Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

Conjuring

I’ve spent the last week staring into space a lot…hitting the pool nearly every day…cooking and baking like I haven’t enjoyed for weeks…actually READING A BOOK that is not my own! Playing music with lyrics–loudly! For all practical purposes, I haven’t written a word, except emails, for a week now.

I have NOT stopped writing! Matter of fact, I’ve only begun: my completed book last week took me to the end of contracts with all of my editors.

While one of them–I hope!–will want the second book in my Love Secret series, and my Aphrodisia editor–I hope!–will want another couple of books, neither guy is committing to anything until he finishes my current projects with him. My previous Dorchester editor, now at Kensington, is open to something totally NEW from me, and my agent tossed me a COOL series idea, so I’m conjuring…

(How do YOU concoct stories? Keep reading–I might have a book for you!)

Oh, it’s so tempting to just PLAY! And I’m doing that, from what any normal observer could tell…but then, we writers are sly! Who knew that crocheting could be a great way to get my mind out of gear enough to hatch plot premises as my fingers fly? Who knew that gazing raptly at the moving surface of the pool would show me a key image that feeds into this new series proposal?

And then there’s ripping up my stack of GQ and other magazines–and last night one of those guys in the ads made me suck air and say “OH MY GOD!” out loud as I gawked at his photo. Needless to say, the new series has its first hero now, once I figure out this hottie’s name and who he is. Collaging still works for me: that collection of provocative faces on my bulletin board, beside my computer desk, is often the prod I need to keep writing when I’m nor sure where the story’s going or why I thought it was so freakin’ wonderful when I proposed it! Those focused, intent faces belong to real people–at least in my head–and they get pretty relentless when I think I have nothing more to say about them.

Pretty soon the Tarot decks will come out and I’ll start noodling with character/situations. The images–the colors and facial expressions, and the way the people on the cards land…how they might be looking at each other, like they’ve got secrets…often triggers story for me.

Come Monday, the 8th, my agent is lunching with this editor to brainstorm this series idea, if she likes it. I think it’s especially auspicious that they’re doing this on my birthday! And meanwhile I’ll keep noodling…waiting for my agent’s report and reactions.

Care to share YOUR method for conjuring? It’s always fun to hear how other writers spin their webs from thin air and imagination! Tell me your favorite ways to make the magic happen, and if I tap you with my wand you can pick any book you see at CharlotteHubbard.com or MelissaMacNeal.com. And thanks for playing along!

Now…back to waving my wand…

“Whose woods these are, I think I know…
He will not mind me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.”

How long since any of us watched the woods fill up with snow? I’m in Deep Deadline mode this week (polishing SEXUAL HUNGER, due out this fall!), but our snow last night had me gazing out the back window and playing with the color of the twilight sky, until I wrote “with the snowfall, our dusk shimmers like a pale blue pearl.” Hey, if Bob Frost can rhapsodize about snow, so can I!

Remember how you LOVED snow when you were a kid? My husband’s converting his family’s oooold slides on his scanner now, and this photo tickled us both. The drifted snowbank was probably two feet taller than he and his brother–I’m sure the boys were more excited about this than their dad was!–but aren’t we glad somebody got out the camera?

My Border collie, too, loves the snow. We play Frisbee in it (with 5 Frisbees!) We walk the loooong way around the neighborhood, to see what other dogs are out…to check our “peemail” in the snow piled at the end of driveways. Thanks to Ramona I get out of this chair and out for some air–good for us both! Saw a snowman this morning, and the branches for his arms were open wide in excitement! I was glad those kids got out to play last night!

And I love the sight of evergreens in their lacy nightgowns, and the way the snow coats the tops of bare tree branches like white frosting, and how the evening glows just from the light of snow on the ground. The world is hushed and muffled and less hurried…and just the sound of that makes me smile up at the moon, to watch the snowflakes drift down to my face.

Thanks for letting me share this! What’s YOUR take on the winter we’re having?

I don’t list New Year’s resolutions anymore—they’re invitations to live better for a few days before utterly blowing them, or blowing them off—but I do focus on fresh goals. I have two this year:

Create beauty—and share it.
Think sexier, live sexier.

Have you noticed that the second one gets a little harder as time goes by?! I’ve been married to the same guy for nearly 35 years now, so the habits have sorta piled up . . . while the assets have sorta dropped down. But it all starts in your head, right?

So I’m making a conscious effort to buy some new clothes, to (gasp!) shave my legs more often, and to be “in the mood” more readily. You’d think being the author of erotic novels would make that spark automatic, but you know what? Sex—and stories—all get pulled out of thin air. If you can dream it, you can achieve it, not? (Maybe I should put my current story collage, featuring Johnny Depp and Sean Penn, beside my bed . . . ya think?!)

The first goal, about creating beauty, came to me because I realized how many hobbies and activities I once enjoyed that have gone by the wayside—and how, while my husband has time to watch football, or play with his new scanner, or whatever, I always seem to be picking up the house. Or catching up on little writing business for my NINC office. Or answering emails. Or yeah, composing blog posts.

Where did that FUN time go? Why don’t I read for sheer pleasure anymore? I don’t even want to think about how long it’s been since I took a craft class or went to a movie!

Why is that? Where is my time going???

Since you’re reading this on your computer, you have my answer, don’t you?

I’m keeping it simple, but daily, this goal tending. I’ve simply decided to STOP the busy, have-to-do-it stuff by around 8 p.m.—to walk away from my office so I can devote those last couple of hours before bed to something I really LOVE to do.

I’m working on a wild, colorful afghan for a niece—creating beauty to share. Already have another pattern in mind for the next one, because working with color revives my spirit.

I spend an afternoon a week in the sound booth at the state library for the blind, recording my books—LOVE doing that, although it pays nothing. But I’m creating beauty to share.

I treated myself to a hardcover novel before Christmas, and gee, I’m reading it while it’s still on the bestseller list! Didn’t let it get lost in my TBR pile this time!

I took out two sweatshirts I bought long ago, plus that book on how to make appliqué jackets out of them, so I can create unique, beautiful tops from my stash of sewing scraps.

I WILL find a local class on glass fusion (after I meet my March 1 deadline) because I know I’d love to learn that new craft.

And I’ll keep trying new recipes and foods. And I insist on using my four colors of Fiesta ware for every meal—even when it’s just me eating a quick lunch before I get back to my manuscript. That’s beauty I share with me—and that counts!

Simple goals to liven up my life . . . and yeah, they get me off my butt and out of range of this computer. And we can only imagine how that might contribute to that second goal of living sexier, not?

It’s your turn now! Share YOUR goals here! Everyone who reads this can use a few new ideas. And meanwhile, I wish you your best year ever in 2010! May this be the start of a prosperous and productive new decade for all of us! God bless us every one!

Spice and Secrets!

Once again this year I’ve crammed my deep freeze with nearly 120 dozen yummy Christmas cookies! I send them to my agent and editors for gifts, I donate them to my church by the boxful, and I deliver cookie buckets to my sibs and family, and trays to my friends around town (including booksellers, my travel agent, etc.). Baking this many cookies takes time (and money!) but it’s my way of telling the people in my life that they are worth my best efforts…and maybe it’s a little ego boost when somebody asks, “You are bringing lots of your bourbon balls and turtles, right?”

Considering the stuff that’s flying around in the publishing world right now, I invite you to fill your home with the sweet, spicy aroma of this Williamsburg Gingerbread—a historical recipe I’ve baked for years. Immerse yourself rolling the dough and playing with your cookie cutters—great therapy!—and then enjoy the results! For a cookie with a neat secret, try the Hidden Chocolate Cookies, another of my faves because each contains an Andes mint!

And to top it off, I’ll give you my recipe for buttercream frosting! And I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas–or whatever holiday you celebrate—and see you here again in the New Year!

Williamsburg Gingerbread (7-8 doz.)

½ C. softened butter (no substitutes)
1 C. sugar
3 T. cinnamon, 1 tsp. ground cloves, 2 T. ground ginger,
1 T. lemon flavoring
¾ C. evaporated milk
5 C. flour
1 ½ T. baking powder
1 C. molasses

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the spices and milk. Alternately add the flour, powder, and molasses to make a thick, wet dough. Press into a large ball, wrap in wax paper or
plastic wrap and chill several hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll chunks of the dough on a well-floured
surface and cut with floured cutters. Be patient—the dough is moist and sticky. Bake about 8 minutes (I recommend using parchment paper, which can be reused for the entire batch of dough), until cookies are set, for a soft, chewy, totally awesome ginger cookie. Cool, decorate, and store with wax paper between each layer.

Hidden Chocolate Cookies (2 dozen…I triple the recipe)

½ C. sugar, ¼ C. brown sugar
¼ C. shortening (like Crisco)
¼ C. softened butter or margarine
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 2/3 C. flour
½ tsp. baking soda
24-30 Andes mints, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream shortening, butter, vanilla and egg, and then add the dry ingredients. Shape 1 T. dough around each mint, sealing edges to form an oblong cookie. Again, I recommend using parchment paper on your baking sheet. Bake 2” apart, 7-8 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool. Spread frosting on tops of cookies and then dredge in sanding sugar, jimmies, etc.

Buttercream Frosting (frosts a layer cake or several batches of cookies)

½ C. shortening (like Crisco)
½ C. butter (no substitutes)
½ C. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. lemon flavoring
1 2-lb. bag of powdered sugar

Measure shortening, butter, and liquids into mixer bowl and begin
to mix with about 2 C. of the sugar, working more in once you’re
past the splatter stage. Takes the whole bag of sugar to make thick
buttercream that holds its shape. Tint with paste or gel colors.
Freezes well.

Some books—like some lives—are just more FUN than others! And from the time I brainstormed the plot of SEXUAL SECRETS with my Aphrodisia editor, I knew this story with its twin French heroines would be as much fun for me to write as it’ll be for you to read!

It all started with the premise…what if identical twin sisters were dissatisfied with their husbands’ performance in bed, so they switched? Since historicals were my first love as a writer, I was tickled to set this story in Victorian London—partly because husband swapping would’ve been a little easier then, if not entirely . . . moral.

Ah, but in fiction, we sometimes overlook those little details, just as Colette and Camille quickly shove aside any qualms about their dirty little secret. Colette’s husband, Heath, is a man of, shall we say, larger-than-life proportion and stamina, while poor Camille is married to an old codger who, yes, saved her from a tawdry life in the Paris backstreets, but he’s full of himself and . . . limp. Rutledge also happens to be Heath’s father!

So imagine the little escapades in that mansion where these four Bentleys live, in separate wings. And figure in the ladies’ maids and the cook, who immediately realize what’s happened but keep their mouths shut.
And then mix in a dark, exotic stranger who comes to London on a devious mission . . . spies on the twins in their couturier shop, under the guise of having them design his fiancee’s wedding dress and a costume for an upcoming ball. Hadrian Swann and his beloved are not what they seem—and they’ve come to cash in on a Bentley secret that makes our twin heroines look downright angelic.

And Rubio Palladino, London’s most celebrated trance medium, sees the whole affair on another plane entirely! Rubio is an artsy sort who can’t go anywhere without making an entrance in his flashy clothes, and he’s also a continuing character in the companion piece to SEXUAL SECRETS, which I’m writing now! It’ll be called SEXUAL HUNGER, out next fall, and it features twin heroes!

Meanwhile, YOU have an opp to win a free copy of Camille and Colette’s story!

I’m a newbie on Facebook, so I’m looking for friends! Post a note on my wall about getting a copy of SEXUAL SECRETS—and send me a friend request! It’s yours, autographed! Not on Facebook? Be among the first three to email me from my website, asking for a book—that would be www.MelissaMacNeal.com.

Are we having fun yet?! Hope you enjoy my story as much as I enjoyed concocting it!

For those of you who belong to Novelists, Inc.: highlights!
For those of you who don’t: a teaser! Feel free to ask me about joining!

My feelings about NINC Goes Platinum last week? Totally awesome! And totally gratifying for the Board and Conference Coordinators: we remember a time when, if we didn’t have x-number of registrations, we couldn’t justify spending NINC funds on a conference no one wanted to attend. The economy seemed so bleak . . . many members were between contracts . . .

Until—Ta DAH!—we created that half-price stimulus package and set up a star-studded Forensics Day. Added in some midnight ghost tours for a little woo-woo by a full moon, and just kept packing in the programs. Who ever dreamed we’d need an overflow hotel? We attracted several new members and coaxed a lot of non-conference types to come out of their caves for the first time in YEARS.

And can you IMAGINE? I heard NOT ONE COMPLAINT about speakers, or our visiting editors and agents, or the relevance of our topics! The food got raves, and the Drury was so wonderful several members want to have another conference there! Never have I met a more cordial, efficient hotel staff, from the managers to the guys revamping our meeting rooms between sessions, to the gals who cleaned up after us at breakfast. Beautiful lobby with lots of tables and upholstered chairs for chatting. Three free drinks each evening, and popcorn in the lobby! Even the notoriously grumpy among us felt amazingly upbeat and recharged as we reconnected with longtime friends and made new ones.

Instead of telling us to “write the book of your heart” and that they’d “know it when they see it,” our publishing pros gave us informative, insightful views on the future of the book. How writers and houses would be affected once e-readers came down in price and the digital market finally took off like a shot.

The most interesting prediction? That this technological overturning of publishing as we know it will not REPLACE print books. Just as mass market paperbacks threw the hardback industry into a tizzy in the 1950’s, digital media is providing a new FORMAT option for our stories. The transition might feel like a rollercoaster ride these next couple of years, but it will also provide amazing OPPORTUNITIES for writers who choose a “write-your-own-adventure” mindset.

And gee, some of us even attended social networking
sessions on Facebook, Twitter and Squidoo–and came away thinking we could DO that! And still have time to write!

Maggie Osborn’s wonderful “history of NINC” got our Saturday night gala off to a humorous start. And after we recognized Harlequin’s 60th anniversary and enjoyed a fabulous buffet, publicist Scott Manning had us howling over anecdotes from his career.

Even the Annual Meeting was well attended…perhaps because our sealed envelopes promising a major gift enticed so many to show up. Karen King won our drawing for a free conference fee for next year, when we’ll be “Brainstorming on the Beach” at the TradeWinds Island Grand resort in St. Petersburg!! Mark your calendars for October 6-9th and plan to be INSPIRED, RENEWED, and RECONNECTED with your Inner Writer—and probably your Inner Kid, too!

And speaking of kids! Our Kritters for Kids drive was SO successful we needed three “little red wagons” plus a large flatbed cart to carry all our toys and books into the Children’s Hospital! What a heartwarming, hopeful place. Many thanks to all who donated!

And many thanks to all who made this NINC Goes Platinum event such a spectacular success!

Lots of us writers duck when we hear the phrase “Mercury in retrograde.” Word Wizards are mainly aware that during those weeks when Mercury appears to travel backwards, our computers, cell phones—any electronic gadgets or things associated with communications—tend to go sour and render us potential Word Nerds. So how should we spend our time between September 7th and the 29th, if initiating new projects and relationships, signing contracts, or buying new cars, computers and big-ticket items isn’t so smart?

Take it from the prefix RE: during this time we can make great strides by going back over things we’ve already begun (or thought we completed!), just as Mercury appears to be going back over its path.

You could REvisit the setting of your current story…maybe REdiscover details and images you’ve forgotten in that place and time. Do you have a character you really should REname?

You can REvise your manuscript—or dig through your closet and REwrite a story you left for dead. Might find a whole new energy there, or a twist that was ahead of the curve when you first proposed it. Or you might finally find the key to REinventing yourself as a writer, and totally REvitalize your life!

Are you due for a REorganization of your space? Do you need to REview your career goals or REconstruct a plot with a saggy, baggy middle? These are things you could do while you REcharge the batteries for those electronics that tend to give us fits during retrograde days. You can also REshuffle the songs on your iPod or REstart your computer after shutting it down a couple hours to let those poor chips cool (my Mac wiz recommends doing this once a week).

On the RElationship front, you can REkindle a romance…maybe REnew your vows or REvisit public places where you daringly made love—or simply REposition yourself! REtreat to a favorite B&B! And hey, who among us couldn’t REplace that ratty old underwear? Might lead to REnegotiating who does those household chores you really don’t enjoy… or perhaps it’s time to REnovate your entire relationship by RElocating away from meddling friends and family.

And if that relocation involves breaking away from your Significant Other, well, that means you are REclaiming your personal power by REfusing to let others determine how you will feel about yourself. And that can REalign your entire life!

Worse comes to worse, you can REconcile your checkbook. THAT ought to scare you into something more productive! Or REconsider something you said during an argument and REtract that statement.

You can also REject the whole notion that Mercury in retrograde is a BAD thing! Because sometimes REthinking our beliefs can lead to to growth and progress!

My personal favorite?? The flashing neon sign on the Rum Boogie Club on Beale
in Memphis: EAT, DRINK, BOOGIE, REPEAT…EAT, DRINK, BOOGIE, REPEAT…

And now it’s your turn! How do you propose to make this September a positive, productive month? Who knows? Your answer may be just what one of us will REact to!

p.s. What does Johnny Depp have to do with any of this??? Made you REad to the end of this post, didn’t he?!

When you read this, I’ll be on the road to my father-in-law’s 90th birthday party! I’m the Queen of punch, mints and nuts, and I’m ready to feed 300! Don’t I look calm and collected (and don’t I wish I were truly limber enough to suck a toe? Well, maybe not!)

Meanwhile, as I concentrate on this revision of my main draft, I’m going to share a few images I’ve saved from emails about, oh, bunches of subjects. Visuals like these take me to my “imagination’s other place,”–and sometimes to scenes in stories–so I hope you’ll enjoy a few ooh and ahhh moments here on our blog while I keep working! How about we start with a bit of local color?

Ok, so you’re sitting alone at the counter at your local diner, drinking a Diet Coke, when the younger, totally hot Native American stranger on the next stool propositions you. Do you:

1) Stare blankly and say, “You wanna what? With me?”
2) Look around frantically to see if anyone you know heard him
3) Say, “Oh, no, I’m not that kind of woman.”
4) Say yes and have the time of your life in a no-tell motel room.

You probably won’t have to guess which option Diana Grant chooses, given that she’s my heroine in “Long Hard Ride,” but believe me, she was not expecting her day to go that way! She’s just learned that the bank is foreclosing on her ranch, because paying for her late husband’s liver transplant totally drained their accounts. Worse yet, the bank prez is really after her land so he can develop it into resort condos, and his wife has already decided she wants her luxury digs right where Diana’s cozy home now sits. The bulldozers are poised, ready to rip the guts out of the Montana horse ranch she and her husband Garrison have loved for twenty years.

I knew that much shortly after my Aphrodisia editor invited me to write a story for an upcoming cowboy anthology (TEMPTED BY A COWBOY, out in July), but then I had to get past the premise and actually concoct a story for this gal! As often happens for me, I sorta set my brain out of gear for the next week or so and the pieces of backstory and research came at me from several different directions! It’s a process that just happens for me, mainly because I’ve come to expect it…and because I now believe it’s how the Universe works for me when I invite it to.

So, I had this premise in my mind, about this beleaguered widow around my age…and I decided I was in the mood for a Native American rodeo rider. Used to live in a rodeo town, so I love the sport and am familiar with its inner workings. And hey, if the fantasy of broad shoulders, cinnamon skin, and long black hair works for me, it works for millions of women, not? Was flipping through my assortment of folders and saw one with a white horse on the front. Ta-DA! Michael White Horse became my hero!

Then I ventured to the RT conference and saw my writer friend, Diana Groe. We caught each other up on our current projects, and she proceeded to tell me about the Indian Relay at the rodeo in Sheridan, Wyoming. And as she described all these young red-skinned guys riding bareback at breakneck speeds, wearing only loincloths and body paint, I knew I had to include such a scene in this story! Got a few pertinent details from her, as research, and my imagination was off and running!

Day or so after I got home, I mentioned the premise to my old college flame, Jack, with whom I exchange the occasional email. So happens Jack, an accountant, used to do the books for a Native American casino on a nearby reservation in upstate New York, and he couldn’t wait to tell me how totally messed up the accounts were. Seems the guys in charge were more bookies than bookkeepers: they went from running a penny-ante Bingo hall to managing a casino that brought in hundreds of thousands each week. Large sums went unaccounted for—or were spent for questionable causes—and Jack, as a white guy, knew damn well he was not being told everything that should’ve been reported.

So voila! I had Michael’s back story and a family conflict he wasn’t at all comfortable with: he’d quit keeping the books for his tribe’s casino. Went back to riding saddle broncs before he got too old to realize his dream of winning at the ProRodeo championship in California. He’s on his way to his first small-time event when his truck breaks down, in the pouring rain, and he’s waiting for the tow truck in the local greasy spoon when Dejected Diana plops down on the stool beside him.

But it’s not enough to assume the rest of the story happens at that nearby no-tell motel, even if this is erotic romance! To make your characters real—the kind readers worry about–they have to have an issue or two that seems insurmountable.

So happens, my oldest brother had just left his job to go on total disability, in preparation for a liver transplant. As we heard about the preparation process, and the way his anti-rejection drugs would run him $6,000 a month in addition to the expenses of the transplant, I was gobsmacked. Unless you have really good insurance (not part of the package for the very small company where my brother worked, unfortunately) how can you even dream of undergoing an organ transplant? Yet if you’re his forty-something wife, how can you not insist that he sign up for this life-saving procedure?

So Diana’s backstory and present conflicted situation was partially drawn from what I was hearing about a real-life family situation. I’m very thankful my brother is still hanging in there, awaiting a donor match. Diana’s husband underwent his transplant, but didn’t fare so well. And after he passed on, his expenses did not: not only is Diana a worn-out widow from being a caretaker, she’s about to lose her home, too.

And Michael, bless him, is a sucker for a damsel in distress. Even if she’s a forty-something damsel with red-rimmed eyes who wears careworn clothes and has a crass bank president posting auction signs on her property.

I did a little online research to figure out Michael’s rodeo circuit route, and to place Seven Creeks ranch in Wolf Point, Montana (where there just happens to be a Native American casino), and from there, my story wrote itself.

Well, practically! I got by with a little help from my friends Diana and Jack, tossed in some real-life financial crises, and when the pieces fell nicely into place I entitled it “Long, Hard Ride.” Seems Michael and Diana play that title from a lot of angles, and I hope you’ll enjoy their story!

Thanks for coming along for this ride! And your reward for reading clear to the end? Ask very nicely…tell me how YOU would respond to the question at the beginning, and there could be a signed book in it for you!

Life at the speed of….

My in-laws are here for a few days. Love ‘em dearly, really I do, even if they make me slow waaaaay down to complete ordinary tasks. At the speed of Me, things like meals and errands and normal Real Life Everyday Stuff proceeds at a normal rate (whatever “normal” means!). At the speed of Them, well, patience is a big, big virtue.

And maybe it’s time I entertained a little more virtue, eh?

Ioma turned 85 this weekend and Wilber will be 90 in August. They celebrate their 60th anniversary in September. We fetched them from their retirement apartment in IA, and come time you’re reading this, we’ll be on our way to our nephew’s/their grandson’s graduation in Indy—a FINE celebration! And we’re glad they can go! Pleased to be taking them!

Grandma made Kirk a quilt and matching pillow for his college dorm room. It’ll be unlike anything he receives from anyone else, partly because Grandma HAS the time and was willing to spend her time making it for him. I, as Aunt Charlotte, was pleased to make more than 500 cream cheese mints for his class’s reception dinner. (Now you know how I spent my Memorial Day weekend!)

I, as Aunt Charlotte and the favorite d-i-l, am setting aside my usual writing schedule for all of this. I figure the WIP’s not going anywhere until I get back to it. And I figure that someday, we’ll be really glad we took Time Out for these family occasions…just as I hope my nieces and nephews will still be seen with me when I reach the age of Really Old and Really Slow.

So as you read this, think of us escorting The Parents to these receptions and the ceremony and then getting them to the airport in St. Louis to fly them back to Omaha (security procedures being another animal altogether). And then think of folks in your circle of life who maybe need a little extra time and patience from YOU, and who are probably more grateful for that gift of your time than you know right now.

I fully expect to reach 85 or 90—still writing, if I so choose! And I expect to still be motating under my own power, at my own speed…which will be waaaaay slower than I move now. And I hope, when I get there, Someone I Love will be taking me to family celebrations, and to their home to visit, and maybe overlooking how many other things they could be getting done while they wait for me to catch up to them!

Just a little food for thought as we speed along here, on the superhighway through cyberspace.