Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

Hearts and Flowers. . .and Chocolate, oh, my!

Happy February! Of course, the month of February means two things to me: Valentine’s Day and the release of my book. Hey, you didn’t think I was going to just talk about Valentine’s Day and not do a shameless plug for BETWEEN THE SHEETS, my fractured fairy tales book, did you? Okay, fine, obligatory plug is now over.
What I really want to talk about, anyway, is Valentine’s Day. And presents. The good, the bad and the downright ugly.
Because I’m the blogger, I get to start. My best Valentine memory is when my parents gave me a puppy. I’ll never forget it—I came home from elementary school for lunch and the puppy was sitting in the front window with a valentine tied around her neck. It was a great day.
My worst Valentine’s Day? I’d have to say it was the one when I found out my lying, cheating, scum-bag (now-ex) husband had not only been cheating but had contracted a social disease. Oh, yeah, that one was definitely the pits. Copious amounts of chocolate were ingested, just not in a good way.
Over the years, there have been ups and downs for Valentine’s Day. Most notably was the first one my current husband and I shared when we were so poor, yet somehow he managed to surprise me with a tiny pair of diamond studs. To this day, I still have no idea how he pulled that off. He’s definitely a keeper! My parents, ever the practical people, once gave me a toilet plunger for Valentine’s Day. I assume it was their not-so-subtle way of telling me to stop calling Dad when I had a plumbing problem. Two or three years ago, my husband gave me a laptop. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thrilled—I’d been wanting one for quite a while—or grateful. It’s just that. . .well, I think it was the tax deductible part. Oh, yeah, baby, nothing says love like tax deductible office supplies!
My friend, Candy, on her first Valentine’s Day with her husband, received a call from him asking if the flowers he’d sent had been delivered to her at work. Thrilled, she anxiously waited all day for a delivery that never came. When she saw him at home and told him the delivery hadn’t arrived, he started laughing hysterically—he’d never sent her any flowers and proceeded to tell her how stupid Valentine’s Day was and not to expect anything from him. Ever. To this day, she absolutely hates Valentine’s Day. BTW, he’s now her ex-husband.
So, what about you? Any best of worst Valentine’s Day stories? Leave a comment and you have a chance to win a book.
Thanks for stopping by!

The other day, I was thinking about how I started reading romance novels. I’m not sure I remember. Seriously. Isn’t memory one of the first things to go? Should I be worried? Wait. I’m an author. It’s deadline dementia!
Needless to say, all this thinking, combined with the holidays, brought up thoughts of being naughty or nice, good or bad. What, really, is bad? Killing someone is definitely bad. Thinking about killing someone, as anyone who has been divorced can tell you, can be soothing. Not that you’d actually do it. And, if you’re an author, you can do it, vicariously, in your books. How cool is that? Too bad I write humor. I’d have to laugh him to death. Still, the thought has merit.
Which brings us to naughty. Oh, yeah, we’ve all been at least a little bit naughty, haven’t we? Maybe that’s the reason I began reading romance novels initially—they made me feel a little bit naughty. And I loved it. So did my husband, but that’s another blog topic.
I have a confession to make: I loved most of the bodice ripper covers on the old romance novels. I did! It intrigued me to see exactly how far the cover artists could go without censorship. Hey, that was w-a-y before the stuff that’s out there now. I remember anxiously opening my monthly shipment of Bantam’s now-defunct Loveswept line (where I first discovered Janet Evanovich, by the way)to see what spicy covers they had in store for me. And I was rarely disappointed. As I recall, Loveswept had some pretty racy covers, for that time. Okay, you can stop laughing now. What can I say, I led a sheltered life. Anyway, I’d pick the covers I liked best, then read the back cover blurb, then the teaser and first pages before stacking them in the order in which I planned to read them. I told you to stop laughing.
Among my earliest memories of being potentially bad were—I’m serious here, so don’t laugh!—reading fairy tales. I kind of had a thing for the Big Bad Wolf. Prince Charming had me doing the child equivalent of practically swooning. As I said, I led a sheltered life. And, obviously, had a big imagination. Which is how I became a romance writer. Although I suspect it was hard wired into my DNA all along.
And speaking of fairy tales (and you though I had no point, didn’t you?) those early thoughts led me to try my hand at writing my version of some of my favorite fairy tales. I call them my fractured fairy tales. Kensington calls them BETWEEN THE SHEETS and it releases in February.
How about you? What was your favorite fairy tale and why? I’d love to know! Who knows? I may write another book of fractured fairy tales. As usual, everyone who leaves a comment has a chance to win a book.
Keep warm, healthy, and read a lot of books in the new year. Happy New Year!
Okay, now you can laugh.

With my annual holiday crud, I zoned out and missed doing my blog yesterday. Sorry about that! But, as it turned out, today may be a more fortuitous day to do this one. Today is my anniversary!
As some of you may recall, I grew up in Michigan, frequenting the beaches of the Great Lakes. For some insane reason, I decided I needed a change of scenery and thought the Rocky Mountains would be a wise move. With six weeks left, I dropped out of college and moved to north Denver, just outside of Boulder. I did, eventually, finish my bachelor’s degree in Boulder—I joke about being on the “seven year plan”. Unfortunately, I discovered a few truths about myself in the process, the main being I really don’t like being cold and (most importantly) Colorado is not the place to live if you love going to the beach. Yeah, I know, and I’m usually not so slow on the uptake. But some “good” did come out of it. (1) I made the horrifying discovery that I’d married someone who was totally wrong for me and corrected it. (2) Three days after my divorce, I married the love of my life. Everyone was shocked and thought it wouldn’t last. That was, at the risk of sounding ancient to some of you, let’s just say decades ago. Since we both grew up in Michigan—who knew?—and were beach-inclined, it was only natural to end up close to the Gulf of Mexico.
My point in telling you this? My grandmother was a fabulous, bigger than life, personality. I use her sayings often and she appears, in some form or other, in most of my books. One of Gram’s favorite sayings was “Bloom where you’re planted.” I interpret it to mean to make the best of whatever situation you find yourself in and if you don’t like it, change it. Another of her sayings was “Mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” Sometimes change is good, a necessary vehicle to get you where you were meant to be. I’m living proof.
I used this thought recently in my latest Aphrodisia Christmas anthology, UNDER THE COVERS. My novella in the anthology is ESCAPING CHRISTMAS. The heroine, Samantha, is shoving her indecisiveness about her true feelings for her boyfriend aside. In the trappings of enjoying the holidays, she is shocked when she finds an engagement ring in his pocket. Panicked, she is trying to wrap her mind around committing to him when he announces the ring is for someone else and leaves her. Immediately, her favorite time of year has become, well, not so much a favorite. To add insult to injury, the creep steals her dog. Worse, he gives it to his latest significant other! Determined to take a break from men and relationships in general, Samantha sets out to recover her dog. To her dismay, her pet now resides in a too-sugary-sweet-to-be-true place called Christmas, Texas. Her once favorite holiday now taunts her from every corner as she grimly trudges toward her goal.
Goals are kind of funny, changing when you least expect it. Along the way to hers, Samantha is arrested by the man she soon realizes was her destiny all along.
As I said, sometimes change is good because it takes you where you were meant to be. Have any of you experienced a for-the-better change? Do you have a favorite book/story in which it happens? Please leave a comment! As usual, one commenter will win a copy of UNDER THE COVERS, or your choice of a book from my backlist.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

OKAY EVER AFTER?

As romance writers, we were “taught” the determining factor of romance is the HEA(Happily Ever After). In recent years, that factor has been redefined. Now it just has to have a “satisfactory ending”. How do you determine satisfactory? I think it means giving the reader hope that things will, indeed, ultimately end with the hero and heroine together with or without benefit of matrimony. Hey, I write contemporary romance, so no marriage is okay. But, I admit, sometimes I catch myself tacking on a last minute proposal toward the end. Old habits die hard. Whenever I do this lately, I usually do something to cancel it out—the heroine punches the hero/turns him down etc. I even had a heroine slam the hero’s fingers in a window once. Hmm. I just realized I may have latent tendencies to violence.
How many of you have watched a movie and thought you could write a better script or at least a better, more satisfactory ending? I first realized this when I was about eight and saw Gone With The Wind for the first time. I wanted so badly for Rhett to walk right back in the door and sweep poor Scarlett off her feet and tell her he was wrong to leave her and then beg her forgiveness. How about you?
One Fine Day is another movie I would have rewritten. They spend one day together that is, well, “fine” and then nothing? Huh? At the very least the characters should have had hot sex!
Of course, I can’t talk movies without mentioning one of my all time faves, Romancing the Stone. It had it all, humor, sexual tension, action. . .and a satisfactory ending. And then there was the sequel, Jewel of the Nile. Sigh. After the satisfaction of the first movie, we were clambering to revisit our old friends, Jack and Joan. This movie, too, had action, at least attempted humor, and a definite HEA—with a wedding, no less! And yet. . .
More recently, the movie 27 Dresses had a HEA, with the main characters getting married, yet I felt a little let down. The writers did such a fabulous job of layering conflict onto the hapless heroine throughout the movie, maybe it set up unrealistic expectations, especially for writers.
I was recently appalled to realize I had written two endings to one of my books. I didn’t realize this until my editor pointed it out. I still admit I have no idea how it happened. I just knew it didn’t seem to be working for me—maybe I just kept writing until it did. It was easy and relatively painless to cut the first ending and the book read so much better! I can’t help but wonder if some of the screenwriters would benefit fro doing the same thing—write past their original ending to see where it leads, then decide which ending to cut.
How about you? Have you seen a movie recently with just an okay ever after ending? How about one that was great? What was it about the movie and/or the ending that worked or didn’t work for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts! As usual, I will pick a commenter to receive a free book.
PJM

Some things are indelibly written in our DNA, like handedness, eye color. . .and our sense of humor. I believe, just as most writers will say they have no choice, writing chose them, for some of us (like me, for instance) writing with humor is not a choice. It happens, in spite of any contrary intention. My husband always tells me I look at things “differently”. I’m going to assume, for his safety, he means it in a good way.
In a creative writing class, years ago, I had what I considered a brilliant idea for a romantic suspense story. It had it all: sexual tension, hot love scenes, stalking, home invasion etc. I even wrote what I considered the ultimate creepy scene where the psycho ex of the heroine broke into her house and exploded a rat in her microwave. Why did my instructor wipe tears of laughter from her eyes as she read it to our class? Well. . .upon the heroine’s grizzly discovery, her very next thought was she wanted pizza for dinner. Now, the instructor thought this was hilarious, that my heroine saw all the exploded rat guts and it made her crave pizza. My intention, however, was—besides being grossed out by the mess and the act—she realized she could never cook in that microwave again. I guess humor is in the eye of the beholder.
I write humorous erotic romances, pretty much by accident. I didn’t intend to write humor, although, now that I think about it, sex can be kind of funny. By the way, husbands in general—mine in particular—don’t share your humor when you laugh during sex.
I’ve always had a fascination with sexual “aids”—you know, sex toys, edible underwear, body frosting, that type of stuff. I used that in my February 2008 book, MAKE ME SCREAM, with a hero who wrote catalog copy for sex toy manufacturers. Having no personal experience with such things, I made up the toys, which was a lot of fun. I did, on occasion, sample various body frostings—strictly for research, of course. Did I mention I have a sensitivity to certain chemicals? Someday, I swear, I’m going to write a heroine who attempts to be adventurous with body frosting and has her tongue swell. But, for now, it’s so not funny.
How about you? What’s happened lately to make you laugh? Leave a comment and you could win a copy of my latest release, a Christmas anthology written with Crystal Jordan and Lorrie O’Clare, UNDER THE COVERS. My story is ESCAPING CHRISTMAS and has a heroine who finds herself in more than one humorous situation. Go figure.