Mia Sivan's Blog, page 7

How I F*cked up Big Time

As you know, I used to be in the finance industry.

When we mess up, it's not as bad as, say, when doctors make mistakes, but it can still be pretty costly.

I’ve had my fair share of mishaps, but the worst one happened when I was very green, and it caused a disaster for the largest bank in Israel.

I was 22, fresh out of university. I was hired by an investment firm affiliated with a large bank. It might sound like a pretty ordinary hire now but it was actually a big deal – back then, they only took experienced men, never an inexperienced woman, and the position was quite prestigious. But Yaacov, my new boss, decided to break the mold.

In addition to my usual duties as an investment manager, I was also given grunt work and odd jobs. I learned a lot, but everyone was much older and I was pretty lonely.

Yaacov, who was a tech aficionado, overrode the IT man's protestations and fitted a powerful computer with an XT data processor, a unique enhancement that computed all the yields and rates for the bank. We called it “The Beast,” and used it to price all the bank’s deposits.

The Beast would work all night. Every morning, yours truly was tasked with downloading all the computations onto a 3.5" floppy disk, print it, photocopy it, and then run around the office with a large pile and disseminate it.

The floppy disk wasn’t an expensive piece of hardware, but the IT man, an elderly, condescending guy, asked me to use the same one every day. He showed me how to insert it into drive A, type Del to erase it. Then, when asked if I was sure, answer Yes, and copy the Yield Report onto it.

One fine morning, three weeks into my new job, I pressed Del and then Y, as always.

Five seconds later, I heard an odd buzz, a low hum, like a rolling faraway drum. Soon the humming turned into a tsunami of shouts and stamping feet. People were freaking out. The computers were wiped clean - they were, to all intents and purposes, dead. The firm had no data to work with.

Turns out that when I typed Del and erased the contents of the drive, I wasn't in Drive A. I was in Z:/public.

I had deleted the entire firm’s drive. All of it. Everything.

The IT guy rushed to my station, on the verge of a heart attack. But there was nothing he could do to retract my firmly typed Yes.

I wasn't the one who got fired. I was too dumb, too new, to be blamed for anything (an excuse that expires pretty quickly, folks). The IT guy was the one who really f*cked up - I should have never had access to the public drive or been able to override it. As proved to be the case, there were no backups. The firm had to go back a couple of weeks to retrieve data. Some of it was lost forever.

The next few days, the bank gave too much return on its deposits, or too little - no one could say for sure.

They hired a new IT man.

He was young, only four years older than me. Smart. Tall. Blue eyes and a beautiful smile.

A year later, we were married.

There’s no moral to the story, except for maybe checking twice before typing Del and then Y.

Yours,

Mia.

Tits and Dragons. Let's talk about the s*x scenes In The House of the Dragon.

There are minor spoilers ahead so if you haven’t watched Episode 1, stop reading now.

I’m a huge Game Of Thrones (GOT) fan. I read all the books, and I religiously watched the TV series.

GOT had sex aplenty, sometimes merely as background to a more important activity. The term sexposition was coined because of the show's propensity to provide exposition - crucial information, against a backdrop of sex and nudity.

I looked forward to the House of the Dragon (HotD) premiere and I wasn't disappointed - I loved the first episode.

But it reinforced my observation that mere sex doesn't guarantee sexy times.

Two scenes in the episode feature lots of sex and nudity, and both are situated in a brothel.

In the first one, Daemon Targaryen (the excellent Matt Smith) cannot reach climax, despite much humping and grunting. The whore is very understanding and knows her client. She offers him a woman with silver hair, Targaryen hair, to help him along. Ouch.

The second time we’re in this brothel there’s an orgy going on. This time Daemon is removed from the action - he paid for it and orchestrated it, but he doesn’t partake. There’s tons of romping– but the feeling is of a meat market, none of the acts is a real turn-on.

A third scene has no hint of nudity, yet I found it to be the most sexually loaded scene of the episode, and a disturbing one at that. It is between Daemon and his much younger niece, Rhaenyra (the wonderful Milly Alcock).

It’s clear these two like each other – he is her uncle, and he brought her a gift – a necklace of Valyrian steel. The young girl turns around and bares her nape for her uncle to adjust the jewelry. It is a very suggestive setup, especially when you think back about the Targaryens’ habit of aunts sleeping with their nephews (Daenerys and Jon Snow spring to mind), and brothers marrying sisters. That and the whore's suggestion seem to point in a very clear direction.

Did you watch the first episode? Do you agree with my hypothesis of a future union between this couple? Do you share my surprise at how well-built Matt Smith is?

The $64.8 billion scam

The 64 billion in the title marks the largest Ponzi scheme in history. (A Ponzi Scheme is when an investment manager takes your money and instead of investing it, they give it as a return to an earlier investor.)

And you guessed right – the largest scam in history was run by Bernie Madoff.

He may have been the largest but he was by no means the only one, and the subject I want to talk about today is how to avoid being financially scammed.

The SEC had been investigating Madoff and his securities firm off and on since 1992, yet despite numerous red flags, they never dug very deeply. As Diana Henriques wrote in "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust”: “The lie was simply too large to fit into the agency's limited imagination".

In the end, it was Madoff himself who broke under the pressure in 2008, confessed to his two sons, and was arrested.

So how did his scheme grow too large for the SEC’s “limited” faculties?

Madoff had real investing chops. He an expert in market making and a pioneer in electronic trading.

A couple of emails ago, I recounted the case of Elizabeth Holmes and her use of ‘marquee names’ to lend legitimacy to her big fat lie of a company, Theranos. Madoff didn’t need that: he was his own marquee name.

He cultivated an image of exclusivity, often turning clients away. He created a front of generosity, wooing investors through his charitable work.

He had no scruples, however, to demolish organizations like the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Peace and the global women's charity Hadassah – who both lost most of their funds when Madoff went under.

So, if everyone was fooled, how can I claim that in the space of one short email I’ll teach you how to avoid being scammed?

Because there are real warning signs and all you need to do is heed them.

Here are the main red flags:

1. Is the fund transparent? Can you check it out and cross reference the info you’re given?

2. Does it have an external accountant and is it a known name? BM's fund was notoriously vague about its accounting and used an internal accounting firm (which had exactly three people in it).

3. Does it always deliver positive returns? That in itself is very suspicious.

Most important–and I know I’ve said it in previous emails- even if you do think this fund is legit, don't put all your money in one basket.

DIVERSIFY.

Spread your hard earned dineros with different money managers. Then, in the rare case one of them is a thief (most of them are honest), you won't lose all of it.

Why do we need sex scenes

“Why do we even need sex scenes?” is a common enough question.

I know, some of you may feel that the actual issue is why there aren't MORE of them.

The thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone ask, “Why do we need fight scenes?”

Yet they are quite similar to love scenes.

Two (or more) people enter a fight scene. During the fight, they will test their mental strength, their skills, exchange banter, perhaps trash-talk, and eventually get pretty up close and personal.

Very much like a sex scene.

The major difference is that when a fight ends, there is a winner and a loser.

I love the Orphan X books, I’ve read them all. The hero, Evan, is a vigilante, an assassin turned justice fighter. Towards the end of book 1, there is an elaborate fight scene that is extremely long (twelve pages long!) where, at no point, there is the slightest doubt that our hero will emerge triumphant. We don't read it wondering about the outcome just like we don’t read romance doubting the Happily Ever After.

What makes this fight redundant is that, though Evan leaves it injured, essentially nothing momentous happens to him - he hasn't gone through a big emotional upheaval or discovered new truths about himself. The plot hasn’t moved forward. This specific fight could be as short as a gunshot. It would have made no difference.

But sex scenes happen for a reason–to leave a trace on the hero or heroine’s soul. Even if the characters tell themselves, and each other, that this means nothing, that’s never true. The reader knows it even if they don’t.

Here, too, the details matter. Where they touch, the glances exchanged, the sighs and caresses–because the specifics, same as in a fight scene, create the intimacy.

Unlike a fight scene, there is no need for a definite victor.

And, this may be the most important reason to have sex scenes - they're FUN to read.

I always include steamy scenes in my books, I believe they add and enhance my stories.

The tale of the Magical Japanese powder

Let’s start with the free stuff.

I have joined other fellow steamy writers, to bring you hundreds (167, to be exact) of samples, excerpts, and free romance stories. I’ve scheduled this newsletter with Canada Day and the 4th of July weekend for the Americans and Canadians among us, who will now be able to celebrate with some steamy reads.

Last week, here in Israel, a big financial scandal broke: 120 million NIS (that’s around $35 million), had gone down the drain and into the pockets of scammers. My first thought was: Oh, I want to use this story in one of my books!

Then I shook my head in frustration. The story was too out there - my readers would think I lost it and that I’m just making up fantastic stuff now.

Read on and see if you agree.

This scam was instigated by Adi Cohen, a materials engineer by training, a big man with a confident manner. He claimed to have access to an innovative metal - a Japanese magical powder which would enable the auto industry to produce lighter cars, and battery manufacturers to make batteries run for more time.

Totally plausible, right?

Cohen prepared pretty-looking PowerPoints, and showed potential investors term sheets for multi-billion dollars deals with Toyota and Sony. He had brokered them, he said, through a Japanese middleman named Suzuki. (I’m not making this up, I swear).

And, amazingly, it worked. Adi Cohen convinced a long and illustrious list of venture capitalists and high-tech angels to give him millions of dollars.

What made these seasoned investors give him, and not another entrepreneur, their money?

Cohen used ‘marquee names’, distinguished personas with gravitas who generated trust. Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, recently convicted of investor fraud, had people such as George Shultz and Henry Kissinger on her board. Cohen, too, recruited Israeli royalty, and partnered with a legendary Israeli Chief of General Staff.

Is there a cautionary tale here? of course there is.

No matter how confident the entrepreneur is, or how respectable his supporters are, everyone assuring you of riches just waiting to be ploughed. You should remember that Start-ups are the riskiest, most illiquid investment there is. Years pass by before a return is made.

If you decide to invest, do so with money you can bear to lose in its entirety, and more importantly - don’t invest it all in one company. Diverse!

And on that cheery note–here again is the link to a diverse selection (see what I did there?) of steamy stories – well worth the investment of your time.

Enjoy!

​

My book is out! on to the next one...

My book is live! On March 31st my book 'Crunching her Numbers', the love story of Kelly, Slava, and Ilan came out into the world.

For months, I have readied myself for this release, but when it finally happened–it was so much more exciting than I had expected. Also, extremely anticlimactic at the same time.

Go figure.

And now I need to move on and finish writing the next one.

My next book is called 'Analyzing her Assets' and it happens in the same ‘universe’ (hello Marvel), as my first book: The financial world of Tel Aviv.

The heroine, Tamar, is a financial analyst, who works for the largest money manager in Israel. And she is the best of them all. For the last three years she has won the in-house competition.

But this year–there’s a new talented analyst, Gideon, an annoyingly handsome guy, who gives her a run for her money.

As always, there will be steamy sex scenes. Spicy and original. I already wrote some of them. I have broad notions for a couple more, but could always use fresh ideas.

So, here is where I ask for your help:

Do you have a favorite fantasy (which involves only two people…), that you believe would make for a truly steamy scene? If you’re willing to share, I’d love to hear it. Needless to say, you’ll get full credit if I end up using it! Also, I'll share with you one of my new scenes for the book, and get your ideas on how to improve it (:

Email me at ,Miasivanauthor@miasivan.com and let me know.

I wish you a Happy Passover, a Happy Easter, and Ramadan Kareem,

Mia

Bonus Epilogue

Hi,
I'm writing this post just to let you know that I wrote a bonus epilogue for Crunching her Numbers. It takes place a year after the book's epilogue.
Kelly, Slava and Ilan explore their relationship further. And by explore I mean...well, you know exactly what I mean.
Steaminess guaranteed.
By clicking on the link below, you'll be joining my newsletter and getting the free bonus epilogue. By subscribing, you’ll be the first to know about bonus content, reveals and exclusive giveaways.

Here goes:

https://expert-artist-7801.ck.page/8d...

Black History Month - A book recommendation

This blog entry is mainly a book review. It is of a book I’ve read by Alyssa Cole – a historical romance about the American Civil War. I chose to write about it because, as Cole herself writes in her author’s note- “…is it even history, really, when the effects of it still vibrate beneath the surface of American life?”

I relocated to Uruguay in South America with my family when I was sixteen. Israelis, all over the world, traditionally attend American schools (Europeans in Uruguay attended the British School), and I joined The Uruguayan American High School as a Junior.

During History lessons all my classmates assured me how lucky I was to have missed last year’s curriculum - the entire tenth grade was devoted to the American Civil War. My friends all shuddered in unison when telling me about it – and I get it. Not only is the subject painful but it is also, more than a hundred years later, painfully relevant.

However, having missed all of my school’s classes about the Civil War, my knowledge about it stems mainly from popular culture - books and movies. I love Alyssa Cole - she is an amazing writer. When I discovered she has a series of historical romance novels about the civil war I immediately decided to read them – to enhance my knowledge of the subject. I recommend reading them not only for the sizzling romance and steamy sex scenes, but for the educational experience as well.

,An Extraordinary Union – A Book Review

This is the first of three historical romances written by Cole about the American Civil War.

When approaching historical fiction, I, and every other reader, have a set of expectations. I expect the great scheme of events to be accurate: From the fact that the Battle of Ford Sumter was lost by the North to the clothes, food, music, and even the brand of soap used by the heroine. The norms that ruled the times, the language, the habits – all must be reflected in the thoughts and emotions of the novel’s characters. Cole’s book delivers on all fronts.

It is January 1862 in Richmond, Virginia. The North has blockaded the Southern town, and supplies are running dangerously low.

Malcolm McCall works for the great Pinkerton Detective Agency as a spy. Elle Burns is a black free woman who volunteered to spy for the Union as well- as a house slave in the townhouse of the governor of Virginia. Cole has based many of the characters, including those of Malcolm and Elle, on real people. The Rebels are trying to break the blockade that suffocates supply lines and both Malcolm and Elle try to learn about it and convey that information to the North.

Elle is a prodigy, a genius. Not only does she have a photographic memory, but she also thinks fast on her feet. Malcolm is a charming Scotsman, and we all know that Highlanders are irresistible. Enough said. Their chemistry is combustible. Their romance brings home, more than once, the huge status difference between a white man (still the most powerful ethnic group on the planet) and a black woman.

The plot is flawless. You know there is an HEA but you still doubt it, the action is unstoppable until the very last page. A fascinating, sexy and compelling read.

How I got back my creative juices

A woman, by Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925),

Last March I lost my mojo.

There are prolific writers who write thousands of words every day and several books a year. I see them on Facebook in various authors’ groups I’m in, and on Amazon where they release books with regular, clockwork consistency. I envy them but I realize that it is futile to want or strive to be like them. I have my own rhythm which is slower and more laborious. Still, it is a rhythm, a continuous flow of ideas and work.

But last March, something unexpected happened. I had just finished the fourth draft of my novel, the one I was working on for much of last year, the one I’m preparing for publication towards the end of 2021. I sent it to beta readers and was left in a sort of limbo.

I couldn’t get any useful idea in my head, neither could I plan any plot, deliver a newsletter, post a blog entry.

I think it was a combination of the internal and external - the fourth Israeli election in just under two years was about to take place and it looked like my side was going to lose, yet again.

Be that as it may I couldn’t pen a single word.

Then, a promotional email landed in my inbox. A writing contest was taking place and for a $50 fee, writers were invited to publish their work online and get critiques from fellow competing authors and judges.

Normally, I would have ignored this, there are numerous contests going on all the time, whether for free or for a fee, all vying for our words. But something about the promise of getting both a peer review and a professional critique captured my attention - I’m a novice writer and my stuff isn’t read by many people. Every pair of eyes is a bonus. It was the last day to enroll - I had no time to chew on it. So, I committed the fifty dollars.

Propelled by the thought that I now needed to justify the expense, I sat down to produce the short, themed story they were asking for.

Here is a quote from the contest’s guidelines:

“The theme of this contest is Life vs. a Fate Worse Than Death. Turned into a werewolf. Narrowly escaping being eaten alive by piranhas. Doomed to a long life wracked with guilt. Whatever the “fate worse than death” in your story is, there’s no question that the stakes are high. “

The theme and the 1,500-word limit were actually liberating. I managed to commit words to paper again, to write a story.

Being a Romance author that incorporates erotic elements into her story-telling I wanted the ensuing short story to reflect my essence as a writer.

I later found out that since the hosting site was not restricted to 18+, Erotica wasn’t encouraged. My story is attached to this email, and you can judge for yourself whether a trigger warning is warranted.

The idea of a restricting marriage, a loveless, arranged marriage from the woman’s point of view suggested itself right away. Many marriages, especially before modern times and the ability that was given to women to earn their own bread and to divorce, were a life sentence. They constituted, for many women, a fate worse than death. Because I enrolled late I had little time to develop my story, I had less than a week. I needed to rely on strong source material, one that has no copyrights on it – yes, you guessed it - the Bible.

I won’t tell you who the story is about, so as not to spoil the ending. If you like it, or wish to pass your own critique on it, please write back, I’d love to hear from you.

Enjoy!

Book Review: Subversive by Colleen Cowley

Romance, magic, and plenty of action – this book is unputdownable.

Peter and Beatrice know each other from childhood but their fortunes have reversed – he is now rich whereas she is relatively poor. He can do magic. She thinks she cannot. They are drawn to each other and work together despite their differences. Their romance is believable and worthy. The world building - America that discovered magic post WWI and so managed to prevent WWII - is immaculate. The pace is fast. All these reasons suffice to pick up this book and gulp it down in one reading.

The other excellent reason - the book's politics. The women in Cowley’s America supposedly cannot perform magic, hence they are deprived of many rights. They are allowed to go to college only until they hit a certain marriageable age. They have no access to birth control (nor do men, there is an illegal black market for condoms), and give away their few rights to their husbands once they marry. All of these, as you may have noticed, has nothing to do with the ability to perform magic, or any other task for that matter.

For me Subversive is brilliant because it made me think. It got under my skin for sure. As a liberated woman of the 21st century, I want to believe that I am secure in my position that I have nothing in common with the lot of Cowley’s heroines. The truth is that Patriarchy, dictating women’s rights, their limits of owning and earning is still prevalent in so many areas. In Israel of the 21st century the representation of women in the legislative body of the Knesset is so low that we take the 91st spot in women’s representation - right underneath Kazakhstan. There are two religious parties that do not even allow women to be elected. How far removed are we really from Cowley’s women?