One of my favorite parts of writing is being able to put my own spin on reality. Taking something that is not of the real and making it so. Making it real to this world that readers want to live in that world. Be a part of the story as it unfolds.

To do this I can make it up totally in my thoughts and build it or take pieces of history, folklore and other interesting tidbits and molding it into what I want to. Doing this is a powerful aphrodisiac. The balance of creating a story that brings a person into it is just like a seductive dance. First you have to let them get a feel of your rhythm. Once they do then you move to the groove. Spinning it around. Weaving that reality to bring them deeper into the reality you’ve built. This is what I strive for in each world I build.

In the world and myths of my new release Indigo Rain this is what I’ve done. I’ve taken many parts of history, folklore and other interesting tidbits to create the world of the story. In writing the book I sank into the myths that I was creating. It was fun to bring in various things I find fascinating. Kalina Erutan, my heroine is an Amazonian Warrior and I was able to create a mythology of her. This mythology is embedded into the very earth. Ryne Garon, my hero is a firebird and I put a major spin on what they are. I’m being deliberately vague about both because I don’t want to give away anything too much about the story. In building the world of the Phoenix Intelligence Agency there are so many beings and things to explore. I’m having a wonderful time laying down the layers of the world.

Each time I write a new book I wonder where I can go next. That is the thing with writing you get to do a spin on reality.

Indigo Rain
To save the world and humanity from extinction from a being that can herald Armageddon a woman must trust a man whose race destroyed the people she held most dear.

There’s more at stake… their hearts.

Buy now from Summerhouse Publishing

Hello all. I’ve been having one of those days all week. I am sure you know what I mean. It’s like all the little niggly things in your life that could go wrng decide to gang up on you and hit you all at once.

I’ve dwelled on it a bit. I’ve gotten annoyed, angry, worried and a fair bit stressed. And tonight a good friend of mine sends me a link to this song Everybody’s free-Baz Luhrmann

and suddenly I realise that if I look at the hiccups of the week, the broken laptop, the cap that’s popped off my tooth again, the delayed appointment for my husband and all the rest are, in the grand scale of things, next to nothing.

I have a home, I have food, I have family and friends. I have a life that, when you look at it, is a pretty easy one and one that is certainly blessed. So the blocked drain, the unanswered questions and the annoying phonecalls can no longer get me down. I’m going to think positive.

At my college, our principal, bless him, was fond of a quote by Julian of Norwich that goes something like this.

And that, ladies and gentleman is what I am going to keep repeating to myself ’til this week is over and I hit the exciting weekend when I’m going to London (baby!) to join in a Uniform Behaviour reading at SH! in Portobello Road.

And I’ll remember my sunscreen too. :p

Being an author is an odd thing. In many ways you are an author a long time before you actually become published and begin to sell books and make an income from your craft.

I decided I wanted to be an author in 9th grade and from that time on being an author had an impact and played a role in my life. Through high school, marriage, various evil day jobs, divorce, and a new marriage, I thought like an author. I did the things that authors do.

For a lot of years before I was published I read books on writing and devoured the top magazines on the subject. I went to workshops. I joined a critique group. I listened to audio tapes about how to write well. I gathered story ideas on index cards, napkins, scraps of paper, in notebooks, and occasionally on the backs of grocery store receipts. I wrote. And I wrote. I started things and I threw them away…

Eventually I finished a short story and sent it off to a publisher. The next year it was published and I was finally a published author. I had attained the goal of being published! I’d earned the right to call myself not just a writer…but an author!

Though I was excited to finally be published, that first experience with publication was a bit anti-climactic. I didn’t make a ton of money (less than three hundred dollars if memory serves) and it had taken a year for the manuscript to be accepted and published and to receive the three hundred dollars I was paid for it. Though I was published it still seemed like not much had changed.

I’d expected fireworks…money…or something. Not much had happened. I was in a bit of a funk and I didn’t write for a while.

But the desire to be an author is something ingrained. It was there in how I interpreted the things I read in the newspaper, in what I thought about the things I watched on television. It was there in the scene outside the window on a winter day or when I was traveling and my mind wandered to who might live in the big farmhouse on the hill in the distance and what might be going on in their lives…and what story could be written about that.

Authors ponder. They ask “how?” and “why?” and “what if?” They play with those pieces twisting them and turning them this way and that like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in a puzzle in which the picture is always changing. Though I wasn’t actively writing at that point I still had the mind of an author. My mind still wondered about the people that lived in houses we passed on our travels. I still thought about creating characters from people I read about in the newspaper or saw on television. I still found myself playing with various pieces adapted from life around me or that I saw on television, read about in newsgroups, or in books.

Because I wasn’t actively writing there was an almost painful tension born of all of the story ideas that were spinning in my head and going to waste. There was an author’s pleasure in playing with the story pieces…asking the story questions…and coming up with characters, conflicts, scenes, and worlds. But as the story ideas coalesced it became painful not to be writing them down – not to be creating the imaginary worlds in a way that could be shared. At that point the desire to write kicked in again.

At about the same time I discovered erotic romance. I’d been an avid reader of Harlequin and Silhouette romances for many years and though I enjoyed those lines and had once dreamed of writing romantic suspense for Silhouette the idea of combining the poignancy of traditional romance with the sexuality of erotic romance intrigued me much more. I began to think seriously about writing an erotic romance.

I pulled out ideas I’d carried around for years (originally tailored for sweeter romance) and combined them with newer ideas. I’d read a lot of Yahoo Groups, newsgroups, and other forums related to the lifestyle of dominance and submission. I’d been intrigued by the number of women from abusive backgrounds who found serenity in power exchange relationships. My author’s mind kicked in and wondered why and how that worked. So I created a character who had been badly abused and put her in a situation where she would be forced into a power exchange relationship. The result is His Perfect Submissive.

The way that being an author really impacts on my daily life isn’t so much in what I do. It’s in how I see all the things that go on in the world around me. It’s that my mind is always looking at situations, people, places, the books I read, the music I listen to, as fodder for a story. That goes on for me whether I am actively writing or not.

Please welcome Ryssa to Friends Friday today. Be nice to her, she’s giving you a chance to win a kindle, whoop!

I’m really excited to be here to celebrate the release of Warrior Angel, Heart’s Desire, Book One in my Immortal Pleasures series.

To kick off the series, there’s a contest on my blog to win a Kindle. Stop by and check it out.

So, here’s a little bit about me.

What makes a book good in your eyes?

A strong reaction. When I read, I need to feel something. Whether it’s anger, or frustration, or joy—something. I also like a book to take me somewhere I’ve never been before. That doesn’t mean it has to be an exotic location. It could be a state of mind. A while back I read a non-fiction book about a sniper. Talk about going someplace you’ve never gone before. I totally understood the narrator’s point of view. In my eyes a good book will take me somewhere I’ve never been, and make me feel in a way I’ve never quite felt before.

When I write, I work to create these experiences for my readers. After someone reads my work, I want them to walk away thinking, “Really? I never thought about it that way.”

If you could choose two authors to be seated between at a signing…or to have your books shelved between in the bookstore, who would they be?

Oh my gosh! I would about die if my book could be between Stephen King and Alexandre Dumas. I love the way Stephen King tells a story. I love the way he completely takes you there, inside his character’s head. That rocks my world. Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all time favorite reads. I love the twists and turns and the sub-sub-sub plots, and of course, the love story at the heart of it.

I use subplots to draw my reader deeply into my story world and give them a way to connect in a more intimate way with my main characters. In Warrior Angel, Heart’s Desire, the subplot of Lucifer badgering Michael set against what Lucifer chooses to do at the end of the story, gives the reader a way to understand Michael in a different light. Yes, he’s the older brother, but, does he always know what’s best? Read the story and find out!

What’s the strangest job you’ve held?

The strangest job I ever had was a summer job between college semesters in a potato chip factory in Syracuse, New York. My job was ‘potato chip picker’. As the freshly fried potato chips went by on a conveyor belt, my job was to pick out the burned ones and trash them. The factory was one huge warehouse type building, all on one floor. I worked the nightshift, so only the parts that were ‘live’ at night were lit up. We were working in a circle of light, surrounded by darkness. But you could hear noises coming out of the dark. I wore thin clear plastic gloves that melted into my hands every twenty minutes or so. I had to put on new ones so I wouldn’t get burned. But then they’d melt too. By the end of my shift, I had alien looking hands, with long, long strands where the plastic had stretched then grown hard. Strange job. Strange place. Good chips!

I think Redemption, the Goth club in Dark Angel, All the Stars, Book 2 in the Immortal Pleasures series, is based on the potato chip factory—dark and creepy.

How can readers who stop by this blog today win a Kindle?

I’m so glad you asked!
All you have to do is leave a comment and e-mail me with “I’m In To Win!” or stop by Facebook and send me a message that says “I’m In To Win!”
I’ll enter you in the contest on my blog to win a Kindle!

How can we find you?
Facebook
Blog
Email: pennandquill@gmaildot(.) com

Victoria, thanks for helping me celebrate the release of Warrior Angel, Heart’s Desire!

It’s Silver Flash time again, yay! This week’s prompt included three words. Hourglass, Coffee mug and highlighter and this is what I’ve done with it!

I hope you enjoyed this first encounter between Elizabeth and Richard. I am going to tell you what happens when RIchard returns to the shop next week

For more titillating tales of love and lust check out this list of Silver Flash folk!

• L M Brown (M/M)
• Julie Hayes (M/M)
• Lindsay Klug (M/F)
• RJ Scott (M/M)
• Lily Sawyer (M/M)
• Sui Lynn (M/M)
• Pender Mackie (M/M)
• Heather Lin (M/F)
• Ryssa Edwards (M/M)
• Pia Veleno (M/M)
• Diane Adams (M/M)