorrow is Wednesday’s Classroom and Lesson #2 of Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes.

Thursday will be the day I reveal an unedited excerpt from my new story, The Harvester. Yeah, I’m really excited by it and plan to turn it into my publisher on that day. I thought giving you a treat would be fantastic.

Friday is This and That day and I have a ton of new links for you. It will probably be a double batch or I might increase it to fifteen a week as the document is getting longer and longer. I also want to give these links to you in a time frame where it is relevant. I hate it when I get a link and the time for the information to be useful to me is long past.

Saturday is going to be Sexy Saturday and will start matching my yahoogroup as the day I promote myself first then others as I can. Each week, I will do at least one excerpt from a backlisted book. If I can, I will promote them newest to oldest so you all can check them out. When I run out of me, I’ll put in something from someone else to break it up so it doesn’t have to be an ‘All About Lynn’ fest all the time. Yeah, I know, I’m weird that way.

Well, there you have it...the rest of the week all planned and ready to go...if you want more, you’ll have to let me know!

Thanks for being so supportive and being the best readers in the world. I love you all!

Until tomorrow!

Lynn

Me and Sci-Fi

2010-08-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

Recently I was chastised by a friend from Twitter who told me I wasn’t utilizing my talents to the best of my ability. She had noted over the time we had known each other that I spoke often about sci-fi erotic romance, I wrote sci-fi erotic romance and totally knew the language. Matter of fact, the point that brought it to a head was the fact I’m going to a sci-fi type convention over the Labor Day weekend called Copper Con.

She basically came back at me and said I should change my bio in Twitter to reflect my sci-fi writing. I immediately went in and changed what I said about myself on Twitter for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is she is correct. Sci-fi and fantasy are my first loves. Writers should stick with what they love.

I know this for a fact as there are many times when I’m writing a contemporary where I get bogged down and never want to finish it. I think the reason is I like to totally use my imagination, add a little science then see what shakes out. Most of the time, it is more interesting than anything I can come up with in the real world.

I just love to tweak science to make it do my bidding. Most of the lively conversations around my house are science based. These discussions can become quite heated because we are a group of scientists by trade and nature. My youngest wants to be a phyisist, my older on is a total whiz at math. My husband is a geophysist with a second degree in history and I’m a geologist with a computer science minor top by an ongoing Ph.D. study of natural medicine. Most of our heated discussions revolve around space and getting off this rock. I have my opinion and they all have theirs.

My house is never dull and we either have one of the History Channels on, the Science Channel or Syfy. My youngest watches G4, which I’ve found to actually have some things of value when I’m writing my sci-fi. Many times that station has thrown me off into a tangent where I get a wild hair and a new idea. How boring is that? LOL! It’s not really.

So, what does all this discussion have to do with us? Well, I have about 10 contemporaries I’m committed to completing, maybe a few more, once those are totally done, I may permanently switch to writing sci-fi or fantasy erotic romance. This is my first passion and I love the freedom it gives me.

Let me give you an example. As you all know, I write about 5K a day. What you probably don’t know is I work on multiple stories at one time. I make sure the story due is the one that gets the most time but I include things like this blog, my other blogs and any other writing project I might need to do. Some is for my writing organizations, some are just ramblings about this and that. Some of the time is spent on perfecting a story, doing that final edit before submission or sending it out to an agent. But I write consistently every day and a lot.

This month, the main thrust of my daily work is a little story called The Taking of An Apprentice. Now this story is finished at about 22K and it took me less than a month of daily writing to get it done. Some people thing that’s flying whereas I think it is incredably slow. The point is that I had the story plotted and knew exactly where it was going from Chapter 3 on. This is incredible for a pantser. But note, this story is a fantasy and hence I’ve seen I can plot the thing out with little problem very quickly.

Now for a contemporary, I have to mull it around, think about just the right words and inflect and god knows what. I have to get it perfect. Sci-fi plotting for me is about the same. I might actually be a non-pantser in that area but everything comes together very quickly. I’m like a demon to get it done so I don’t forget and because of this, there are days I can do an incredible 10K. I kid you not.

So see, my Twitter friend is correct. I am not using my talents to the best of my ability. I need to do better. And I will.

How about you? Do you have any hidden talents you aren’t using as well as you should? Tell me about it and you’ll get five extra spots in this month’s drawing.

Now, what you’ve all been waiting for...the winner of this month’s contest...the winner of the $20 ARe gift certificate and a book of their choice is Rhobin! Come on down and claim your prize! This month I have two winners for the most comments portion: Carol L and Diane Deeds come on down and claim your prize. Hope you all had some fun this month...and be prepared for more...we’re building up to a blowout at Christmas. This year is my last elf book and I will be giving away a special prize for that one...keep posted...and thanks again!

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

Sunday, Oh, Sunday

2010-08-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

You know Sundays are meant for sleeping, breakfast in bed and great trysts before the whole house wakes up. Sigh. Now, it’s been years since I’ve had that type of Sunday morning and today more than ever, I am missing it. And I want it. Sigh.

Instead, I’m woke at the crack of dawn by a dog who wants to jog like he does every morning. Even just letting him out to do his thing will not get rid of the need to go out for a run. What’s with him? I’ve heard this from tons of people recently that jogging is good for you. Really? In my case, my boobs bounce, the fat jiggles and my shins remind me every moment why I should not jog at all.

Me, I’m a walker, a hiker and I just love those long romantic walks. Yeah, who am I kidding. We used to go to the mountains or one of the many walking trails around my home at least once a weekend. Not any more. Now it’s a hurry up and rush around to do what we need to do then to fall into bed tired. What is it when you get to middle age and everything is more important than taking care of yourself? I just don’t get it at all.

I don’t know who or what inspired to really get it together to lose weight. I mean, I know ultimately it was me as I am tired of being fat but for weeks I watched on Twitter as Shiloh Walker informed us about her run. I’m thinking ‘Ugh. Are you kidding?’ but when I saw she didn’t like it any more than I liked losing weight, I knew I had to get my nose in the grindstone and get it done.

Finally, I started walking and it’s made all the difference especially now that I’m on a maintenance part of the food portion. Now, I have to set the nearly thirty pounds I’ve lost into my system so it won’t want it back. LOL! So far so good. I’m maintaining within a 1-2 pound weight and some days I lose a little more.

What does this have to do with Sundays? Everything. We do family day on this day. I got see my oldest and my grandsons. They all want to eat where they want: fast food, Red Robin or maybe even Buffalo Wild Wings. I have become the ultimate dieter when it comes to those places. I know what I can get and how much. They were all surprised on Sunday when we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and I ordered the chicken grilled salad without cheese or dressing or croutons. That was a hard week as I love wings. Sigh.

When I finally got up this morning, I thought about where we’d eat today then I decided while the husband and dog were jogging, I’d dance in my office. When I was younger, I stayed slim because we went out dancing every Friday or Saturday. I don’t know about you all but I can remember the sweat pouring from me not matter what I drank. So, I have a track on my iTunes I call the dance track and the moment I saw them leave the front yard, I pulled the head phones out of the jack and played some of those songs.

There’s a freedom when one dances that you can’t get with anything else. I love that freedom and I love the fact I have an office big enough to allow me to do this as much as I want. Freedom is a great thing and I love I can exercise that right in any way I want every day. Don’t you?

I know for many of you Sunday is church day and it was until I was about twenty. Then church and I had a parting of the ways. Things were said that couldn’t be taken back and I decided it wasn’t for me any more. I love the way I feel when I’m outdoors and know that’s church enough for me. But I don’t want to deter for those who do spend time in their place of worship. Everyone needs something for their spiritual growth.

What are the things about Sunday that you love? Do you do anything special on Sundays?

Winners of July's contest will be announced tomorrow...I'm just too lazy today...LOL!

Hope you all have a fantastic Sunday...see you tomorrow!

Lynn

Sexy Saturday

2010-07-31T10:35:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if you are all aware of it but besides my Twitter and this blog, I have a yahoogroup as well and every Saturday is known as Sexy Saturday.

What happens on Sexy Saturday you might ask? Well, what doesn’t. I talk about books, post excerpts and generally try to have a fun time with it altogether. I mean, why shouldn’t we? It’s all about sexy men and wonderful romance stories, right?

I am also likely to post something from my works in progress there to see what the audience review just might be, same as here. But it’s more of a way to talk to you, one on one, about life and everything else that happens to us.

Here’s just some of the things which have happened on Sexy Saturday so far:

I have posted the following excerpts:

An Elf’s Desire
A Love for Eggther
An Elf’s Magic
Night of the Blue Moon

There has been an announcement for a blog-a-thon that a friend is happening. There has been some chit-chat.

I’m getting ready to start posting some sexy videos, some sexy pictures and talk about writing and the RWA conference which I didn’t get to attend.

All great stuff in my book. LOL!

I’m also going to talk about getting an agent, the next conference I’ll be going to which is CopperCon as well as one in October in Ohio if I can get it together in time, and I might even talk about my grandkids and Twitter.

See...this is a full disclosure place...LOL! So drop on by today and get the inside scoop about me. I hope to see you there!

Here’s the link for those of you who haven’t subscribed yet:

XtraOrdinaryRomance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

All you have to do is to send me an email and I’ll approve you the moment I see it. I will also give you five more entries into this month’s contest which ends tonight at midnight. Remember that there are three separate prizes: one chosen at random to get a $20 ARe gift certificate and a book from my backlist, one for the person who comments the most which is a surprise and maybe one more...I’m not sure yet. I’ve had a lot of comments this month and I really want to give everyone a chance at a prize. Yeah, I’m a sucker that way. LOL!

Until tomorrow!

Lynn

This and That Friday

2010-07-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to this and that Friday. Here are a few of the things which have gone across my desk this week. Yeah, there's an extra one but I think it's worth it.

Great fast tracked at Harlequin with your medical romance. Makes me want to write one. LOL! http://harlequinblog.com/2010/07/mid-summer-madness-were-fast-tracking-submissions-at-medical-romance-in-august/

This is a great discussion of paranormal romance.

http://romanceuniversity.org/2010/07/09/paranormal-romance-hot-not/

If you love Eureka! then this is for you!

http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/10-developments-will-chan.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Another one about small press and epublishing:

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2010/07/04/the-future-of-publishing-small-presses/

Fantastic article about the e-world and e-publishing...go check it out!

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20100705_E-readers_are_on_the_rise_thanks_to_older_readers.html

Another great link on finding agents. This one I literally have to tear myself away from as I always want to read it top to bottom. Yes, it is that good.

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/

Oo..someone else who loves the link thing like I do. He has a lot more in his weekly than I’ll ever have. LOL! Still, a great source of information.

http://www.bradsreader.com/2010/07/friday-link-love-79/

Here’s one for a writer’s self esteem. Yeah, having the potential to get kicked back a few paces every day might take a toll on someone.

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/07/strategies-to-help-build-your-self.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DumbLittleMan+%28Dumb+Little+Man+-+tips+for+life%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

A perfect way to handle a revised submission to an agent.

http://agencygatekeeper.blogspot.com/2010/07/heres-my-revision-will-you-read-it-how.html

I want to know who thought this one up. LOL!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/the-stupidest-womens-prod_n_623150.html

If you don’t follow this blog, you should. Go see what Steve has to say about epublishing:

http://www.thepublishinginsider.blogspot.com/

That's about all for this week. See you next week with more links. Have a great week! See you tomorrow for the regular blog.

Later...

Lynn

Gaelic and Me

2010-07-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I am thoroughly in love with Scotland. On any given day, one may find me perusing the reality for sale in some of my favorite spots in the country. This summer is very sad for me because I was supposed to spend the whole months of June and July on a farm near Stirling then join my husband in Vienna, Austria the middle of August.

Alas, this did not happen for a couple of reasons. Money being the main one. I started looking for cheap airline tickets almost eighteen...yup, that’s right...eighteen months ago so I could get the best deal. The unfortunate thing is there was no best deal. The cheapest deal I could get was roughly $1400 to cross the big pond.

Now I have never paid more than $500 for a ticket to Britain and I wasn’t about to start now. I was so certain something would come up that I didn’t panic. About six months ago, I started looking weekly and for the last three months, daily. There was nothing to be had. Nada. Zip. I was out of luck for my trip this year.

The other reason was closer to my heart. My two bundles of joy called Michael and Joseph made the pain a little less because I’ve gotten to spend more time with them. They are adorable and I’ve been having fun as have the rest of the family.

What does this have to do with Gaelic you ask? Well, last year in September I started taking a class in Gaelic and loved it. If I had actually gone to Scotland this year, I was going to do an immersion class on the Isle of Skye. Unfortunately, I had to drop out in November because I got really sick and couldn’t participate.

I bet you’re wondering just how I participated in a Gaelic class. Being the native language of Scotland, you could assume I would need to go there to enjoy such a class. Not anymore. I had looked for years into finding a Gaelic class near me to no avail. It just wasn’t going to happen. Then came a wonderful thing called Skype. The whole class was done with Skype. We had lectures, question sessions, practice sessions and everything in between.

Matter of fact, the first thing the instructor told us was that we would be taking the class again. Most people have to take every class at least twice because it is that difficult because of pronunciation. A person basically has to retrain their tongue to make the sounds needed in Gaelic. Some do it naturally but most have to take things slow. My instructor at the time said he had been speaking Gaelic for a fair portion of his life but had to take most of the classes twice himself.

Gaelic is like any foreign language and has a whole different set of grammatical rules to learn. The one I had to remember always was that there are male and feminine ways to say things. An example would be the Mac names like MacLeod, MacKenzie and so on. MacLeod is for a male and NicLeod is the female version. I had so many questions during that lesson it wasn’t even funny. LOL!

Again, I’m sure you’re still wondering just what this has to do with you. Well, as you know I am trying different things with the blog: Wednesday’s Classroom, This & That Friday...well...I thought that I would occasionally give you some Gaelic phrases to munch on for Thursdays. So here goes.

Now this is for all the tweeters out there:

English: Thanks for tweeting. Gaelic: Taing airson tweeting. Pronounce: Taheeng ersson tweeting.

Yes, I will use it...I promise...but if you’re not following me on Twitter, you’ll never know. LOL!

So, here’s one more for you:

English: Perhaps. Gaelic: 'S dòcha. Pronounce: Iss dohkha

When hearing Gaelic, I’m reminded of the Nordic languages. After all, many of the Scottish people did come from the Vikings. To me it sounds a lot like Swedish or Norwegian. There are even some sounds, which come across like Finnish to me. Believe it or not, if you saw Lord of the Rings, you’ve heard Finnish as the elven language is based upon it. I answered a question correctly in Scotland because I could identify what language a man doing a demonstration. I had to ask him to repeat the phrase but once I really listed to him, I knew right away what language it was. Gaelic has the same guttural flow. Sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s harsh.

All I know is that I have at least ten books where I use it. And if I have my way, I plan to use many, many more.

What languages have you studied in your life? Do using an authentic language puts more into a story or takes something away? Can’t wait to hear what you all say.

Have a great evening...see you all on Saturday...enjoy This & That Friday!

Lynn

Wednesday’s Classroom

2010-07-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Last week I told you I would be adding a free class to my lineup of fantastic blogs. I remain true to my word. Here is the agenda for the class which will be held over the next nine weeks. We will be doing a unit every week for the next nine weeks. They will go along with this agenda and the only thing I would like from you is participate. Just comment on the class and participate by doing the exercises at the end of each lesson.

Also, you can ask me any question you wish as I am available any time I’m at my computer. That’s every day, almost nine to midnight. LOL! It really depends upon the family and if I can keep focused. Sometimes when a story is close to the end or I have to work out a scene, I will often break for a day. But I always check my email.

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Free Workshop

I have been asked recently by more and more people just how I add steam to my many love scenes. In the course of a few years, I have put together what works for me. I’m hoping to share those ideas with you all over the next few weeks in this free workshop. So please, pass the word around to all your friends. We’ll have fun!

Here’s what we’ll be covering with each week building on the previous one:

Set the mood for both you and your characters.

Read books the day before in the genre for which your writing.
Listen to music while you write that all important scene.
Look at phrase books.
Look at sexy pictures.

Use your own experiences

I don’t mean literally…you all remember that blush first being in love…use it.
Most women remember their ‘first time,’ so use it.
Most women remember the first ‘real’ date they were on, so use it.

Add love scenes when the characters want to make love, not when you want them to make love.

I’m a pantser and all of my stories are character driven.
What is right for the characters needs to be right for you as the writer.
Listen to your characters as they will tell you what they need.

Get some good research material.

Good research books are invaluable.
For erotic, things like the Kama Sutra are a must.

Details are everything.

If a character is fantasying about a certain body part, can you imagine what happens when they actually get that body part?
Know the temperature of their skin – hot, cold, clammy or warm and inviting.
Know how the characters should look when making love – pink cheeks, rosy lips, closed eyes, opened eyes.
No wandering body parts.

Don’t ever write sex to fill up pages.

Sex needs to happen when it needs to happen and not before.
Readers can tell when a writer has had to ‘force’ a love scene.

Remember that as an erotic romance writer you are writing hot, sizzling love scenes and not just sex.

Sometimes less is more.

Make each love scene emotional.

At least one of the two characters has to have some sort of emotional attachment to the reason they are having sex.
It’s not always who you think it should be and it doesn’t need to be revealed right away.

Take note of the anatomical details.

Characters have to be anatomically compatible.
Huge men will never fit into a small, child-like woman. Not happening.
Know what is and isn’t humanly possible.

I hope to see you all next week when we begin setting the mood!

Have a great week! Until then…

Lynn

The Writing Life

2010-07-27T04:51:00.000-07:00

This week has been a busy week so far and it’s only Tuesday. Actually, it started last week as we looked at houses because we’ve decided it that we may want to expand. I’d personally like my own bathroom and a pool. Tired of sharing with the guys. LOL!

Then on Saturday, my youngest decided to twist his ankle and it’s a weird sprain. It still pains him but it’s not bruised or swollen for the most part. But he can’t walk well and this will necessitate a visit to the orthopedic surgeon. Sigh.

Monday was a writing day although I tweeted more than I wrote it seemed as I had the kid and the dog to contend with. The dog you ask...yeah...the dog. Seems that when Kyle got hurt and was Jekyll and Hyde on us, the dog freaked and decided he needed to chew a bit of his own flesh off. He needs to go to the vet but he made for an already hosed day.

I so hate Monday’s for the most part. Instead of complaining I decided to do a little cop out and find a quote, which I think absolutely appropriate. Here it is.

"Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing and life doesn’t." ~Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman wrote Stardust for which I am very grateful. I love that story and follow him on Twitter. He is so dead on with his quote that the moment I saw it this morning, I knew I had a winner.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people when they’ve asked me what’s up, that they wouldn’t believe me. And Neil has told me why. LOL!

What has been your worst people-will-never-believe-me day? Tell me and you’ll get an extra ticket tossed into the hat...so to speak...LOL!

Have a great day...don’t forget...tomorrow is Wednesday’s Classroom and Lesson #1 of Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes will be posted.

See you on Thursday!

Lynn

End of a Journey

2010-07-26T00:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone! I’m sure one of your questions might be...does she really mean it? Yes, Mondays are meant to be happy but this one is especially good for me.

Today is the day that I start winding down this phase of my diet. Yes, it’s been totally hard since the calorie count is low but I have seen results. Lots of results...to the tune of thirty pounds...yippee! Yes, you read that correctly. I’ve lost thirty pounds in thirty days. To find out more on the specifics, go to my other blog, http://journeyfromfat2fit.blogspot.com/, to find out how I did it. I’ll even make you a deal...if you go and read and comment on my other blog today...I’ll add your name into the hat again.

This does not mean I am done with changing the way I look or how I’m eating. All it means is that this journey is ending for this phase so I can set my new body weight in stone. Then after a few weeks, I’ll be at it again with a new mind. Carrying around less weight will do those things to you...LOL!

But still, that’s not really what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the end of the journey. Now, every journey has an end. Including the books that we write. The story has to stop and we must move on to other characters and different stories. Sometimes it is more difficult than others. There have been many times where I’ve wondered if I really want to leave a particular story. Then I realize, I must because there are stories still left to write. Lots of them if I have my way. LOL!

I know I am the same about movies. There are movies I just wish would not end. I want the story to go on. I want to be the characters in the movie, I want their character arc to be my life...well...maybe that’s going a little too far. LOL! But you get the picture.

Journey’s must end. Things much change. Sometimes the change is good, sometimes it isn’t but it always propels you forward into new terrority. And whether we want to admit it or not, it must happen for us to journey into the next part of our life.

My question for you...how do you feel about the end of a journey? Are you happy? Are you sad? Or are you like me and want to rewrite the whole dang thing sometimes? Let me know how you’re all feeling.

Until tomorrow...have a great night!

Lynn

The Perpetual Pendulum

2010-07-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed just how fast time seems to fly when you’re busy? Or how it drags when you’re doing something you hate?

Yesterday morning I woke up with all sorts of plans on what I had to do as I had a talk at Talking Two Lips site. I started with Twitter, then moved on to email. I had a fun filled two hours with the few who showed up at Talking Two Lips. Then I decided I had to work on those pesky essays of my son so he could get into the local university. Thank goodness I was only doing the editing portion but I think they are crazy to think and 18 year old kid can write anything in a hundred words or less. Who are they kidding? LOL!

Somewhere in there, I had breakfast, lunch and dinner...then..bang. It’s already eleven o’clock at night and I realized I didn’t even get my bare minimum in for writing. Friday either. Well, Friday I had an excuse as we looked at houses. Since we live in the area where the repossessions have hit the highest numbers ever, we thought maybe it was time to look at getting a larger one with a pool. This is to accommodate my family as I have an aging father as well as two grandsons I would love stay over sometimes.

But what was today’s excuse? I could have said it was the curse words that greeted me as I pulled myself out of sleep this morning. My youngest had sprained his ankle bad and that caused me to get up then call our doctor immediately. The moment his foot hit the ground when getting out of his Dad’s car, I knew something was up. It also got me to listening half to him and not enough to my own inner voice to get a few things done.

But things move quickly in this house, sometimes too quickly. As I’ve grown older, all I want to happen is for time to slow down. I want time to smell the roses, take the trip of a lifetime, and write a book in a week! And it seems to be speeding up the older I get which to me seems very, very odd.

I mean, I schedule my time to the minute some days. Others I couldn’t even tell you what day it is or what time of day. I can tell you I’ve had my head in one of my worlds and I have no contact with my real one. So I know that on days I’m writing, I lose track of it all and sometimes have to ask more than once if I have the right day or time.

My father once told me that when he reached 65 that things just started to blur together. He remembers the things from when he was younger better than what had happened a week ago. Birthdays were just another day and holidays, well, those just didn’t seem to matter much anymore. He’s 76 this year and told me if I wanted time to slow down, I needed to enjoy it more.

And here I thought I was having the time of my life! LOL! Yes, I am enjoying my writing career and the other things in my life like my children, grandchildren and husband. I’m not necessarily enjoying getting older but nothing I can do to stop that one unless I build a time machine. Mmm…maybe a future project…LOL!

Now, I’m going to write something here that I have found to be true and I’m wondering if anybody else has noticed the same. When I was young, I just couldn’t wait for time to pass. I wanted to get older, I wanted to be able to make my own decisions and I wanted to know what those older people seemed to know. Time just moved so slowly and it seemed as if I would never get there.

Today, it’s all fast and I don’t want to miss a thing.

How each of you feel about time and how it affects your life? Just let me know and you’ll get an extra entry put into the hat!

Till next week…

Lynn

Me and Sci-Fi Romance

2010-07-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, today is Sexy Saturday at my yahoogroup. Today I will be promoting a lot of my stories as well as my sci-fi romance. See, I love sci-fi romance and as soon as I get some of the ones I have on my plate done, I will get going back to the sci-fi/fantasy realm. The reason? I really am in my element when I write these stories. They flow, they come easy and I never seem to be at a loss for ideas or just where my story needs to go.

In light of this, I am promoting my very first sci-fi romance, FLUKE today.

I hope you enjoy this little bit of the story.

Available NOW from eXtasy Books!

http://tinyurl.com/LynnCrains-Fluke

Fluke

Lynn Crain

“This is a proximity alert. The alien vessel will be within tractor range in one minute.”

The soothing calm of Henrietta’s voice settled around me. Rousing myself from my stupor, I stood. I was still the chief mechanic and AI engineer of this ship. I had to conduct myself as such. Standing orders required that I had to be in the bay when the other ship came on board. It’s called the ‘just-in-case’ scenario. And rightly so, there might be anything, mechanical or not, set to explode.

As I walked down the corridor I suddenly had an overwhelming sense of tragedy, of having walked this way before, of committing the same crimes as were about to be committed. I tried to shake the feelings. The closer to the bay I walked, the worse they became. I leaned against the side of the corridor, bathed in sweat. Other crew members passed me and looked at me strangely.

I pushed myself away from the wall, my determination hardening around me like a shell. I needed to know what lay behind these feelings, and also what lay behind the bay door. There was an obvious connection; it was as if my feelings were centered inside there.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I was dragged through a side access into a supply closet.

“What the…” I began as two able hands began to grope me through my blue government uniform. I knew those hands. “What do you think you are doing?” I breathed to the only man I had made love to in five years. And while we had an on-again, off-again relationship, I could always say that it was interesting. Aidan Chapel was one gorgeous hunk of a man with curly should length dark hair and aqua eyes with a muscle toned body that many of my shipmates wanted for themselves.

He told me once that the reason that people perceived him as handsome were his eyes in combination with his olive complexion. Add in his hair and he looked like Adonis. I smiled to myself…and he was all mine…not once in five years had he looked at any one else. And I never tried to second guess fate on this issue.

“What does it feel like I’m doing?” Aidan spun me around to him and looked me over while holding me against the wall. “You are one beautiful woman.”

I gazed into his amazing aqua eyes and smiled. I met Aidan when we first board the Lanko together as ship’s engineers. While I rose steadily through the ranks, Aidan contented himself with being the chief communications engineer. The first thing that I remember seeing were his legs…he wore shorts…which were very non-regulation then and now. And I liked his ass…it happened to be one of his most admirable traits…along with those aqua eyes.

His mouth swooped to mine, nuzzling and nibbling my lips and moving across my cheek to my ear. Delicately he blew warm air into that sensitive part of my body, making me shiver with delight before coming back to my lips. He traced their fullness with his tongue finally slipping inside the warm recesses of my mouth, allowing the passion to build slowly within my groin and other sensitive parts. It took everything I had to pull away.

“We really should go,” I whispered as his mouth licked my neck.

“We have time for a quickie,” he murmured and slowly unzipped my uniform. Unzipping the crisp fabric apart all the way down the front of my body allowed him access to the microfiber undershirt covering my breasts and stomach. Gently, his large hands moved under the material to tweak first one then the other nipple of my very sensitive breasts. This man knew all my erogenous zones.

“We really shouldn’t,” I breathed as his mouth leaned down to continue his assault on my body.

“Who says that I ever do what I’m supposed to?” he murmured against my skin.

Have a great Sexy Saturday! See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

This & That Friday

2010-07-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here’s week two of the links which have run across my desk. I collect these during the week and yes, some of them were collected more than a week ago. Otherwise, I would be bombarding you with over fifty links a week. LOL! I’ve decided to make it a manageable ten links a week. Make that ten subjects. Some had more than one link because they happened over more than one day.

Here’s one from a friend of mine, Gini Koch writer of Touched by an Alien. It’s in three parts and every part is well worth it!

http://royallybitchy.blogspot.com/2010/07/3-ps-to-writing-success-by-gini-koch.html
http://royallybitchy.blogspot.com/2010/07/3-ps-to-writing-success-by-gini-koch_07.html
http://royallybitchy.blogspot.com/2010/07/3-ps-to-writing-success-by-gini-koch_09.html

Okay...for those of you who don’t know...I’m a fan of a webseries called The Guild. They have a kick ass youtube video called Do You Want to Date My Avatar and you can find it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urNyg1ftMIU

But what I really wanted to show you was they have another fan who did this one in response to the one above. See it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbXwXLylYZ8&feature=youtu.be

Go figure...LOL!

A very good blog on ebooks from a UK reader. It’s well worth the time.

http://www.bookchickcity.com/2010/07/few-notes-on-ebook-industry-by-laura.html

Okay...this is way over the top...but I couldn’t stop laughing. Twilight for Men. Can’t you see guys doing this?

http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/twilight-for-guys-the-amu.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Twilight like you’ve never seen it before:

http://www.popsuede.com/2010/07/twilight-saga-eclipse-with-cats.html

If you are a fan of Firefly...then this one is for YOU...check it out:

http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/firefly-gets-new-80s-styl.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Now here is something different. I’m not usually a classical music buff but this isn’t your normal classical. This is fantastic and you can listen to the whole album before you buy. I will probably get it through iTunes to put on my iPod. Enjoy!

http://music.zoekeating.com/

If you love sci-fi romance, then this challenge is for you! Hop on over here to see what it’s all about. And don’t worry if you don’t met their 50 book level, there’s a level for you!

http://raelori.blogspot.com/p/2010-sfr-reading-challenge.html

OMG! This one is about me...kinda...LOL! While I’m looking at all the blog posts for the sci-fi romance challenge, I run across a mention of More Than Robotics on the SFRBrigade. Scroll down to the center of the page and you’ll see it mentioned. It makes me realize I’ve got to get my butt into gear and write some more. I think I really do love it better than any other genre.

http://sfrcontests.blogspot.com/

This story is so cute, it just makes me want to cry.

http://www.uniquescoop.com/2010/06/kitties-rescued-by-us-marine-soldiers.html

Hope you all enjoyed those. As you can see, I do try to entertain you all! Have a great one and see you next week with more fine links to fun things, items for helping your writing, or ones that are just for the heck of it!

Have a great Friday evening!

Later...

Lynn

Today Is Thursday

2010-07-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know that is a very cryptic title but true. LOL! For some reason, today is my hump day, not yesterday even though I got little accomplished, the things I did do, got me to thinking. A lot. It’s almost a bad thing when I think. I plan things when I really get right down to it and sometimes those things aren’t as productive as I would like.

We all have those moments. I mean, I didn’t even get on Twitter very much yesterday. Do you know how hard that is? LOL! I love to Twitter...it’s quick and easy...it’s fun. Most days you can find me there. You can imagine my withdrawl from it for even one day.

One of the many, and I do mean many, things I thought about was promotions. I’ve told you some of the things I have planned like revamp this blog and website and those things. One of the items I didn’t mention was book trailers. I love book trailers. So when I opened my email today and ran across this trailer at this site http://www.sunlightsucks.com/ I just melted. Winterheart Designs is one of the places I just love to explore and this trailer is one of theirs.

It just speaks to me and I do know the person behind the scenes. We’ve talked on many, many occasions and I just love her. I’m hoping I can get her to do one of mine in the near future. We’ll see how it all stacks up but my bet is on yes.

Yes, I normally save all the links until Friday but this one was so hot and sexy, I just had to share early. LOL! Don’t you sometimes become that kid shaking their Christmas present? I love those days where I revert back to a younger state of mind. If we all could keep our minds as young as those wide-eyed days of wonder, we’d never lose our zest for life. I know I never, ever will.

One of the things which hit me today was the fact I got a piece of mail today that wanted me to start planning for my funeral. Are they kidding? Or another one which says everyone is a senior when they turn fifty...yes, that’s right...5-0. Again, I want to know just who they are talking to because it can’t be me. I just refuse to admit I’m growing old. Maybe it’s because I am a firm believer in the fact, you are only as old as you feel. Today, I feel like I’m in my early 30s because I want to do it all. LOL!

Have you all had days where all you did was think about what you should do? Or how about dream about what you didn’t? Or know you’re younger than the number shown on your driver’s license? Share your thoughts with me and I’ll give everyone who comments two extra slots in this month’s giveaway!

See you tomorrow for This and That Friday!

Lynn

Wednesday’s Classroom

2010-07-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

In order to get my blog more organized, I’ve decided to make certain days to certain things. Well, not all of them...LOL!

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays will still be pretty much open days for doing whatever needed. On these days, I will talk and hopefully inspire someone to be a better writer.

Wednesday’s I’ve decided to make it my classroom day. On these days, I will do a lesson of sorts. I’ll give a lecture on the blog, which will have homework for those who want to participate. The subjects will be varied and based upon first and foremost, what you all might like to see. I already have some lessons in place and we’ll start with those until I can get some more input from you. This week’s lecture will be on the different levels of intimacy and will feed into next week’s ‘Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes.’

Friday will be 'This and That’ day where I post some of the many, many links and interesting things which come across my desk. And believe them there are a lot of them.

Saturday will go right along with my Sexy Saturday on XtraOrdinary Romance’s yahoogroup. Every week, I open my loop to other authors and readers to post. Some weeks there are a little, some a lot but when we do post, it is a fun filled day full of sexy excerpts. Hope you all can join us there sometime.

So, without further ado, here’s the first lecture in Wednesday’s Classroom. Enjoy!

The Many Levels of Intimacy

Over the years, I have written to various levels of sensuality. Each story requires something different but in general, the levels of intimacy remain the same. You will find many articles written on this subject with good reason. For us, the romance writer, be it erotic or sweet or sensual, the stages are all the same.

Everyone agrees that these steps need no verbal queue but all lead from the first advance to intimate contact. It’s all in the body language, folks and body language doesn’t lie. If you need some lessons in body language, watch the new Fox show, Lie To Me and you’ll learn everything you ever wanted about body language. They do it right.

But getting back to us writing love scenes, it is imperative that you have these steps. Sometimes, you can skip a step if the story calls for it BUT for the most part, these steps need to happen for your reader to get into your story. In addition, the love scenes can make or break a novel.

Eye to body – This is commonly known as the once over. And it is usually very subtle. The gaze will drop from the upper face, meaning the eye and nose area, to the lower face then on down to the upper parts of the body. Sometimes, the person will step back to get a better, fuller look at you. If that happens their whole posture will change as they glance at you up and down to see how your face matches your body.

Eye to eye – Intimacy increases the moment two people have eye contact. The more eye contact, the more soulful the looks. The looks will become more and more meaningful as more are exchanged. If a person refuses to gain contact in this sensual charged moment will send a message one is not interested.

Hand to hand – Contact is usually lingering but light. It can be disguised as being accidental or occurring in a social setting, which is considered acceptable. This would be like one putting a hand under and elbow to guide someone, two people reaching for the door handle at the same time or a handshake that slowly ends. Look at the way the Victorians or those of the Regency period acted toward each other and you will see this step everywhere.

Hand to shoulder – This behavior can again be hidden within what is considered socially acceptable behavior. Until this point, either person can withdrawal gratuitously without any real hurtful feelings. However, once this boundary has been crossed, there is no going back without one’s pride being severely injured. This is just a touch to the shoulder for a variety of reasons, like getting ones attention. This is also a form of claiming ones territory and can be used to ward others off.

Arm around waist – This is the signal that one wants greater intimacy. This is the time to get out if one does not desire this relationship. Feelings will be hurt if one doesn’t respond positively to this gesture.

Mouth to mouth – No, we don’t mean the resuscitation kind. LOL! This is the actual act of kissing where chemical information is passed from one person to another. The kiss adds another sense to intimate contact and that is taste. The first sense, encountered way back in step one, is smell and pheromones are a very powerful odor. Taste can tell one all sorts of information about people like body temperature, hygiene level and a variety of other things. If the people are involved in the kiss, their temperature will go up since the stimulation will cause sexual excitement. When people are emotional cold, they are usually physically cold as well which means they are not that interested in continuing the encounter. The more passionate a person gets, the more their temperature increases.

Hand to head – This is a trust issue. The more one person trusts another, the more likely they will allow their head being touched. Women tend to do this way before men. Caressing ones head indicates an increasing trust between the two people involved. Our heads are extremely vulnerable and only someone we trust is ever allowed to touch us there with a negative reaction.

Hand to body – This fondling can happen through clothes or under them. Some people will close their eyes as they are unconsciously gathering more information about the person they are with. However, keeping one’s eyes open while maintaining total eye contact is a more powerful gesture. There one uses even more senses, touch, sound, taste and sight as well as smell. During the physical portion of our encounter, our sense of smell is very powerful, as it will help us to become more in tune with our sexual partner, making us more sensitive to their unique smell. Odors are a powerful aphrodisiac, which helps to prepare us for a pleasurable experience and to etch our partner in our memory. The best source is natural smells, so keep the perfumes to a minimum.

Mouth to body – This can be very stimulating and a real turn on for both parties. Breasts and necks are very sensitive for both sexes as are the lower abdominal region. Fellatio and cunnlingus can be very rewarding as long as both partners are into oral sex.

Hand to genitals – Gentle caresses are always best in this stage. If you have gotten this far, intercourse is usually imminent. One can heighten the sexual tension in the story by making the characters get this far without fulfillment. Once one gets to this step, each partner trusts each other explicitly in a normal relationship. There are some other types of relationships where trust is never achieved.

Genital to genital – This is the final act in lovemaking. Everyone is different and the emotions as well as all the senses need to be utilized when writing a great love scene. Vaginas and penises are utterly boring when none of the stimulus is present.

Now, not all of these steps need to be present in your novel. Just remember, each step is a sensual journey. Recently, I had been in the blah stage of writing a love scene. Then I saw last an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and they reminded me of just how sensual stolen looks and accidental caresses could be. Suddenly, I was all hot and bothered again to get back to my characters.

Hope that this little journey can help you all create great love scenes.

Until next the next Wednesday’s Classroom…

Lynn

My Experience with The Singles Travel Club

2010-07-20T05:45:00.000-07:00

On January 14, 2009, I had an experience to rival the best of them. At the time, I did a weekly column for the now defunct, The Many Shades blog. We had a great time and I got many, many comments on this event and what exactly happened to me. Read it and see if you don’t feel the same.

The Singles Travel Club

Alright, I finally have something to rival AJ in the weird and different department. But I digress; I need to start from the beginning.

Those of you, who know me, know I do way, way too much. I volunteer for many functions within my writers groups to which I belong. Take this week and month for instance. Last year, I volunteered to chair the EPICon conference right here in Las Vegas, Nevada.

And yes, that means lots and lots of work. I have to help in every aspect of the con. That means PR, picking the venue, food…you name it and it has my signature on it somewhere.

So while we're all working on putting more 'umff' in this blog, in the back of my mind is this conference and what I need to do for it. Never mind that I have a couple of books due and two talks that I'm giving on Saturday. This conference is a big deal and this is a very, very bad year to do it for a variety of reasons. One, people are financially strapped and two, things I thought were being done, weren't.

So all this weekend, actually beginning late last week, my mind has been flurry of activity. In other words, I'm scattered right now. BUT I can usually get on track with a list of things to do. But never mind all that…I can deal with those…it just means I've got to hustle my butt and go to some of those local writers meetings. While there I've got to do the smoozing thing, pass out brochures and let everyone know just how wonderful EPICon is.

And for those of you who've never gone, here's my shameless plug. EPICon 2009 is happening this year at the beautiful Tuscan village of MonteLago Resort in Lake Las Vegas, Nevada. That’s a picture of it at the top. While there, an author can learn everything, well, almost everything, about the epublishing world. Along with that, we have a kick-ass keynote speaker in one Penny Sansevieri, author of 'Red Hot Internet Publicity' and man, does this woman know her stuff! Penny is absolutely great! The conference is March 5-8, 2009 and you can learn more about it at http://www.epic-conference.com/. Since, we're all green authors, we should attend if possible. If nothing else, to smooze and visit with each other. I love meeting and hanging out with my fellow authors and frankly, what better place to do it?

Again, I digress. Sorry. Anyway, on my list were three writers meetings this week to attend in hopes I could entice someone to attend EPICon. They are the Las Vegas Writers Meeting, Las Vegas Screenwriters Meeting and my RWA meeting. I just found out about a fourth meeting on Sunday, a Sisters in Crime chapter meeting that I've decided I'll invade as well.

So tonight I get it together, I make some brochures, get all my regular work done and make sure the DH knows where I'm going so he won't worry. I also mention to CR that I'm going to this meeting and she says, "Isn't that on Thursday?"

"Nope," I say, "it is tonight and I've got to get my butt in gear." So I take a nap, take a shower and get it together so I'm out the door by 5:45 which just gives me enough time to get there and get comfortable. One the way I talk on my hands free phone to a friend and in no time I arrive. Grabbing my stuff, I'm dismayed to note that I am actually a few minutes late but no matter, I've been with these people before and usually enjoy myself.

I go in and don't recognize anyone but this group is rather large and I can see this is a big gathering tonight. I get a name tag and listen to the speaker who's talking about doing a reading. She's going over the important of the details she needs in order to give you a correct one. All interesting stuff. The sign-in person tells me to fill out the forms and bring them back at the end.

No problem. I can do that.

I go sit down and scan the room. Not one familiar face. That's odd, I'm not so far gone that I can't recognize any one. I flip through my brochures about to take them out and decide I should really listen to the speaker. So, I scan the room again and nada. Surely, not every person I know is gone today?

Mentally, shaking myself. I pull out the form. Maybe I should fill this out because the speaker is now getting on familiar territory and it's not so interesting any more. I glance down once, then up. That can't be right. I look down again. Hmm. The dues aren't the right amount. No one ever lowers their dues. I look up a little more and see the name of the group: Singles Travel Club of Las Vegas.

I shake my head and rest my chin on my hand. Okay, so maybe I need to do a little observation for my books, you never know what you'll see, right? I really begin to look at the people and by this time, I am trying to hold it in. At first I think, if this is the best that Vegas has to offer, there's a problem. Then I look at the form again. It's the over 60 Singles Travel Club of Las Vegas.

Oookkkaaayyy. Even a little old for me right now. I quietly pick up my stuff and go back to the sign-in table. I give the paper back and tell them to mark my name off because I've come to the wrong meeting. Sigh. Once in my car, I call the dear husband and let him know. What started as a snicker became a laugh. He couldn't believe it. I told him to make sure I really had a writers meeting before I went to the next one and started home. The trip is 45 minutes and the whole time I reflect on just why I was so gung-ho that the meeting was tonight.

I get home and email CR. Know what she says to me, "I can just see your face when you discover the mistake." The exact same first words out of the DH's mouth. Geez, are they in cahoots? LOL!

Sigh. Just chalk one up for the dodo who definitely needs to volunteer less and sleep more.

So...have you all ever had something like this happen to you...LOL! Share your experience with me and if I agree, I’ll be sending you a special gift!

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

Promoting Myself

2010-07-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

Hope you had a great weekend. I know I did. One thing did come up during all my talks with my fellow RWA chapter members. Most of them love my blog and the fact that I try to make it for readers and writers alike. All them said in their honest opinion, I didn’t promote my own stuff enough.

Well – duh – it’s hard to promote when you have things coming out but nothing new since Christmas. Now, I’m really not complaining because I’ve had a full personal life with new grandbabies, computers crashing and the like. Things happen and I know this. My goals for the rest of the year are very high with me writing a book a week. If it’s a long book, maybe in two weeks. LOL!

Yeah, this means that I have to really push myself but to be honest I have written three times more this month than the same period last month. Now this is a very good thing because I will be turning in two books to my publisher this week. Unfortunately, it’s not Merrick and Jenna because it went back to the bottom of the queue and I’m trying to stick to my schedule. I have two days for them this coming week and I plan to get it back in shape to also ship off.

Still that leaves my promo dilemma. So without further ado, I will give you something from my latest book...An Elf’s Love...enjoy!

An Elf’s Love

Available NOW!!!

Book 5 in the Santa’s Elves Series

www.extasybooks.com

http://tinyurl.com/AnElfsLove

He had never been one to run from a challenge and this would be no exception. Pushing himself up from the rail, he prayed he could keep his dick in his pants long enough to not frighten her away. Just the thought of what he would to her, what they could do together, made his dick hard. For a brief moment, his mind flashed with the thought his desire might just be an effect of this place. His senses told him otherwise.

He adjusted his cock and strode toward the woman of his dreams, wondering if she felt the same about him. At any rate, it didn’t matter. Maybe if he took her virginity, he could break free of this place. Maybe not, his mind told him. Deflowering virgins in this day and age was not in his agenda. Not that he had an agenda any more. No, he just had a playbook filled with mismatched references to people who weren’t what he thought.

Standing next to her chair, he leaned in closer to get a good whiff of her scent. He had a nose like a hound when in dangerous situations and he needed to know her smell. “Look,” his smooth baritone rumbled close to her ear, “apparently, I’ve been deceived on who you are and what you can do.”

Merna turned her head to him, her soft lips brushing his. Pulling back slightly, her eyes went wide as the sparks flew between them. “Apparently.” Her breath was like the wings of a butterfly against him, making him want to lean in to grasp her tight to him.

“Do you know what I want to do to you right now?”

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

My Tidbits

2010-07-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to write today. Normally, I have the column up before midnight but last night I went to bed early. I had spent the day at a RWA meeting then went over a friend’s home to float in her pool. Even though I was only out for two hours in the hot sun and in water, I came home completely wiped. I did a few things, had dinner then promptly fell into bed before nine last night. A first for me in many, many months.

So, sitting here thinking this morning about what I want to write about got me worried. See I was so tired I woke up with a fuzzy brain and no thought patterns. Yeah, I know I haven’t had my coffee this morning but I really need to write something...LOL!

In light of this fact, I decided I wanted to give you ten things about me you may or may not know. This can give you time to speculate then ask me questions about my life. Have fun!

I was born in Ohio. I do keep this to myself mainly because there are so many of us transplanted elsewhere.
The most scary place I went to growing up was called Serpent Mound. There was something odd about it and while I don’t get creeped out like I used to the place does set my mind to whirl. And the stories which are going to come from that experience makes me want to write them all now.
My two children are sixteen years apart. What was I thinking? LOL!
I love romantic comedies and try to get people to go with me to the movies every time I notice one I might like. It’s then I remember I live in a house filled with all men. Sigh.
I love sci-fi space thrillers like Alien and Predators. Gotta love those kick ass women! Matter of fact, they are my favorite movies. Probably the reason I write so many of them.
I’ve been in RWA off and on since 1985. There was a period where my mother was ill and I didn’t belong but I’ve seen the organization grow from about 300 people to where it is today.
I’ve run the contests for two international writing groups – RWA and EPIC. Those were very thrilling to do but hard work. My husband told me when I was doing the RWA one that he had never seen me work as hard even when I got paid. Leave it to a man!
I used to write screenplays for the Star Trek franchises. This was a hoot and something that made me know those people in Hollywood can be scary if you don’t have your head on straight. While it was the experience of a lifetime, once truly has been enough.
I’m a pantser by nature but plan all my books longer than 50K for almost a month before I start writing them. By planning, I mean write down what I want to happen chapter by chapter. Sometimes I go deeper than that but I have to have every step in my mind of where the story is going before I put more than a few words on paper. Weird, I know.
I have six completed books in my virtual file cabinet which haven’t seen the light of day since the mid-90s. The whys are complicated but suffice it to say, some of them are coming out of that closet very, very soon. These are long stories that need work and at the time they were completed, didn’t have a market. Things like fantasy romance, stories about women off-road racers and lingerie shop owners. I think I can find them homes now.

So there you have it. Ten things to know about me. I’ll give you more of course in time but I think these are enough to get you to think about all the questions you might have. So don’t hesitate to ask me those questions...I look forward to them!

See you all tomorrow!

Lynn

A Call For Judges

2010-07-17T00:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Saturday everyone! I have an all day writers meeting today which leaves me very little time to put together a huge blog. It’s something called Plotapalooza and you guessed, we have a full day of plotting for us in store. It should be a good day as I always learned something new. I’ll be talking about it in tomorrow’s blog, which brings me to the subject of today’s blog.

As many of you know, I belong to an online writing group called EPIC. The organization has the longest running ebook contest and need judges to fulfill their commitment to that contest. Here’s the plea they put out for judges and contest entries:

EPIC is seeking industry professionals for judges; people who enjoy seeing what mischief their peers have gotten up to this past year. We are seeking judges for all genres from fiction, romance, erotic romance, non-fiction, poetry, to children's and YA. Judging information is available at: http://bit.ly/eBookJudges.

There are lots of great books to be read and new authors to be discovered. Aren't you curious?

EPIC's eBook Awards is open for entries. Interested? The entry rules and guidelines are at http://bit.ly/eBook2011. Entries are accepted until midnight, Aug. 15, 2010.

Please help if you can. This contest is wonderful and I’ve been a finalist in it, which was a wonderful experience.

That’s about all for today! Sorry I couldn’t be more talkative...I’ve been writing...and my brain is mush. Yuppers, you will see some of this in unedited form the moment I turn it all into my publisher.

See ya tomorrow!

Lynn

This & That Friday

2010-07-16T02:56:00.000-07:00

Howdy! I have decided that Fridays will be the day I share the links and whatnot people have shared with me during the week. I get these links mainly via Twitter and email. Occasionally they will come in a newsletter but I get a lot the other media. Some I shake my head and some are great.

As you know I had been keeping them in a file and just posting them when the file because a full page. But this week, the file had more than five pages of good information. What I will be doing is pulling the best of them and sending them to you as well. This will allow me more time to write as I don’t have to think of something to put up. LOL! Yeah, I know, I am lazy. But I value my writing time and some days, it’s harder to do this blog than it is to do a 5K chapter. I kid you not.

So here are your first ten links on the very first this and that Friday!

One of the cutest videos you will ever see! Enjoy!

http://www.wimp.com/babymoose

This is a really good blog on perspective and alternate lifestyles.

http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/07/never-look-back.html

What?!? I had to read this twice. I didn’t know I was writing to a trend. Besides, it’s how they use the institution of plural marriage. If all are created equal then all is well.

http://sixldswriters.blogspot.com/2010/07/trend-watch-polygamy-is-new-craze.html

This is a body I so love!

http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/jason-momoa-leaps-into-action-as-conan-in-official-new-pic.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Okay, funniest Alien trailer ever: Alien versus Ninja

http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/alien-vs-ninja-trailer-ou.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Yeah, it had my interest! LOL!

Impulse buying of ebooks! Oh Happy Day! And yes, there are two blog listed here!

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/happy-dance-open-letter-about-impulse-buying-ebooks/

http://tracycooperposey.com/ebooks-buying-is-addictive/

Kick ass contest for all of those who read sci-fi romance. Yeah, enter this one because you never know...you might win...imagine that!

http://sharonleewriter.com/2010/07/expanding-universe-contest/comment-page-5/#comment-767

Interesting grouping of postings from TOR. These will take place over a few days and you might want to bookmark it for easy access.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/07/paranormal-romance-and-urban-fantasy-on-torcom?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Fan of Firefly? Then this is for you...or not...LOL!

http://scifiwire.com/2010/07/first-review-of-the-new-f.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I sure do hope you enjoyed this little foray into just part of what rolls across my desk daily. See you all tomorrow and have a fantastic Friday.

Later...

Lynn