Happy Thursday

Yesterday my second grand daughter, Michaela, came into the world!!! She's six pounds five ounces, nineteen inches long, and from what I hear over the telephone, she has quite the set of lungs! Thank goodness for cell phone cameras and emailed videos (my son and d-i-l live across the country from us.)

I'm beginning a new-to-me writing project which I'm very excited about. Resplendence Publishing has re-contracted my Carnal Reunions anthology short story, Training Randi, as a novella/novel length book. Miranda and Jeff are two of my favorite characters, and being able to delve further into their relationship is going to be great fun!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Tessie


  

Hugo is a Marvel!

My family and I went to see Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” in real 3D this weekend, and I thought it was an exceptional movie.

This film is so much more than it’s timid advertising campaign would lead you to believe. I found it to be a stunning emotional experience with a beautiful message underneath that we all have purpose. Hugo is filled with beautifully illustrated metaphors for life, one after another. There are far too many to name in this blog, but one of my favorites was the opening scene where an orphan boy is looking down on the city of Paris at night, from a clock tower and sees Paris as giant clockwork ticking away on itself. He has many missing pieces in his life and he’s obsessed with collecting stolen or discarded gears and springs and fixing things. He’s especially obsessed with an elegant silver automaton, a mechanical man he believes can write.

(This slightly longer trailer at least hints at the movie's true content.)

Hugo spends his days above a train station hiding from the orphan catchers in the clock towers. He keeps the clocks running and sees the world as a great machine of intermeshing gears. Scorsese allows us to watch the characters in the train station from above and it quickly becomes evident everyone here is a gear that is not quite fitting into the gears around them. True connections between characters are not being made because important pieces are missing or broken.

 (Yep, Martin deserves another prize for this beauty!)

I loved the sheer beauty of this movie and I’m afraid to spoil its many surprises. The deeper story is about the great fantasy filmmaker George Melies. With “Hugo” Martin Scorsese has created a redemptive Valentine to Melies and creative filmmakers everywhere.

The electronic 3D goggles I wore to watch the film were a bit heavy on the bridge of my nose, but they made viewing the movie in 3D a smooth as silk experience. Scorsese created sets and planned scenes specifically to create the ultimate real 3D experience and I must say Hugo thrilled me. If you see it, please try to see it in real 3D. You’ll be awed.

XXOO Kat

Sorry for being MIA

Buy Link: http://www.loose-id.com/I-Wanna-Sext-U-Up.aspx

I've been crazy busy, filling out questions for interviews, looking for places to blog and basically do some promo for I Wanna Sext U Up. I also sent a proposal to my editor for a new book. Eagerly awaiting either a rejection or contract. We all know I'm hoping for the contract. Hahahaha
I'm always terrible when it comes to self promoting and I vowed to change that this year. So in my spare time (what's that! LOL) that's what I'm doing. I've forgotten a few things along the way, this blog is one of them and I'm sorry to my fellow bloggers.
I promise to make a better effort at blogging going forward.

Amber

Candy for your thoughts on Valentine's Day?

Remember those tiny hearts with the words on them?

Got one for you.

BE MINE. And a story to go with!

Feb. 3 from Decadent Publishing  along with my Sassy7 pals!

Why shouldn’t an eligible man like Jason Sherwood plan a Valentine’s Day merger with a woman whose elegant body melted at his touch last year on February fourteenth? A mysterious woman who disappeared like a wraith. A vibrant creature who came apart in his arms like only the right woman does for the right man.

But Mara Richardson left Jason for a good reason…and after a year of looking for her, he still doesn’t know why. But he has to learn. Has to get her naked, wild for him again. Give her those little sugary candies that say, Be Mine, and show her that, despite only hours with her last year, he needs her to be his. Forever.

Excerpt, Copyright Cerise DeLand 2012, All rights reserved.

A sharp knock at the door had her jumping. She glanced at her watch. Two o’clock. Time enough to listen, dicker and still catch her plane. Mr. Capitol Communications better have a swell counter-offer or we’re both dead meat.

She swung open the door. “Hello, Mister–“

Her throat closed. Her heart pounded. Her nipples beaded reminiscent of that night when that savage hungry mouth had shaped them and sucked them. Her pussy gushed, memories consumed her of how this man had used those firm lips to lick her clit and give her the best screaming orgasm of her entire life.

“Sherwood, Mara. Jason Sherwood,” said the incomparable creature outside her door. His blue eyes wore an appealing apologetic look. His mouth tried for a smile but couldn’t quite make it. He was nervous. He was apprehensive. He was so very damn good looking. And he was determined to come in. “May I?” He nodded toward the conference room. “I brought some things. Hungry? I am.”

She stepped backward. For a former press aide who ate journalists for breakfast and a media trainer who taught people how to tick off talking points like time bombs, she was for once in her lonely life utterly speechless.

And the only thing she cared to do was look at him. Absorb him into her skin. Treasure him.

His sea blue eyes. His sun-kissed hair. Wet from snow. His pink cheeks. Chapped from the icy wind. His comforting height. Five, maybe six inches taller than she. And stepping right up to her, drinking in her confusion and her delight at his sudden appearance, growing confident now. Grinning down at her.

“Hi, baby,” he whispered, one big fist sinking into her chignon and destroying it. “I missed you something fierce. Let me kiss you. Now that I’ve found you, I’m not letting you go until we know so much about each other, you’ll either hate me or never leave me again.”

New Year New Editor

Thank you Mary M!

I’m the sort of author editors were invented for. No doubt about it, I need a good editor. So it came with sadness earlier this week that I received an email from my editor Mary Moran that after eight years of service at Ellora’s Cave, she will be moving on to other ventures.

Mary was a huge help to me. She edited six of my Ellora’s Cave books, and they were tough books to edit. We tackled Latin in the ancient world and Voodoo in the Bayou. One book needed to be taken completely apart and put back together, but it was worth it because it ended up being a far better book. I learned a lot from Mary and I’m grateful I had the experience of working with her. We never met face to face but I sincerely hope our paths cross again, somehow, someday.

Mary if you ever drop by and read this, I want to say thank you for your patience, input and assistance. It meant so much to me.

I have since been reassigned to April Chapman and I’m delighted to be offered the opportunity to work with her. I already know I’m going to love her. Now I need to finish some stories for Ellora’s Cave so we can work together. Fear not I write slowly but I am working. I already have a few spin-offs, which are well underway.

2012 has already offered me so many changes it’s a bit dizzying.  My day job has gone nuts, which I’m very grateful for. No complaints there, I need the work. It’s just tough to keep up with everything.

How is your new year going?

XXOO Kat

Short shorts! Can you do 'em?

Oh be still my heart: to write a short story and have it be a complete piece of fiction!
Can you?
I did.
And when you read it, hopefully you will think I did well.
BE MINE is a bit of 5000 words. Coming soon from DECADENT PUBLISHING and a request for the girls in the TOYS-4-US gang of 7 from that publisher!  The stories, all 7, debut for Valentine's Day.

But on to the challenge!
We were to fulfill the requirements of a short story with LOTS OF HOT HOT HOT sex in 5K. Pant, pant.
Not easy.
Sure. You can write a scorcher of a sex scene, but that ain't good fiction. EVER.
I came up with a story line that I loved: a man who had a plan to meet the woman he had adored LAST year on Valentine's Day.
The 7 of us decided that the stories would be set in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. and that every one of the heroes or heroines had to walk into Valentino's gourmet wine and food shop in a blizzard!

Ever try to write a short short? With or without your buddies? For a series? The demand is growing.
So here's your challenge!
Give us a one-liner, then sit down and see if you can do it in 5 K or less!  Let us know!

Is it Saturday already?

Did anyone get one of these for Christmas?

No?

Sigh...me neither.  But one can always hope.  Okayyyy...so back to the business of my January SWAG giveaway....

Sadly, I cannot seem to give free stuff away.  Of course, this is not a reflection on the Swag...I warned everyone that I would only give one notice.  But people stopped sending in entries about five days before the giveaway ended.  I guess that says something for continuous, relentless spam attacks...they seem to get people's notice more than refusing to spam.  Sigh.  But I still refuse to repeat posts over and over on my loops.  And was so hoping to get rid of all that stuff I accumulated...

Ah well...I did manage to get rid of a lot of it.  Gave away 2012 wall calendars, books, mugs, tote bags, T-shirts, pens, key chains, notebooks, and you name it.  I hope those of you who entered are enjoying your prizes. 

Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Hugs,

Fran Lee

http://www.franleeromance.com