Getting Wet: Recipe #3

Tough times call for tough drinks.

Winston's Gin Martini

To a shaker with ice, add 1-2 jiggers of gin (my favorites are Hendricks or Tanqueray 10).

Look at a bottle of dry vermouth.

Shake gin for 10-15 seconds, until good and cold.

Pour into a martini glass. Garnish with olive or lemon twist, if desired.

Enjoy.

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Goals, Endings, And The Hashtag

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." -Richard Bach

At first glance, the symbol now known as "the hashtag" doesn't look like much. Unless you're a mathematician, Tweeter, or obsessive tic-tac-toe player, it's one of those keys that doesn't get much air time.

I confess, I don't use it much, either. In fact, there's only one time it really shows up in my writing.

At the end of a manuscript.

That's really just a long way of getting to this: I finished my book!

When I first sat down at my computer again in mid-March, I had some pretty ambitious goals. I wanted to write 2,000 words per day. I wanted to live a more balanced life. I wanted to finish my first draft by June 1.

I stuck (mostly) to 2,000 words per day. Some days I wrote more, some, less. As for a more balanced life, there are still clothes languishing in the hamper, and the dust bunnies have grown so big I now regard them as family pets. An unexpected, two-week vacation meant I had to revise my finish date, so instead of June 1, I gave myself until July 1.

As of July 1, I had been finished for six days.

Goals are decidedly not my strong suit. I've always been something of a free spirit (read: scatterbrained), I have a toddler who insists on being fed regularly, and there always seems to be laundry to put away.

But they have their value, even for me.

When I'm nearing the end of a book, it's tempting to rest on my laurels and coast. I can drag those last couple chapters out for weeks. Having a set "done" date in mind is just the kick in the ass I need.

Nowadays, I need all the ass-kicking I can get.

<!– start LinkyTools script –> <!– end LinkyTools script –>

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Pangs Of Absence

"If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden." -attributed to Claudia Ghandi

Have you ever said a goodbye that didn't feel right?

I had another post planned for this week, but this subject has weighed heavily on my mind since, well, this morning. When someone I thought I'd said goodbye to for good suddenly popped up again in my life.

I won't bore you with the gory details, but suffice it to say, when I was younger, I went through a rough patch. It resulted in a cleansing; there were people I needed to remove from my life, so I did.

Unfortunately, it also meant having to say goodbye to a few people I'd rather have kept around.

It's never sat well with me, especially since -being young and tactless- I handled the whole thing with about as much grace as a falling elephant. I burned bridges, I hurt feelings, I made a mess.

Then I rebuilt, and learned to live with the bad taste in my mouth.

I'm at a better place in my life now, but I still have regrets. The kind that linger. That show up in your dreams just when you think you've finally put them behind you.  A chance meeting today got me thinking: maybe it's time to make amends.

I was thinking about it, and it suddenly struck me. Much of my writing has to do with moving on. Moving on from past hurts, from people who've wronged you, from grudges once held.

Maybe it's time for me to stop just writing about it, and start doing it.

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Rhythmical

http://tinyurl.com/mdddfyj

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." -Victor Hugo

Humans are creatures of rhythm.

Our entire lives are governed by it. Eating, sleeping, working, sex. Everything we do occurs to a beat. Writers understand this better than most, slaves as we are to the constant ebb and flow of creativity.

Maybe that's why so many writers are music aficionados. I know I am.

Each time I start a new book, I start a new playlist. I love combing through the world of music for songs that capture the tone, the characters, a snippet of the story I'm working on.

Here, for your enjoyment, are a few favorites from my current Work-In-Progress:

Beginning/Introduction: "Gimme Shelter", The Rolling Stones

First Kiss: "Shed Your Skin", The Pretty Blue Guns

Heroine's Theme: "Not A Pretty Girl", Ani DiFranco

Hero's Theme: "Sinister Purpose", Creedence Clearwater Revival

Suspense Scene: "Run Through The Jungle", Creedence Clearwater Revival

First Love Scene: "Crawl", Kings Of Leon

First Sex Scene: "Radioactive", Imagine Dragons

These are just a few of the songs I've been listening to recently. Now that my book is nearly finished, I'm getting a little nostalgic. As a rule, I don't listen to my WIP playlist once the work is no longer, well, in progress.

This is going to be a hard playlist to leave behind.

<!– start LinkyTools script –> <!– end LinkyTools script –>

Getting Wet: Recipe #2

Tough people deserve tough drinks.

http://tinyurl.com/npbllrw

The Green Faerie

The writer's drink from way back. Preferred by the likes of Oscar Wilde and Van Gogh. Now simplified for your enjoyment.

But do yourself a favor: do it right or don't do it at all...

Step 1: Pour an absinthe dose (1/2-1 oz.)

Step 2: Place the absinthe spoon and a sugar cube (or a half) on the glass

Step 3: Pour iced water very slowly on the sugar till the desired dilution (3-5 parts water for 1 part absinthe)

Step 4: Slightly stir with the spoon. Your drink is ready!

(Thanks to The Absinthe Spoon for laying out the steps)

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Back In Black

"It's been too long, I'm glad to be back..." -AC/DC, "Back In Black"

I've missed you guys!

I haven't been on my blog for a while now- for Thursday's Children, or anything else.  I've been *gasp* working.  But that's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about villains.

I'm not the first person to post about them.  I won't be the last. I wouldn't even be writing about this at all, except a strange, diabolical, magical thing happened to me recently.

My villain turned evil.

All on his own. When I wasn't even looking. I don't know how, when, or what happened. All I know is I was writing a scene for him (a late addition to the book), and suddenly, it hit me.

This is one creepy son of a bitch.

I don't know how else to explain it other than to share the scene. This is the first piece of this book I've made public, so I hope you guys enjoy it! It's a tad long, and I should probably warn you: it's not for the faint of heart.

***

It was the red hair that made him hard.

He drew the soft lace curtain closed over the window.  He loved the Bay Area.  Lots of redheads.  Sure, there were redheads other places, but not like here.  They were everywhere here.  So many to choose from.  Pretty ones, ugly ones, thin ones, fat ones.  It didn't matter. As soon as he saw the hair, it was all over.

For them, anyway.

He looked down at the knife, smoothed a cloth over the blade.  Microfiber.  He'd discovered that by accident.  A happy accident, as it turned out.  Got rid of dust, dirt, skin cells, hair.  He paused.  Maybe someday he'd get to meet whoever invented microfiber.  He wouldn't mind shaking their hand.

Not that he'd be able to tell them what he used it for.

He ran the cloth down the blade one last time, admired the serrated edge, the burnished handle.  It had taken him a long time to find it.  He'd combed through catalogues, visited department stores.  At Bed Bath and Beyond, he'd been helped by a redhead.  A petite little thing, with an ass that made his mouth water.  She'd been so friendly.  So naive.  She would have been easy.

But he hadn't had the knife.  The knife was important.  The knife was the key.

He got a firm grip on the handle, and turned to the woman on the bed.  She was blindfolded, but she must have been able to feel his eyes on her, because she flinched.  The white nylon rope that tied her wrists and ankles to the bedposts seemed to glow in the darkness.

Bedposts.  That was another thing.  The bed always needed to have bedposts.

He approached, not bothering to muffle his footsteps.  He'd done this too many times to worry.  Her mouth was duct-taped.  She wouldn't make a sound.  Even if she tried, no one would hear her.

He trailed the tip of the knife gently down her cheek, lifted a red curl off her forehead with the blade.  She jerked.

Slowly, reverently, he slipped the blade down the front of her nightshirt.  It sliced through the fabric with scarcely any effort.  He drew it downward until both sides were gaping open.  She was crying now, blind, mute, but crying; a soft, wuffling sound.

He hardened still further.  It was so much better when they cried.

The scent of her cunt flavored the air around them.  He inhaled deeply.  That was the beautiful thing about cunts.  They were greedy.  Even when a woman didn't think she wanted it, her cunt did.  And unlike women, cunts never lied.

He would play with that in a minute.  But first, he had something to do.

The knife was sharp and effective.  Almost too effective; the first cut was so clean, it took almost a minute to bleed.  But bleed it finally did.  The woman thrashed.  A panicked sound rose in her throat, disappeared into the duct tape over her mouth.  He cut her again.  Another sound.

This was too good to waste.  He slid his free hand down the front of his pants and cut her again.  And again.  And again.

He stepped back and admired his handiwork.  The woman's belly and breasts were covered in neat, artistic gashes.  The sheets on the bed were soaked red.  Beautiful red.  Why did it always come back to red?

He crouched between her quivering legs.  Unzipped his fly and freed himself.  Glanced down.

Good.  He was still hard.  After the first time, he'd had some... concerns... over his performance.  After all his careful planning, to discover he was pushing rope wasn't just frustrating.  He'd gone there to offer himself to her.  To show her how much she meant to him, how much she'd always meant to him.

Instead, he'd been humiliated.

Fury welled up in his chest.  Underneath him, the woman screamed, cried, fought to buck him off.  Between the blindfold and the duct tape, she was as good as faceless.

Which was perfect.  It meant his imagination could give her the face of the woman he really wanted there.

Jak O'Mara.

He settled in and proceeded to punish her.

###

<!– start LinkyTools script –> <!– end LinkyTools script –>

All That Glitters 2.0

Attention everyone who has bought All That Glitters: an updated version is now available!

I was reading over the original version the other day, and much to my chagrin, found several typos and other errors that had somehow escaped me during my final editing.

Needless to say, yikes!

Obviously, "good enough" isn't just good enough when you're paying money for something, so I went through line-by-line and fixed everything I found. If you purchased the original version of All That Glitters, the freshly-copyedited version is now live on both Amazon and Smashwords.

I sent a message to Amazon regarding the changes, and while they are not always able to notify every customer individually, it is their policy to "enable them (you) to update the book's content through the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com."

It is my understanding all you have to do for Smashwords is go and download a fresh copy- you should already have access to it, and won't have to pay again. It is available now!

Any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'll do what I can to answer your questions.

As always, thank you for your continued support on this crazy journey. I hope All That Glitters, 2.0 is a fun and improved reading experience!

All That Glitters on Amazon

All That Glitters on Smashwords

UPDATE (6/18/13):

Just got an email back from Amazon. Their review of the changes made to All That Glitters is going to take a few weeks, so anyone waiting for an updated version, thank you for your continued patience! I promise to let you all know as soon as they give me the green light...