Woohoo News!

Highland Heat is now available in print and to make it even more exciting, it's on SALE! To get your 10% discount enter ECWEB2009 into the coupon field when completing your purchase.

eBook and Book Talk!

Today, doing laundry, shopping for grad gift and weeding, I got to thinking about tattoos. I'm not entirely sure why, but I was, and the subject led me to pick out stories I've written with unique ways characters have chosen to celebrate their bodies. Tattoos and piercings, I find them interesting.

So which stories are they found?

An Invitation to The World: New Zealand has Timu Tuhaere, a Maorian hunk of a rugby player who "sported a tribal tattoo that snaked from his knee around his inner upper thigh and up to finish atop a spectacularly muscular ass."

The Gilded Cage has Max Stephenson, a Brit with "four metal balls of his magic cross piercing." My editor had one comment when this piercing was later detailed: ouch and yet it offered nothing but pleasure.

The Painted Lady is a bit different in that they aren't tattoos, but Saffron Hoyt has her body painted to suit some very erotic images, like "...in the guise of a naked Princess Leia sitting before Jabba the Hut from Return of the Jedi...".

Fun times, I wonder what other areas I've touched on before?

Naughty Thought for Monday

If you've ever checked out my website's Links page, then you know that Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno on the Sundance Channel makes me laugh.

Well, get ready for more fun, season two is here!

A bit of random ridiculousness...

An interesting bit of random ridiculousness - Captain Kirk from the recently released Star Trek movie, Chris Pine, went to the University of Leeds, and so did I.









© Cliff Watts

Fabulous Fashion News and More!

© Getty Images

Carmen Dell'Orefice, fabulous supermodel at 77, is back working because of Bernie Madoff's dirty dealings, actually non-existent trading. I've always thought Carmen to be a beautiful woman who carried herself with a great deal of grace, now I know it!

Check out this candid interview with her on WOWOWOW: The Women on the Web. It's interesting and keeps the positivity going.

Hump Day Reflections!

It's June and I bet you're wondering where my head has traveled this month. Well, it is a month I think of sun, sand, and surf and this picture from Surfer Magazine made me think of one of the things I do while at the beach - check out the surfers as they're checking out the waves.

Head over to check out this months Eye Candy and be inspired by what the sun brings out.

Book Talk!

Recently I read a Linda Fairstein book [she's my current go to author for an entertaining read without having to make a major brain or time committment] and am still dwelling on something that was mentioned, probably because I wasn't buying it. It wasn't a big deal, not part of the plot or character development, just a throw away comment that was completely opposite from what I thought. After a murder, the main character [a lawyer] mentions there were more guns in LA than NYC. Not gang related guns, but your common citizen owning guns.

Ummm, no, I don't think so. Growing up in So. Cal., I never once saw a gun and knew of one person who had ever been to a shooting range [job related]. Considering I go back a few times a year, nothings changed. On the other hand, having spent ten years on the other coast, I can count on one hand and have left over fingers, the people from our little town that I know [as in have weekend bbq's with] who haven't ever touched a gun.

Yup, that one statement jarred me enough to even ask others which place they thought had more guns. Half a dozen people asked [we were Indiana at the time so, other than me, neither coasts inhabitants were involved] and all agreed on NYC.

Did it ruin the story for me? No, but it sat in my mind as being off kilter.

This happened with another author I enjoyed reading only I couldn't let their throwaway comment pass so easily. My hometown was the setting and the heroine drove "the coastal route" down to San Diego, enjoying the view of the ocean and beaches along the way. Ummm, no, can't be done. Camp Pendleton doesn't open its gates to anyone to drive through. Besides that, the author mentioned the drive took an hour and a half, double no. Speed limit, no traffic, it's more like 45 minutes. I couldn't let this pass - if you're going to be specific, then be right. Anyway, I might pick up a random book by this author, although that's about it, no more automatic buys.

I'm not sure why I didn't react as harshly to Fairstein as I did with the other author. Maybe because I don't write mysteries that I'm more tolerant, maybe, although I don't think so. How about you? Have you not only been pulled out of a story, but also pulled away from an author?

Fabulous Advice!

Recently, the blog "How Publishing Really Works" posted a guest review on Elizabeth George's book "Write Away". In the review, it is noted that George offers some great advice on the first day to students in her creative writing course and it struck a cord with me.

The review is interesting, I've just bought a copy of the book for myself, but if you can't make it over there or read the book, then here it is:

"You will be published if you possess three qualities; talent, passion and discipline.

You will probably be published if you possess two of these three qualities: either a combination of talent and discipline or a combination of passion and discipline.

You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline."

Fabulous advice for all writers!