S.L. Armstrong's Blog, page 17

The Fluttering Anus

Sometimes, someone says something that has me shaking my head. A few weeks back, I witnessed a discussion where one commenter said they hated when authors said the anus fluttered. This commenter was met with several agreements. I just sat there and thought, have you never seen an anus during high arousal? Because I have. I’ve seen several. (And that doesn’t include the porn I’ve watched, but personal experience.) The anus, guys, flutters.

Or quivers.

Or clenches.

Or twitches.

Or whatever damn word you want to apply. The anus does it. Also? When someone comes, whatever’s in their ass gets clenched. Clenched or clutched or fluttered around or squeezed or whatever word you want to apply. Involuntary muscle contractions. Hell, even voluntary ones. From my experience as a receiver of anal play, my ass does some twitching, clenching, and quivering. The more aroused I am, the more it does it.

And the men I’ve had the privilege of ass play with have also done the same. So, I know it’s not just a female thing. You lift up someone’s legs, expose their hole, and watch it while teasing them, you’ll see it clench, relax, clench, and relax. If you don’t want to call that fluttering, you could say it’s winking. XD I said you could, not me. Me, I’ll stick to all the other lovely adjectives that don’t make me think of someone’s ass possessing an eyeball a dick is about to poke.

Now, it may just be an overused word, an overused sensation that is poorly described or handled, but to say it doesn’t happen is false. It happens. It’s part of sex.

The twitching anus is not a myth. I promise.

Hop Winners!

Wow, that was… amazing! Absolutely amazing! I know I need to reply to at least two dozen of you, and I will. I’ve been pretty busy this weekend. But, I do want to let you know the winners of the giveaway!

1st place prize: Cole

2nd place prize: Pati

3rd place prize: Lisa

All the winners have been emailed the details, but there you go! This was a great event, and I think it brought to light a lot of things for people. I can only hope next year’s is even better, and I can’t wait to be a part of it. Maybe next year I can convince my co-author to be a part of it.

Recipe Monday: Tzaziki Sauce

This was a recipe specifically requested of me. I’m Lebanese on my father’s side, so it’s a recipe I’ve been making a looong time. I love it. It’s awesome with just pita or for a dip with lamb or beef.

Ingredients

16oz plain, whole fat yogurt (I use Danon)

½ hot house/English/seedless cucumber (they’re all the same cucumber)

2-4 cloves of garlic

½-1 whole lemon

salt and pepper

cheese cloth or paper toweling

Now, you could just buy the Greek yogurt now available in most major stores. I don’t. Why? Because all of the ones I’ve found are fat free. I don’t like fat free. I barely tolerate low fat. There’s something about the taste and texture that I find off-putting. I buy the 100% natural, full fat, plain Danon yogurt. I take half that container (because I can only get it in 32oz containers) and set it in a strainer lined with paper towels or cheese cloth. I set the strainer over a deep bowl and shove the whole thing into the fridge overnight.

What you get is even thicker than Greek yogurt, and it has this silken, almost buttery texture I love. This is called labneh. It’s laban (yogurt) that has been strained (labneh). If you let it strain for a good day or two, you’ll get a farmer’s cheese. I know how to say what that is, but not how to spell it. XD It comes out sounding like ‘lebon-shtade’. That’s what my Siti and father call it, anyway, and since Siti was from Lebanon, I’m inclined to believe her.

Grate your cucumber. Add 1tsp of salt. Put it into a strainer and let it sit in your sink for fifteen minutes. Rinse thoroughly, dry on a bunch of paper towels.

Now that you have your labneh and prepped cucumber, you can make tzaziki sauce.

In a bowl, put your yogurt, cucumber, salt, and pepper. Start with two garlic cloves. Grate those (I use a microplane) into the mixture. Stir and taste. ALWAYS TASTE YOUR FOOD. If it’s not quite the garlic punch you like, add more, one clove at a time. When you’ve reached your garlic nirvana, begin with the juice of half a lemon. Stir it, taste. If you think there’s not enough lemon, add a little more salt, stir, and taste again. If you still think it needs more lemon, add it a teaspoon at a time. You don’t want it to be thin. This should be like a sour cream dip consistency.

Slap a lid on your bowl, put in the fridge. Let everything merry at least two hours. Overnight is best. Taste it again, make any more seasoning adjustments, and there you go!

Some variations call for olive oil, red wine vinegar, mint, or dill. I like mine pretty plain and old school, but go wild. Add heat, herbs, whatever. Sky’s the limit! It keeps about a week in the fridge.

Happy Kitchen Hamburgers Kit

This is going to have nothing to do with fiction, but it only happened because of Heidi Belleau. XD She posted up on Twitter this YouTube video of someone making this Japanese hamburger kit. I hunted it down, found a shop that sold the things, and waited for them to arrive. It’s the strangest damn thing. It’s all powdered, you reconstitute it with water, cook a few things in the microwave for like… 15 seconds, and then you eat it. And it tastes EXACTLY like the food it’s meant to be. I have pictures and comments for you, so enjoy!

Happy Kitchen Hamburgers. This cost me about $4.50, but because it was shipped from Japan, the shipping was steep. Still, it was worth it for us.



This is everything you get in the Happy Kitchen Hamburgers kit. A bunch of foil packets, a little spatula, and a small cup along with the mix tray.



You use the foil of the package. You cut out the little French fry container, the logo for the cup, and the little flags you attach to toothpicks for your hamburgers. So cute!



You start out with the French fries. They’re basically just dehydrated potato granules. They smell like instant mashed potatoes. It takes a couple of minutes to get everything mixed, as there’s very little water added, and then you press it into a thin sheet. The bottom is lined so that, when you turn the fries out, you just cut along the little ridges and you get mini French fries. We cooked ours in the microwave for 15 seconds since our microwave is like 1100 watts (and the package only gave instructions for 500 and 600 watt microwaves).




Then there was the meat. This, honestly, smelled like beef bullion and Worcestershire sauce. It was strong and unpleasant. It got smooshed into a little ‘hamburger’ mold.




The bread was gloopy, thing, and yeasty. It smelled like bread dough. You split it between the two remaining molds around the meat patty. Again, we cooked this for 15 seconds, and it was perfect.



The meat had this weird texture. It was sort of… gelatinous. Like a gummi bear or something. Very strange. The bread was bread, though.




The cheese smelled and felt like that cheese you get in HandiSnacks. Good ol’ processed, fake, American-style cheese product. You then had to mold it on the foil template, but after a few minutes, the stuff became firm and more like cheese, making it difficult to get it to be a perfect rectangle.



The ketchup was a little on the runny side and very vinegary. But, it tasted more or less like ketchup.



The kit all put together. Quite honestly, the cheeseburgers and fries and ketchup all tasted–more or less–exactly as they should. Textures weren’t 100%, and it certainly wasn’t hot and greasy, but they tasted like tiny hamburgers and little French fries. The cola, though, was disgusting. It had an initial fizz like Alka-Seltzer, which faded almost instantly, leaving you with this brown, flat, cola-esque fluid that was too bitter and artificially sweetened to be enjoyable. The cola tasted like a melted gummi cola bottle, only worse.

 

 

This is just a little video of me putting the product together at the very end. Enjoy!

Hop Against Homophobia: My Post

So, I’m partaking in the Hop Against Homophobia with like… 200 other blogs. I like the idea, and while I’m going to offer a M/M themed prize, I also think this hop should discuss all homophobia. It isn’t just gay men who face hatred, and just because we write M/M doesn’t mean we should forget the rest of the QUILTBAG.

I’m a bisexual woman who leans more to the lesbian end of the spectrum. Yes, I’m married. I’m married to a bisexual man. But R. has been only one of three or four men in my intimate life. I’m just not attracted to many men. I like women. The majority of my intimate partners have been women, and they will most likely always be women. I knew this about myself very early on in my life. My first girlfriend was one of my best friends in junior high school. It was bad enough being overweight in a school full of mostly average-to-thin individuals, but I made myself even more different by kissing a girl.

I’d been a victim of bullying because of my weight or habits since grade school (I was an idiot in the first grade and got caught picking my nose by classmates; I never lived that down). I thought I knew what it was to be ostracized and humiliated, but then I went and dated a girl. It was common for me to walk through the cafeteria and hear the popular kids snickering about the ‘dyke’. I don’t even think they really understood the word, what it did to me, but they used it anyway. Because I liked a girl, because I thought she was beautiful and smart and funny and so damn weird as to make me feel normal, I wasn’t to be treated like a human being with feelings and ears.

The relationship ended when I transferred schools in high school. Once that happened, a different close friend of mine became my girlfriend. I think she was the one that tipped off my mother that we were more than just friends. In high school, I also met my best damn friend, a gay man, who I still revere to this day. I remember walking home with him one day from the drugstore and, as a car drove by, some man screamed ‘faggot’ at us. He just shrugged it off, but I’d had ‘dyke’ leveled at me many times, and I wondered if it had hurt him as it did me, if he smiled just like I smiled because you just don’t know what to say in those moments.

From thirteen to seventeen, I had two of the three most important relationships of my life happen. I was sad when the relationship with my high school girlfriend ended, but by then, I had met the man who I would marry, and I couldn’t imagine a different life from the one I share with him. I’ve had female relationships since marrying, and I will probably have them long into the future. When I’m out with a girlfriend, though, eyes do gravitate toward us. Most adults, though, have the common sense not to shout dyke in a restaurant or snicker about the two fat girls holding hands. But you see it in their eyes, and I remember when it was like in that school cafeteria.

It makes me desperately sad to know that happiness can be so hated by others. My happiness, my joy in my relationships, is cause for scorn and ridicule and ugliness. My happiness doesn’t ruin someone else’s happiness, but someone else’s bigotry can ruin my joy. It’s high time tolerance became the mantra of this world, and I wish—so badly wish—that I believed it would be. But those same people who snubbed me in school and screamed mean things as they drove down the street are raising children. Children who will snub that gay boy in their class or throw a beer bottle out their window at the two women holding hands on a street corner. It’s generational, and it needs to stop.

Schools, churches, parents, grandparents, and strangers need to take up the banner and preach tolerance, acceptance, and understanding to the generation just now able to understand. With the government stripping away women’s rights, devaluing the lives of those who are not straight, and favoring the rich over the poor, we need to stand up and take control once more. Wash away the old and embrace the new. Embrace the diversity of love and life.

So, as part of the Hop Against Homophobia, I will be offering three prizes to three winners. All you have to do is comment here and I’ll draw three names on May 20th. I’ll post up a new blog post on May 21st with the winners, as well as send out emails to the winners.

1st Prize: $50 donation to The Pride Center, a Florida-based GLBT organization, plus an ebook copy of The Keeper, Rachmaninoff, Catalyst, or Other Side of Night: Bastian & Riley

2nd Prize: $25 donation to The Pride Center, a Florida-based GLBT organization, plus an ebook copy of The Keeper, Rachmaninoff, Catalyst, or Other Side of Night: Bastian & Riley

3rd Prize: Winner’s choice of The Keeper, Rachmaninoff, Catalyst, or Other Side of Night: Bastian & Riley in print or ebook (if in print, signed by K. Piet and me)

So, comment! You do a lot of good commenting, and if you’re one of the three chosen, you get a book to read, too. Awesome-sauce, right?

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs in the blog hop, and spread the word about International Day Against Homophobia. Things need to change, and bigotry and hatred need to be stopped, and the only way it can happen is if we all stand up and make it happen.

Guest Post: Bad Fae by Anna Mayle

I’d like to welcome Anna Mayle to my blog!

—

That is a title that is hard to concretely bestow since the Fae and their values are so different from our own.

To be sure there are those Fae who are more mischievous than others. Puck is a very popular example of a mischievous Faerie. Boggarts are another example, they’re house Fae who follow a family from place to place, they’ll chill people in their sleep, make milk go sour and hide things from the household. Phooka and pixies play practical jokes that can end in humans being injured, even killed. But they’re meant to be simple pranks. I suppose the difference is in the intent.

In Scottish folklore Fae are placed into one of two courts, Seelie or Unseelie. Concerning humans, while Seelie will warn first when a human has offended, and even offer and return kindness to mankind, Unseelie bring harm down upon man. Each side has their own code and concept of right and wrong and neither side is completely good or evil. In fact many just don’t deal with humans at all, preferring to stay far from them. But when forced to choose, the Unseelie will always harm a human rather than help one. Keeping that in mind I would suppose the Unseelie Fae would be as close to “Bad Fae” as we can guess.

Then there are the violent Fae.

It will be no secret, to those of you following my blog tour, that my favorite Fae is a very violent type. Redcap, I’ve been a fan of his since I read about him in a book of Faerie that I found in the basement. Granted, I changed a couple details about him in “Lullaby for a Stolen Child”, but the bloody, viscious spirit of Redcap I kept very much to tale.

Though, in older legends there is an entire race of Redcaps, more modern legends say he is a single and very territorial Fae who lives along the border of Scotland and England (the first detail I changed in my book), he lurks around the ruins of old castles and kills those who trespass in his territory with his teeth, claws or sharp scythe. Redcap is a fear form which means he grows stronger off of the fear of others, in fact some stories say he was created by fear and is fear himself.

Redcap is usually portrayed as an elderly man (my second change), short and stocky with sharp and plentiful teeth, long thick claws and heavy metal boots that while they slow him enough that he doesn’t outrun himself, still don’t hinder him enough to slow him to human speeds. He gets his name from his cap (the third change) which depending on the legend is either dyed red in the blood of his victims or made completely from flakes of dried blood. I thought the image of him running blood coated hands through his hair so many times it wouldn’t wash away was a bit more to the sexy side of the macabre.

The metal boots I left out as well, honestly because that part of the legend I’d forgotten. I regretted their absence for a moment but honestly, my interpretation of Redcap reveled in his power, so it makes sense in the end that he wouldn’t wear something to stifle it.

Maybe it was the blatant, even joyful destruction that he wrought, his pride in his violence that first drew me in. There is something intriguing and definitely sexy about someone so unapologetically true to his nature, bad as it may be. Combine that with the allure of the Fae, well…

Maybe that was why daybreak was so fun to write. I got to take an innocent into that darkness and then bring him out the other side. Between “Lullaby” and “Daybreak” I can’t say which was more fun to write.

But I’ve got to say, I love my Bad Fae.

—

Nearly a year since the nightmare at the cabin. Life for Daniel and Leinad hasn’t gotten easier, but at least there is something to say for familiarity. They fight, they threaten, but they love each other and in the end, that should be enough.

It isn’t.

When the shadows start stealing closer, and the past begins catching up to them, how long will the two lovers have before the Fae in Daniel emerges, and before Leinad has to face his own demons once again? Until the harsh light of reality engulfs the fragile world they’ve built for themselves?

How long will it be until daybreak?

Excerpt

“Daniel.” The soft, trilling voice sent shocks of agony straight to his temples.

A thick band of tension tightened around his head. He closed his strange new eyes and begged silently for it to stop.

“Daniel,” Leinad whispered again. The words were barely there, breathy. The soft, downy inside of his lover’s wings folded around him from behind, and he sighed as Leinad lowered both of them carefully to the bed. “Do not fight it. Don’t try to understand it. Whatever it is you see, it is not something humans are meant to process. You do not think like a Fae. Trying to grasp their worlds and ways will hurt you.”

“My head is killing me,” Daniel mumbled.

Leinad nodded against his shoulder and rested his face in the curve of Daniel’s neck. “I know.”

“Reading my mind now?”

Leinad chuckled. “You squint when you get headaches.”

Daniel tried to smile, but it felt brittle and impossible upon his lips. “I can’t… I’m terrified, Leinad.”

A soft mouth moved against Daniel’s neck, softer feathers caressed his chest, belly, thighs. “I am here.”

Long, tapered fingers slid slowly around his sides, teased their way to brush over Daniel’s chest and pulled him back harder against his partner. Daniel could feel Leinad’s interest pressed insistently against his tailbone. One talon tipped finger flicked the delicate nub of a nipple. Daniel gasped, Leinad moaned and nipped at the tender skin of Daniel’s neck.

“What are you doing?” Daniel asked stupidly. When did my mind and mouth lose their connection?

“I’m making you forget,” Leinad said calmly, and rolled his hips into Daniel’s ass. “I’ll make you forget your own name.”

“I already have.” Daniel choked.

Leinad’s motions stilled. “Damn you Daniel. The other Fae weren’t nearly as difficult to interest.”

“I don’t remember being Fae.”

The wings opened and Daniel yelped in surprise. Leinad grabbed, twisted, and straddled him all in quick succession until Daniel stared up at Leinad from his back. The cruel curve of his beak, wide golden eyes, round and knowing in a pale white face, filled his vision. Feathers flowed over his head and shoulders like hair. The hands holding him down were talon tipped and deadly.

Daniel’s cock danced at the proximity of the dangerous creature. It thickened, lengthened, the blood rushed into it in an attempt to make it hard enough to tear through the linen slacks the creature wore. Again, one taloned hand flexed, a deadly claw teased his nipple. Daniel squirmed and moaned. He needed pressure, friction, flesh. He needed Leinad, in all his terrifying glory.

“You feel it too, don’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. “The consuming pull, the want, your body craves mine as if you were made for me, of me. No matter what happens, you belong to me, my creature. So lie back and give yourself up to me. Fear me, need me, only focus upon me.” Leinad punctuated his command by rolling his hips and opening his fly to free his rapidly hardening need from the confinement of his pants.

Daniel trembled, a familiar yet strange moistness seeped from his puckered entrance as his body prepared itself. His anus opened and closed again and again, begged to be filled, to be brutalized, to be taken, owned, claimed. It knew its master just as his dancing cock did, just as Daniel himself did. Leinad glowed gloriously and Daniel wanted nothing more than to be the vessel to his need. He arched his hips up, and closed his eyes at even the slight friction that earned him. Without the strange visual world to distract him, the sensations were doubled and then some, and he keened at their strength.

“There, now you are ready for me, aren’t you.”

“Yes,” he whimpered. “Oh yes, please.”

“Please?” Leinad cooed. “You want me to please you, do you not?” He took Daniel’s hand and brought it to his huge, thick cock. The veins stood in stark relief against the magnificent shaft and the mushroom head leaked a thick, clear liquid that coated its length and pooled between them, made them slide smoothly against one another. “You want me to tear you open and live inside you, move in and out until you aren’t sure which you want more, the pleasure or the pain.”

“Yes!” Daniel begged and writhed for more, for the action those words promised. “Please fuck me.”

“I’ll fuck you into forgetting. Then I’ll go deeper. I’ll penetrate straight to your soul and saturate it with my seed. Body. Mind. Soul, all mine. You hear me? You’re mine!”

“Yes, sir.” Daniel trembled. Leinad stood and stripped quickly. Daniel didn’t even have time to feel guilt over the multitude of bandages revealed before Leinad was back. He tore Daniel’s pants from his body, scooped Daniel’s legs up to rest on his shoulders and surged forward until Daniel was bent nearly in half, begging in shallow, panting breaths, his opening wide and wanting. “Please Leinad. Please don’t be cruel to me, not now.”

“Never,” the creature promised and thrust with one hard jab, burying himself deeply into Daniel’s core.

Daniel cried out in perfect, blissful agony. “More!”

Leinad thrust again, and lights danced in the blackness behind Daniel’s eyelids.

“Mine. Say it,” Leinad ordered.

“Yours, I am yours. I am yours!” he sang brokenly while Leinad plowed into him again and again. Daniel might as well have been praying, for the worship he could hear in his own voice. The thickness inside of him was unrelenting, claiming, unyielding. He had no time to relax, to calm or think, barely time to breathe.

The speed behind those deep thrusts increased, and he was bent so far that his knees met his ears while Leinad blanketed him with his weight and rode him hard, wet and wonderful. A scream built inside of him, but he had no breath to give voice to it. Leinad pounded into him so hard that he slammed into the bed. It still wasn’t enough. Daniel reached down to grasp his own cock, but the force inside of him shook. Leinad’s cock rattled like a snake against his prostrate and before his fingers even closed around himself he was coming, twisted and covered and owned. It wasn’t romantic, but it was love, thick and hot inside of him. It bent him, twisted his soul to its bidding. “I love you,” he breathed.

Leinad came and pulled out at the same time. His semen coated Daniel’s legs and crotch as he retreated to the far side of the room and stared at him with those wide, inhuman eyes.

“Leinad?”

“Damn you, Daniel.” He choked. “You weren’t supposed to say it.”

You can learn more about my books and myself at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

And all of the previous books are also available for purchase at

http://www.resplendencepublishing.com... just click on the cover to the right of the screen.

Thank you ^_^

Recipe Monday: Bolognese Sauce

Trying to get back into the rhythm of things post-OutlantaCon. Today, being Monday, is a recipe day! I make this pasta sauce a lot. It’s one of my favorites, and it’s super easy. You just need a little while for it to all cook down and become thick. We love it here, and we interchange ground beef and ground lamb, depending on budget and what we want that night.

Ingredients

1lb ground lamb, beef, or pork

1 medium onion, diced

2 carrots, grated

1 rib of celery, diced

2 large gloves of garlic, grated

1 6oz tin of tomato paste

1C red wine

1TBSP honey

1tsp salt

1/2tsp pepper

1tsp oregano

1tsp reconstituted garlic powder*

1tsp red pepper flakes

1/2C to 1C water

In a dutch oven, brown your meat on high heat. And I mean brown it. It shouldn’t be gray. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to cooking. Let that meat cook. Let it caramelize. That’s where all the flavor is. Once the meat is brown, use a slotted spoon to remove the meat. Turn the temperature down to medium on the pot. In the remaining fat in the pot, add your onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. Use a pinch of salt to help the vegetable soften. Don’t get color on the veg, but cook until soft. Add your tomato paste and cook it for a few minutes. This is important to develop the flavor of the tomato paste in the dish.

Deglaze the pot with your wine. Let the wine reduce by half. Add the meat back into the pan and any juices that have accumulated in the bowl. Season with salt, pepper, oregano, reconstituted garlic, red pepper flakes, and honey. Cook for five minutes. Add water to moisten. You want the consistency to be a bit wet, but not thin. Simmer uncovered for about half an hour. The sauce should be pretty damn thick when it’s done. Taste it. Adjust seasoning to your taste.

I serve this over hearty pasta like rigatoni. Top with parmesan and you’ve got warm, hearty comfort food in under an hour.

* Reconstituted garlic powder is easy. Take your garlic powder and put it into a small dish. Add twice as much water (1tsp garlic powder = 2tsp water). Let it sit for five minutes. Bingo. You have reconstituted garlic powder. Why do you need to do this? Because this sauce has tomato, you need to reconstitute it before adding it to the recipe. The acid in the tomato paste will mean the garlic powder never fully hydrates, and therefore you’ll never have the best garlic flavor from it. Any time you need to use garlic powder in an acidic recipe, remember to reconstitute it first.

OutlantaCon 2012 Recap + Pictures!

From May 3 until May 7, I was out of town with K. and R. at OutlantaCon. Awesome. Simple as that. My experience was pretty limited mainly because I am massively antisocial and scared of people, but R. and K. seemed to have a really great time. I know we’re definitely going back next year. K.’s been accepted as a guest!

We got in Thursday afternoon and just sort of… crashed. We all took showers, ordered some food (OMG, the room service was the worst I have ever had), and did our nails. Elizabeth Hyder dropped by before room service got their asses in gear and delivered, so we talked, ate, and just hung out. It was a lot of fun. Shortly after Elizabeth left, we collapsed into bed for one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve ever had.

Friday, we rolled out of bed well before the alarm was set for. None of us had slept well. We had some food, pulled out clothes and makeup, and then got to work. Around 2pm, we headed downstairs to the dealer room and set up. We met Shae Conner, Kiernan Kelly, T.C. Blue, and J.P. Barnaby. Later in the afternoon, Violetta Vane showed up. It was so great to meet people I’ve been chatting with through email and Twitter! The day was pretty easy, not too much going on, and we chatted with several con-goers. Angelia Sparrow showed up with her minion, Gabriel, who we shared our room with. It was a lot of fun just chatting and laughing. We all went to bed around midnight-ish, but again, I didn’t sleep well at all.

Saturday arrived way too soon. We all rolled out of bed around 8am. We all dressed, did makeup, and then made our way down into the dealer room. This is where I stayed all Saturday. K. went to a couple panels, and R. went to a couple workshops, but I stayed and manned the table. We met Kayelle Allen, which was lovely, and Violetta Vane came back over to hang out for a while. There was more chatting with con-goers, laughter, pictures, and then I got sick. Like… blerg sick. I ducked out around 3:30pm, went to our room, and just stayed put. It seemed that I was having some weird allergic reaction on my leg from some unknown source, and then I just felt like crap. I stayed in bed, hung out with K., and was in bed by midnight. R. went to the zombie ball, and then stayed up until 5am with a bunch of the other attendees playing Never Have I and Truth or Dare. He had a lot of fun. XD

Sunday morning, I woke up sick as a dog. K. and R. ran the dealer table on their own that day. I had an awesome moment when a reader bought ALL my titles and had me inscribe and sign them. Another reader had me sign his copy of Other Side of Night: Bastian & Riley. It was a pick-me-up. Sunday was when Angelia and Gabriel bid us farewell. I really enjoyed sharing the space with them! Sunday was low-key for us once the dealer room closed and the con wrapped up. We had Elizabeth in our room again for more chatting and sharing of ice cream. She left after a bit, and then we started winding down for the night.

I think Sunday night was the night we all slept the best we had the entire trip. Monday dawned, we packed up and headed out around 11am. It rained off and on all the way back to Tampa.

K. and I received SO many compliments on our hair. It’s just ensured that every con we do, we’re going to do something wild with our hair. Over all, it was just fun, and I think next year will be even more fun for us. In the end, I met a lot of incredibly wonderful people that I definitely want to see again.

And now, it’s picture time! Just for ease, K. is the rainbow-haired one, I’ve got the longer hair, and R. is the boy with blue hair.

                               

Again, the con was awesome and we can’t WAIT until next year. !!

Off to OutlantaCon!

Well, Storm Moon Press is off to OutlantaCon! We’re vending there, so do come by our table and say hi. We’ll have books, posters, author packets, our From Storm Moon Press sample book, and a giveaway sign up for our mailing list. So exciting!

In preparation for this, I dyed my hair. XD Usually, it’s a gorgeous strawberry blonde shade… maybe even a light auburn. I’ve resisted dying my hair for almost two decades because the husband-thing absolutely loves my natural hair color. However, I decided… if I don’t do it now, I never will, and then I’ll spend the rest of my life lamenting the fact I never took the plunge.

We stripped my hair, added toner to it to make it white, and then K. spent hours dying various layers and strands electric blue, turquoise, purple, rose, and pink, leaving areas of the white, too. It’s so cool. I’m glad we did it. I then dyed K.’s yellow, blue, green, and orange. XD The tips of R.’s hair has been dyed the electric blue, too. We’re a colorful bunch! It was a bonding experience, what can I say?

So, due to being at the convention, there will be radio silence until May 9th. At that time, I’ll do a recap of the weekend plus pictures. Have a great time, everyone!

Dragons!

Mmm, dragons. I have a love of dragons. My dad used to have many figurines of dragons and wizards. I would spend hours staring at them as a kid. I collect them as an adult, too. I’m a sucker for dragons.

Which brings me to my biggest disappointment: dragon shifters in fiction.

The few books I’ve been interested in reading that star dragon shifters have been a huge letdown. I’ve sort of given up, really. Instead, I fantasize in my head about the time when I have nothing else to write and can devote my time to writing my dream dragon shifter tales. Ha, right. Which just means I have to make time in my schedule to write at least one book with dragons that I can be proud of.

Dragons are a huge part of my World of Egaea books. The Fire Elves have a subsect called Dragonlords. They form bonds with dragons early on in their lives and, eventually, they become a great weapon for the House of Fire. The Dragonlords are the warriors on the frontlines whenever there is a war to be fought. They are as revered for their battle prowess as they are shunned as possible mates to other Elves. The life of a Dragonlord is usually short and lonely.

The dragons in that world have the lizard brain. They’re huge, sweet, and pretty stupid. Maelog’s dragon, Hayden, is an adorable beast that is absolutely in love with Maelog’s lover’s hair. Darron is constantly batting Hayden away. Darron hates dragons, and Hayden adores Darron. It’s an amusing and somewhat sad relationship for Darron and Hayden that Maelog takes sadistic pleasure in watching.

Dragons are awesome, and I just wish I could see them used more creatively, given the glorious treatment they deserve. I think there may even be an anthology call in the future from Storm Moon Press. >.> A whole anthology full of dragons… oh, I would be in heaven!