Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

The Sound of Silence

I find as I get older I covet the times when I am completely alone and my house is quiet. Yep, you guessed it! I’m the mother of two busy teenagers with too many friends!

It is VERY rare when my house is completely still and I have to confess the majority of my writing is done with a symphony of noises blaring in the background. A big group of teen boys (and my husband) playing Call of Duty. The television blasting out the commentary of a hockey game or the laugh-track of a sitcom. My daughter upstairs listening to her music, talking on the phone and doing IM (all at the same time)! The dishwasher running. Kids playing football in the yard.

My mother tells me I will miss these days when my children are grown up and have moved out and I know she’s right. There may even be a time when I get tired of the silence and actually long for some noise. Maybe one day I’ll actually turn the TV on rather than off!

But for right now, I truly appreciate the moments of absolute silence. As I write this, I’m sitting alone in my house and there no sound but that of my fingers tapping the keyboard and it is a beautiful, beautiful thing indeed.

Fantasies heat up the night in Tequila Truth

What is your ultimate fantasy? My second book with Samhain releases today and the name of the game (and the book) is Tequila Truth.

Three roommates have been playing the game for years on their birthdays. The premise is simple. Take a shot, ask a question and only absolute honesty will do for the answer. However, on Heath’s birthday, the game takes a turn none of the roommates could foresee. His question? What is your ultimate sex fantasy? When Kylie admits her desire for a menage a trois, her two alpha male roommates, Heath and Colt decide to make her fantasy come true.

Warning, you will need to crank up the air conditioning before reading as this title contains all the following erotic goodies: explicit sex, ménage a trois (m,f,m), anal sex, spanking, bondage, and graphic language.

Let's start at the very beginning...

Fans of The Sound of Music may have read the title of my piece and begun immediately humming ‘Do, Re, Mi,’ but is a different sort of beginning. Several weeks ago, a fellow author sent out a challenge on her blog for writer’s stories. She wanted to know what our AHA moment was. The one that made us open our eyes and realize that we wanted to write a book. For me it wasn’t one moment, but a year and actually the title of this piece should be ‘How to Avoid a Complete Mental Breakdown 101.’

Do you wanna meet a rock star?

Nope….not me….

But I love to meet authors! In fact, I have a list of authors I’d walk ten miles in the snow to meet.

I’m fortunate that in my ‘day’ job as a high school librarian I have the opportunity to attend conferences where young adult/adult authors are featured. In my decade-long career, I’ve had the chance to meet and talk to some great writers.

Erotic Research by Mari Carr...

is here—today!

My very first book EVER is now available on Samhain and I’m so excited! My desire to write a book has haunted me since high school, but like so many other things, it got pushed to the background while life happened. So I got married, had kids, started a teaching career and all the while, these stories kept floating around in my over-taxed brain begging to be released to the page.

I’m a sucker for a good love story where the man is hot, rich, and sexy and loves the woman to distraction. Julia is a romance writer who let a decade of her life pass her by while she lived vicariously through the characters of her books. Ross is her editor, best friend, and the man who has secretly loved her for years. When the couple become stranded in a cabin during a blizzard, sparks fly as Ross challenges Julia to branch out from her ‘sweet’ romances to erotica. And, of course, being the good editor he is, he even volunteers to help her with her research for the novel. Through a series of hot, hot, hot role playing fantasies (pirates, harems, and menages, oh my!), Ross and Julia find that best friends make the best lovers.

What women want...

During the commericial break of a Toronto Maple Leafs game a few weeks ago, my husband turned to me and said, “You know, I can’t compete with a fictional character.” I suppose he noticed I was rereading one of my all-time favorite romance novels, Outlander. We both laughed and I made some comment about the fact that his legs in a kilt could probably give Jamie’s (the outlander) a run for their money. The conversation ended when the commercials did, but his comment has come back to me several times since then.

What is it about the heroes in romance novels that enthralls us so much? I find myself typically drawn to the same type of characters—larger than life, alpha males with dangerous jobs and tons of money. Give me a super-hot guy with a dominant, yet protective streak in a book and I’ll read it over and over.

I especially love the leading men created by authors like Lauren Dane, Maya Banks, and Alexis Fleming. They’re men’s men—the kind who know how to treat a woman and seduce the socks off of her.

So, I can’t help but wonder…what attributes do you like in your fictional characters?

Oddballs like us...

I don’t know if you know this, but writers are considered an odd group. No, really, I mean it. Don’t take offense because I quite proudly include myself in that crew of oddballs. However, the fact remains I’ve had many non-writers look at me like I have two heads simply because I love to spend my nights wrestling with words on a page. I mean I’d rather write than {gasp} watch television.

Fortunately, as is true of most things in life, people with similar interests tend to find each other. I think NASCAR fans have some sort of radar that leads them to fellow believers in the power of the oval track. Over the years, as my love of sitting in front of a computer for hours on end has become common knowledge among my colleagues, I’ve found there are many other oddballs out there just like me.

Last week, I was stopped in the hallway by a fellow writer who said in a breathless voice, “I finished writing my climax scene last night and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done!” Most so-called ‘normal’ people would have looked at this mother of two like she’d lost her mind, but my emotions ranged from instant, but brief jealousy to genuine pleasure. Writing is hard work and I appreciate the struggle involved in getting the right words and feelings conveyed on the page. It takes time, commitment, and a bit of talent.

For years, I hid my love of writing from others, treating it almost like a bad habit. As the years have passed and I’ve discovered how many others out there share my passion, I’ve come ‘out of the closet’ so to speak. I’ve shared my writing with friends I trust and I’ve joined a writing circle. As a result, I’ve seen my writing improve. I spent the better part of an hour last month discussing passive voice with my writing group. Who does that? Better yet, who loves doing that?

My sister-in-law Diane spent the last eight months training for a marathon, which she completed in October. She’s proud of her accomplishment and she should be. I remember how it felt when I finished my first novel. Those 360 pages were representative of three years of lost sleep, sweat, and tears. I know there are some who say you can’t compare the running of a marathon to writing a book, but I disagree. Both are strenuous, time-consuming, and sometimes downright painful. There are times when it seems easier to quit, but in the end, the sense of accomplishment is still there. Sure, my rear-end is bigger than Diane’s (all the better for those late nights sitting in a hard chair writing), but I believe we have a great deal in common. People called her crazy for giving up countless hours of her weekends to run. And me? Well, they just call me odd.

Lessons in Forever

When I was fourteen, my mother gave me Judy Blume’s book, Forever. For those of you who have not read it, Forever is about a teen girl’s experience with first love and her ‘first time.’ My mother handed it to me at the beginning of summer, just before I was about to begin high school, with the comment, “We’ll talk about it when you’ve finished reading.”

Needless to say, to have my mother’s permission to read what many of my friends were passing around in brown paper bags and giggling over was extremely exciting. I read the entire book in only one day AND in broad daylight. No sooner had I closed the book, then my mother was there asking the question, “So what did you learn?”

My response was quick and simple. “I learned if you really love someone, it’s okay to have sex.”

“No,” my mother said, “You learned that you should wait until after marriage!”

“No,” I insisted, “That’s not what I learned at all.” The fight that ensued that afternoon was legend and I have no doubt my mother regrets giving me the book until this day.

In hindsight, I believe the lesson I actually learned that day had very little to do with premarital sex. What I learned is this—the messages we take from the books we read are as unique and individual as the people who read them. Reading is extremely personal; therefore the ideas and feelings evoked will vary from one reader to the next.

Let’s face it. To some people, Scarlet O’Hara was a strong, independent woman. To others, she was a selfish, spoiled brat.

Literature does not exist to teach all of us exactly the same thing. It exists to make us think, to help up grow, and to encourage us to continue to learn. I’m an avid reader and in my lifetime, I’ve read slews of books that have changed me, even if only in some miniscule way, and made me a better, more thoughtful person.

The Kite Runner taught me it is never too late to correct a wrong. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter proved the old adage no good ever comes from a lie. The Mermaid Chair made me want to go out and find a hunky monk (isn’t that the lesson you learned?) And, oh, about a thousand other books have touched my heart and mind and taught me lessons that have enhanced and changed my life.

So I’ll ask you the question—what did you learn from the last book you read?