C. Margery Kempe's Blog: Lady Smut, page 170

Male Strippers to Skydiving by Gerri Brousseau

I happened by chance to see a news magazine program the other night that talked about the evolution of the Bachelor Party. They talked about how the “stag” party evolved into the Bachelorette Party in the past ten to fifteen years.

Initially, the girls would get together and go out to dinner. Soon after that, they moved their parties to a local bar, which shortly thereafter turned into private parties involving male strippers or visits to male strip clubs. (Magic Mike anyone?)

Well, ladies … even those days are gone. The Bachelorette parties of today have gone extreme. According to this program, the daring women of today are looking for more of a thrill. Today the typical bachelorette party involves such activities as bungee jumping, riding a zip line and even skydiving. Yes, you heard me … skydiving. Now I know you ladies love the bride to be and would do just about anything to calm her nerves and make her happy, but seriously … skydiving? One bride even had the entire wedding party enter into a 5 mile race. Honestly, that scares me more than the skydive! Another had the entire wedding party playing a baseball game (not as daunting as the 5 mile race). Now I have gone bungee jumping, road a zip line and have 56 skydives under my belt, but I would not run 5 miles for anyone!

I wonder what happened to being thrilled watching men who look like Matthew McConaughey, Joe Manganiello and Channing Tatum taking their clothes off! Now that is a thrill!

I wonder, dear readers, what is the most outlandish and extreme thing you have ever done, or someone you know has done, for a bachelorette party?

Filed under: romance

Websites: Part Deux

Okay, so last week I mentioned that I was going to revamp my website and so I have started the process. I was actually a technology major in university and as such, I could probably figure out the coding for a webpage on my own—if I had time. Key words there, if I had time.

Now I imagine that many of you writers out there are similar. Unless you are making big time bucks or at least enough to afford a web designer/builder, you are trying to put together and maintain your own site. You’d prefer something low or no hassle, user-friendly and fairly quick. As I mentioned last week, there are several sites out there that offer hosting and website building. Many of them offer you options that are a bit more hands-on (for those of you who want that) as well as those that are easy and user-friendly. Previously, I used Intuit which was nice but required more work that I have time for. It gave me flexibility but what I really wanted was something that would take care of most the hard work for me, without sacrificing a nice look. I found that with Fat Cow, which if you purchase the basic package, pretty much provides you with standardized templates and easy drag and drop technology. Premium packets and builders provide you with more flexibility but that wasn’t what I was looking for.

Now, either way, there are some import things to remember when setting up a page. I can’t possibly fit all of them here so I’m going to list a few and provide you all some resources for further research.

While many of us will immediately think of things like layout and pretty templates (there are some great ones on wix.com), few begin to think of the more intricate things like site speed and what actually contributes to a fast site and why that is important. This article has some good tips on keeping your site fast and therefore within the “patience guidelines” of your viewers.

Websites are very much like presentations in the workplace. You need to keep them visually appealing and keep the content relevant and interesting. That means good color schemes and design, getting your point across on your pages in an efficient and effective way, branding your site so that it represents you the way you want to be represented and lastly, great navigation. Cyberindian.com has some great tips to help you with these designs.

The tips and websites I’ve linked you to today (and last week), should be enough to have you establish your own site and set up a great design. Next week, we’ll focus on blogs and reaching out to have portions of your website designed for you (banners, etc.)

In the meantime, happy writing!

Filed under: Business, Marketing, Toni Kelly

Feeling the Love – Guest Post by Sorcha Black

Writing a story is like reading the best ever choose your own adventure book.  Anything you’ve ever thought was cool or ever wanted to try, your characters can experience.  But with writing comes great responsibility.

I often joke that when I get to the end of a movie, if the writers haven’t convinced me that I care whether the main characters live or die, they haven’t done their jobs.

As a writer you bring characters from your head into the physical world, in the form of words.  These “people” have “lives” and “importance” to those around them.  For many of these “people” you may be the only real person who cares about them – or even knows about them.  As you write your story, your critique partner might care, too, if you’re doing it right.

Does the main character get the love interest?  Is there a plague of locusts?  Does the planet explode?

When your final revisions are done, have you managed to convince readers that they care, too?

Because that’s what fiction writing is all about, isn’t it?  It’s about whether or not you can get the reader to be emotionally invested in characters born of your imagination.  It’s about whether your characters take up residence in your reader’s head, or are quickly forgotten when the story is done.

Writers have many different ideas about what gets a reader attached.  Connecting with a fictional character shares many commonalities with connecting with people in real life.  There are many things that can help make a reader care about your characters.  This is by no means an exhaustive list:

Realism:  Personally, I have a hard time making friends in the real world with someone who acts like they’re perfect.  If your characters have no flaws, it makes it hard for intelligent readers to relate to them.  Is your character someone that people find believable?  Even if you put them through hell, do they retain their humanity and vulnerability?

Humor:  I have trouble getting close to people that don’t make me laugh at least sometimes.  Does your character have a sense of humor?  They’ll be more interesting if they do and will be easier to relate to.

Challenges:  Having a reason to root for someone often makes people feel more attached – although drama queens can be annoying.  Do your characters have things to overcome during the story?  Do they suffer?  Challenges also give your characters an opportunity to have their sparkling personalities shine through.

Emotion:  Becoming close to someone who you don’t connect with on an emotional level is unlikely.  Is the character someone readers can relate to?  Without complex emotion your characters won’t have life to your reader.  The emotional development of your characters is essential to ensure your story isn’t just a recitation of imaginary chronological events.  “And then… and then… and then…” only goes so far.

As a writer, you’re the only person who stands between your characters and complete oblivion.  They just want people to care about them.  It’s a big responsibility.  Make good choices.

Sorcha Black writes dynamic characters that pull you into far away worlds, grab onto your heart, and take you on a wild ride from start to finish. Her first book, Ein, releases Winter 2013.

http://www.sorchablack.blogspot.ca

@SorchaBlack

http://www.facebook.com/sorcha.black.3

Filed under: romance

Weekly Paranormal-Scope

While I’m not qualified in any way to read neither stars nor planets, I am intimately linked with the paranormal in the world.  In many ways, so are you.

The week ahead for:

Aries

Salamanders are the fire spirits.  Your life is heating up.  Be sure to keep cool.

Taurus

Shapeshifters have changed their ways to the softer kind…puppies and bunnies.  Take a cue and walk softly around others.

Gemini

A temple cat is walking by your side.  You are being protected.

Cancer

A vampire really wants your heart.  Be careful.  I hear they bite.  HARD!

Leo

A dragon yawns.  It’s only mistaken for a roar.  Someone in power is worn out.  Stay out of their way.

Virgo

A vampire thinks you are the greatest thing since blood chocolates.  Smile a lot.  People are noticing you.

Libra

Werewolves sometimes come in small packages.  Don’t underestimate the size of any gift.

Scorpio

Ever get a fairy song stuck in your head?  Don’t try to fight it.  Sing with the flow.  Good things are coming.

Sagittarius

The buzzing bee isn’t a bee.  It’s a pixie carrying good luck so don’t swat at it.

Capricorn

An elf loves you.  Dance in the moonlight as often as you can.

Aquarius

A mermaid you don’t know will be a powerful friend this week.

Pieces

Leprechauns have gifts you with good fortune.  Run with it.

–Susan

Susan Hanniford Crowley

http://www.susanhannifordcrowley.com

Filed under: Susan Hanniford Crowley, Weekly Paranormal-Scope

Revision

By C. Margery Kempe

Revision: it’s where the ‘real’ writing happens according to many writers.

“Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”

- Colette

Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do?

Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied.

Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

Hemingway: Getting the words right.

- Ernest Hemingway, “The Art of Fiction,” The Paris Review Interview, 1956)

“The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.”

- E.B. White, The New York Times, August 3, 1942

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

- Elmore Leonard, Newsweek, April 22, 1985

“It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and write it sentence by sentence–no first draft. I can’t write five words but that I can change seven.”

- Dorothy Parker, “The Art of Fiction,” The Paris Review Interview, 1956

“Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.”

― Raymond Chandler

“What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more. Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work that is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.”

-Susan Sontag

How much do you revise? How many drafts do you go through? When do you know it’s ‘done’?

Filed under: C. Margery Kempe, contemporary romance, erotic romance, inspiration, Kit Marlowe, What inspires you?, Writer's Life, Writing Topics

Way Too Much Stuff in My Brain & Contest

The arrival of my granddaughter has been amazing.  Penelope has inspired me to write.  Recently a friend inspired me to write.  The results have been instead of 6 books in various partial states, I know have 8.  I was sharing this with Gerri, and the nice thing  about having friends who are writers is that you can compare notes and brainstorm what to do about such strange dilemmas.  The two new ones are contemporary romances… something I told myself I would never write.  Just goes to show… Never say never.  I told her about them and immediately she said, “Write the second one.”   So by going over things with Gerri, I was able to formulate a writing plan.  What would be written first, second, and so on.

So having way too much stuff in my brain can be a blessing.  It’s a matter of organizing how I’m going to get it all out and into the world.

And of course, Marian, when I have it out, I will back it up.  (See yesterday’s post by Marian.)

–Susan

Susan Hanniford Crowley

P.S. The contest continues on the News page of my website  http://www.susanhannifordcrowley.com

Remember your secret word is ‘rattle’.

Filed under: romance, romance novels, Susan Hanniford Crowley, What A Writer Needs, Writer's Life, Writing Topics

The Importance of Backing Up Your System by Marian Lanouette

I need a few martini’s after my computer died.

I’m a little grayer this week after all my computer problems, caused by the dreaded virus. I often wonder what kind of thrills the sick minds get from creating them.  Is it a power trip? Do they benefit from it in any way? If I had the skills to create something like that, I wouldn’t be using it to create harm. I would use it for the good of all and still prove how smart I was.

If I heard this once, I heard it a zillion times, “Back-up your system.” I know, you to have heard this countless times, right? Do you back-up every night? If so, do you back-up only your current files or do you back-up your entire system? I do both.

This week, I found to my relief that my husband’s nagging about how I should back-up everything, every night has paid off. You see sometimes you can’t use the system back-up because the virus is embedded there. These viruses corrupt your system (registry files) not your data files, most times. That’s why you need to back-up your data files individually. Often, I only back-up what documents I worked on that day. And in this case, Monday’s back-up saved my life, well…my documents really. Tuesday, my system came crashing down. It was so bad…I need to reload the entire operating system; which put the computer back to factory new. It’s now as pure as the day I bought it.

Now, here’s the glitch. It came crashing down from a virus which was delivered through an email. The software could not do a restore from the system back-up because it would have re-infected the system. See it saves all files, including the virus. I was able to restore my books, documents, research files, excel files and my contact list because I did back them up individually to a flash drive, well several; because I’m anal.

A simple check of your system will tell you if your data files are corrupt. If they’re not, you’re back in business.

I’ve heard of the benefits of backing up to an online system, but call me old fashion, I’m nervous sending my copy write© files into cyberspace. How about you? Do you use an online system? And if so, which one? One other question, if you use an online system, do you still back-up to a flash drive?  I appreciate you sharing, it will help me chose a site in the future.

I also want to remind you that next Friday is share a paragraph day. I’m going straight for the middle of your work this time. So pick your paragraph. It will be page one hundred-fifty (155), paragraph five (5).

I can’t wait to read your paragraphs next week.

Filed under: romance

Fairy Houses by Gerri Brousseau

It’s July and our gardens are in full bloom; or at least they should be.  I discovered recently that there is something you could do to improve the appearance of your garden.  In order to have vibrant color and full blossoms, you need fairy dust.

Fairy dust!  How the heck do we get fairy dust?  Why, you build a lovely little fairy house of course.  These adorable little houses run the gamete from simple and easy to make to complex and more difficult.

How do you make a fairy house?  You need to take a walk.  Simple, right?  Pick up things you could either glue or fasten together to make a lovely little home for your garden fairy.  Some things which could be used are pieces of bark from trees that have fallen over, sticks or leaves.

A friend of mine made one which even had lighting.  She started with a round piece of a tree that was cut down in her yard.  She used a hot glue gun to attach bark and make a roof.  The interior of the little house had a small table made from a bottle cap, chairs made from thimbles, a tiny mirror and a bed made from a match box.  She strung small white Christmas lights in the interior of the house which seemed to give it just the right touch of magic.

You don’t have to get elaborate with your fairy house, but make it cozy.  If you are successful, a fairy will be sure to move in and your garden will become vibrant.

By now, your kids are probably bored and this would be a great project to get them involved in.

If you are interested in this type of project, here are some instructions.

Imagine your fairy house. Fairy houses can be short and fat, tall and skinny, simple and cottage-y, ornate and castle-y, rounded and soft, angular and dramatic, and so on. Decide which style you like before you start planning your design.

Sketch your fairy house onto a piece of paper. Think about where windows, doors, pathways, and chimneys might go. Remember, it needs to be physically possible to construct the fairy house, so don’t get carried away!

Decide what to build the house out of. You can use a milk carton, a birdhouse, cardboard, wood, or twigs to make the house structure. You can even transform a dollhouse into a fairy house. Remember that you will be decorating it at the end; even if you don’t like the way the structure of the house looks, you can cover this up later on.

Gather materials from the woods or your garden. Find leaves, mosses, branches, pebbles, acorns, dried grasses, and other natural items to decorate the house. If you plan to glue the house together, make sure the materials are dry; glue won’t stick to anything wet.5

Build a base for the house (optional). If you want to keep your fairy house indoors, it might be nice to make a base to set the house on. Take an old piece of cardboard or scrap wood and decorate it to look like an outdoor setting. Add moss to look like grass, twigs to look like miniature trees, and pebbles to look like boulders. You might even want to build the fairy house in a container garden.

Build your house. Glue cardboard, wood, and other materials together using a hot glue gun or perhaps wood glue. It may be too costly or time-consuming to make your whole house out of clay, but oven-bake clay is great for turrets or windows and comes in many useful colors. You can add towers by using paper towel tubes, toothpaste boxes, or whatever else you can think of. Ex:

Stack twigs like Lincoln Logs. Lay two twigs down parallel to each other, then lay two different twigs on top of the first two so that they cross them. (They should look like a square with overlapping corners.)  Keep stacking them this way until the walls are as high as you want them to be and then add a roof.

If building an outdoor house, make the walls and roof of the fairy house and then cover the whole thing with dirt or mud to make a rounded hobbit-house. Press flat stones into the sides to create walls and add moss to the top to make a thatched roof. Leave a hole where you want the door to be and add a hollow stick, reed, or piece of bamboo to make a chimney.   Press a few pebbles into the dirt leading up to the doorway to make a path of stepping-stones.

Create an inside world for the fairies. Cover the floor with sand, leaves, or moss to create soft padding. Make a hammock from the fronds of a fern or a piece of stocking and add scraps of fabric for curtains. Turn an upside-down tea cup or saucer into a table and use acorn caps as bowls. You can even add “wallpaper” made of dried leaves, leather, or hand-made paper. If you want to add furniture, you can either use doll furniture or make your own:

To make a table, for example, gather some dry twigs, both skinny and thick, from your backyard.  Cut four pieces and glue them together to form a rectangular frame that’s the size you want the tabletop to be. When this has dried, lay twigs across the top and glue them to the frame. When the top has dried, cut four pieces to the same length and glue them underneath to form the table legs.

Clay furniture is much easier to make but does not look as rustic. There are no real directions: just carefully mold some air-dry or oven-bake clay into furniture.8

Decorate the house with your findings. Once you have made your structure, you can decorate it with doors, vines, etc. Rustic and natural features will seem more realistic. Birch tree bark has a beautiful look and you can use both sides. Don’t forget to include landscaping!

Filed under: romance

Website Revamping

My website needs a major overhaul. It’s funny, when I set out to be a writer, all I thought of were the stories circling around in my mind, but after publishing one novella and hoping to potentially finish and publish other manuscripts, I’ve come to realize that being an author is quite a bit more than just simply writing (I say that with much sarcasm as writing is not simple at all).

Over the next few weeks, I’ll take you on an adventure (use your imagination for that one) on how to transform your website.

In my research, my first stop was a site which reviewed hosting/website building services and identified the top 10 out in the market. I chose to go with one called Fat Cow as it had the basic features I was looking for at a great price. Other ones that had great reviews were iPages, JustHost, Inmotion and GoDaddy just to name a few.  Take your time as you go through the reviews to really decide what meets your needs. There are so many hosting services and builders out there that you’ll definitely find one that works. I’d suggest trying the free trials offered as well to make sure you can use the software/builder each requires or offers.

Once you have your basic site established, you’ll want to start establishing a brand or look for the site.  This is an area that I’ve previously done poorly in (hence my reason for revamping my website) so it’s a bit of a learning experience as I go along. Next week, we discuss the look of websites more and where you can go to get more information.

Happy writing to you all this week!

Filed under: Toni Kelly

Another Awesome Movie Review by Leia Shaw

Yes, it’s that time again. Another awesome movie review by yours truly. Today I’m reviewing the historical gem, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

I wasn’t sure what to think of this movie going in. Hubby really wanted to see it and I’m game for any vampire movie plus I figured it’d be a good one to review for my loyal and devoted fans (gifts are always welcomed and encouraged, btw). So here’s the low down on Mr. Kick-ass President.

Plot:  We start off seeing Little Abe in his small village when slave traders come by and take his friend Will’s dad. Will starts getting beaten by a trader for trying to save his dad then little Abe jumps in front and tries to stop it. Thus begins Abe’s hatred of slavery. Watching his mother die from a vampire bite fuels a vengeful rage inside him that predictably lasts the whole movie until justice is served, cold, on a silver platter, with a silver bullet in its head, then burned because you can never be too careful.

As soon as he comes of age, he goes looking for the man responsible for his mother’s death and tries to kill him. Like all young cocky men filled with hate, he fucks it up. And it doesn’t help that his nemesis is a vampire. But these aren’t cute sparkly vampires that make you want to stroke their fangs. They’re not even dangerous ones that still have that sexy  I’d-like-to-fuck-you-cause-I-wanna-know-if-I’ll-survive-it side. These vampires eat True Blood vampires for breakfast. And not like the wimpy vampires like Jessica and Bill. But Eric and Russell Edgington, and yeah, throw in Alcide too. Fangs is a gross understatement. Piranha teeth is more accurate. Seriously, they don’t mess around. 

So the subject of Abe’s clumsy wrath doesn’t die even with a bullet to the face. The two fight, badly, and just when you think evil vampire is going to kill Abe and that the movie was a grossly historically inaccurate waste of money (as opposed to slightly historically inaccurate), a new character comes out of nowhere and throws the vampire around a bit until he runs away to make a significant appearance later in the film.

Henry Sturgess, is the name of this hero. And he hunts vampires. After a speech from Abe about why Henry should train him to hunt vampires too, Henry agrees as long as he does everything he tells him to and doesn’t seek revenge on his own. *snort* Yeah right. Anyway, Abe gets a silver-tipped axe, his ass kicked in training, and some words of wisdom from this mysterious friend.  The axe has to be the most kick-ass vampire hunting weapon I’ve never thought of. An axe. Who knew? Not only does it account for the gratuitous use of graphic violence (skip the popcorn for this movie folks), but it’s damn sexy!

Abe is a total dork. He’s tall and lanky and looks nothing like a hero. But when he wields that axe like some kind of…lumberjack ninja…phew! Get a fan, ladies. Well, that’s if you don’t mind the blood spraying from chopped limbs, crunching of skulls, heads sliding off necks, and other gruesome footage. But admittedly, I’m a little bit twisted.

The movie is highly stylized – which is a fancy way of saying there were a lot of slow motion parts and unique camera angles. Basically, the “cool factor.” I don’t know if that’s good or bad for you but most guys seem to like it so I thought it deserved a fair mention.

We meet a couple historical figures. Abe’s wife, Mary Todd. Somebody Douglas, a pro-slavery politician who helps start the Civil War. And Abe himself, who’s character stayed pretty true to history. He studies law while working as a clerk and he’s passionate about abolishing slavery. Except for the slicing heads of vampires at night (which has yet to be verified), it’s pretty accurate.

Here’s what’s really cool about this movie. I’m not a history buff. In fact, I’m the opposite of a history buff. If you tell me a historical fact I’m like “Ack! Don’t say any more! You’ll take up valuable space in my brain for important things like pop song lyrics and commercial jingles.” But this movie makes history cool. And it’s not just the fuck-yeah-for-spewing-brains cool. But it gives the backdrop for Abe’s inspiration in signing the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as other historical significant things like the Underground Railroad and some of his famous speeches.

The middle slogged a bit as he traded in his vampire-whooping axe to start a family and use the power of words to change the world. There were some profound moments of inspiration as well. “Power doesn’t come from hate. It comes from truth.” Or some shit that makes you stop and think, “wow. I’ve never thought of that before,” then gaze up at the sky and wonder if there really is a God and if so what does he think of the TomKat break up. But in all seriousness, what we’re given in this movie is a symbolic look at the destruction of evil and the beginning of a legacy. As Lincoln says to Henry, “Vampires aren’t the only things that live forever.”

So…a history lesson, over the top violence, and food for thought. This movie was the whole package!  

The final showdown between vampires and human, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, was by far the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Abraham Lincoln kicking vampire ass on top of a moving freight train with his trusty axe at age fifty. Fifty! It’s one thing for a spry man in his twenties to fight immortals, but a middle-aged politician? Now that’s bad ass.

Bottom line: If you love history and the thought of anyone taking a few liberties with it makes your eyes twitch or if vampire brains exploding from skulls makes you queasy, this probably isn’t the movie for you. But if you like drama that isn’t boring, being tricked into learning, and gratuitous bloodshed, grab some popcorn and 3-D glasses and enjoy!

As for me, I give it two thumbs up!

 

And just cause I think its funny…

Filed under: romance