K-lee Klein's Blog: Chaos in the Moonlight , page 23

Tattoo Tuesday - Adam Levine (slight nudity)

Another rocker edition Tattoo Tuesday from me - what a shock.

Adam Levine - born March 18, 1979 - Maroon 5, The Voice.
Talented, out-spoken, charismatic, hot, gay activist, yoga-lover, tattoo enthusiast - what's not to love, right?

Adam himself is not gay - as you can see by the pics with his girlfriend (whose name he has tatted on his knuckles) but his brother Michael is.  In July of 2011, Adam did a video for the It Gets Better campaign - that's pretty spectacular brotherly love, don't you think?

On to the pretty pictures.








The whole hands behind the back think fascinates (and hurts) me


And the piece de resistance

It's not often you'll see a chick on my blog but I'm just showing Adam's fingers. :)

Adam and his brother Michael - cute right?


It Gets Better


And it just wouldn't be Chaos in the Moonlight without a couple videos :)(very young Adam)

Music Monday - Three Days Grace

Three Days Grace - fabulous Canadian band fronted by the more-than-gorgeous, Adam Gontier, who has to be like seven feet tall - or he sure looks like it on stage. I can't really put their music into a specific genre box - rock, alternative. There's nothing fluffy about them, their music is a little dark and tense, and so are their videos.

Adam has an amazing voice that sends shivers down my spine whether he's belting out something hard and fast or purring emotively into the mic. Their songs are hard-rocking, emotion-building, but also involve some pretty intense issues and problems. I've had the pleasure of seeing them many times in concert and they put on a fabulous show. If you ever get a chance to see them - GO!  Here's a couple faves.

One Life - don't stop living it

I told you all about Hedley in one of my other posts and when I found this video today, I thought it was the perfect message. Perfect for today when my age passes from one number to another and every other day that I, and anyone else, needs a boost or encouragement to live the life they want to live. Hope you enjoy. :) And thanks for all the birthday wishes - you guys rock.

Suit up Sunday - WETsuits

This week's suits are brought to you by the lettersW-E.T.(some men just don't know how to wear them properly - thank God for that)

Anthony KiedisNice form, babe

Eric Balfour (from Haven)Wouldn't call that plumber's crack

Gerard ButlerWork it

Jason Mamoa (Conan - slurps)(I'm sure the suit he's wearing is wet)

Trevor Wright (from the awesome movie Shelter)

Ross Thomas (also from Shelter)

Trevor Donovan

Chris Hemsworth (Thor)Just needs his long hair back

Mario LopezFunny wet boy

Eric Dane (Gray's Anatomy)McSteamy indeed

Matt Lantnor

I swear this beauty had a wetsuit on when I posted this :)

Reviews for Love & Patience

Reviews. You want to see them but at the same time you don't. To be perfectly honest, they scare the crap out of me and I've had so many authors say not to read them or if I do, don't put a lot of merit into what they have to say. That's hard to do because when you send your words or your art - short story, novella, novel, poem, painting, drawing, whatever- out into the world, it's like sharing your baby, something you've created with your heart, and of course you don't want anyone saying bad things about your baby, right?

The hardest part of reading reviews is hearing that something didn't make sense in the story, something that you were pretty sure did make sense but either the reviewer didn't quite understand or maybe - gasps - you, as the writer, didn't make clear enough on the page. When I closed the proverbial book on Love & Patience, I knew there was so much more I could do with it, but since I'd already gone over the allotted word count of 5000 (by 3000 - oops, sorry Sam), I did what I could to make the story what it needed to be. And to be honest again, I liked where it went and how it ended. There are a lot of loose ends to be tied up, as well as a lot of exploring I can still do with regards to Anael and Del and I've already decided they need to tell the rest of their story in a sequel. They're dancing around in my head, giving me bits and pieces of themselves and that's fabulous, but it's finding the time to fit it in with everything else I'm writing, that's the problem.

I hope this doesn't make anyone uncomfortable about reviewing anything I'm written because that's not my intention. I want reviews. Reviews make me see what the story could have been, what I could have written better, or in the best case, that I did a good job. So even though I'm still scared to death every time I see one, I'm still thankful that someone took the time to read what I've written.

Here are the two reviews I've received for Love & Patience.

Hearts on Fire Reviews - Love & Patience 



Brief Encounters Reviews - Love & Patience
B- (or on GoodReads scale 3.75 upped to 4)

Valentines Blog Hop - prizes galore

I'm doing the Valentines Day Blog Hop which has recruited over 230 fabulous authors, over 30 of which also write m/m. Each author does their own give-away and there are some great prizes so if you have a little time, bounce on over to the Events page and start hopping. :)

Valentines Day Blog Hop Events Page

Of course I'm doing my own hop here - so if you leave your name and email address (and maybe a little message would be nice too) I'll be doing a draw for one copy of Theme of Hearts and one copy of Love & Patience , both of which are my Valentines shorts. If you have a preference, you can leave that in your comment too. :)

        
As for Valentines Day itself, I'm not much of a romantic person in real life but that is one of my favourite aspects of writing and usually reading, as well. It's no secret that I'm an emotional person so that aspect of romance and love is something that makes my heart ache and my eyes tear up - in a good way. I think the best Valentines' Days I had were best for me when my kids were small, when I spoiled them rotten even more than I do now - cards, chocolate and always some kind of gift like a game or My Little Pony or Transformer. That's the kind of love that is so important in my life - my kids' love. 
Though I'm not a romantic person in my real life, I'm definitely a romantic at heart, and I can totally get hooked on love songs and ballads. Music in itself is an emotional thing and when the music and the words inspire me to write, that's all the better. This is a great love song by Staind, one of my faves, complete with lyrics. Enjoy. 


My birthday is this weekend (groans) so I'm assuming we'll go out for dinner - sushi, of course - but other than that I expect it to be uneventful. Baby boy had a gig last night so that was a lot of fun, though I'm getting way too old for these shows that don't start until after 10pm - yawns. I'l stop rambling now - you and your peeps have a great weekend and remember to hop!
(The hop runs from February 11 - 14 and each author will draw their own winner so make sure to leave your name on as many hops as possible for the best chance to win - AND don't forget to leave your comment here, as well)

Flashback Friday - The CULT

The cult emerged in Britain from the forming and disbanding of several other bands in the mid-80s. They crashed onto the scene in 1984 with their single "She Sells Sanctuary" - a song I still have to get up and move to even now.  They could never really be considered one particular style of music - picking up the pseudo-mysticism and Native American obsessions of the Door, the guitar-orchestrations of Led Zeppelin, the three-chord crunch of AC/DC, and adding some touches of post-punk goth rock.

For me, it was the Doors influence and more precisely Jim Morrison aura that lead singer Ian Astbury had going on. He was sexy and bendy and could belt out a song to precision with that unique sultry voice of his. He even became part of a band called The Doors of the 21st Century in 2002. Astbury and original member, Billy Duffy, reformed the band a number of times and as of now are preparing for a new album to be released in May of 2012. I still really love their sound.

The Cult - 1985



The Cult - 1989



The Cult - 1991

New Release - Theme of Hearts is out!

Theme of Hearts: Glitter Fox .5, my short sequel to Outfoxed, is out tonight - a little early, but hey, I'm not complaining. It stars two of my favourite rock stars, Gage and Rylan, and explores their relationship a little bit before the sequence of events in Outfoxed. 


I'm hoping Theme of Hearts will give a little more insight into how they both think and react to each other, as well as being more than a little mushy and sexier than hell. (hopefully) I already have the next instalment half-way done so I'm hoping this one will encourage my readers to want to follow them a little longer. ☺


Blurb

Gage Galeano's career is soaring: he has his best friend, lover, and bandmate by his side and Glitter Fox is everything they always wanted their band to be. Their latest concert was a success, and Gage is so high on life he can almost forget it's his least favorite day of the year. 

Almost.
But Gage's plans to forget the day exists are scrapped when he's enticed into a car by an usual word. Rylan Rivers knows that Gage hates the dual meaning of Valentine's Day, but he's determined to make this year's dreaded day memorable in a very sexy way.

Buyee Linkee - THEME OF HEARTS

Thoughtful Thursday

Been doing some pondering - not always a good thing for me, more not than good actually. With a horrible weekend behind me and an even worse Monday, I saw my therapist yesterday.

It was a good appointment, we've worked up a good rapport (I totally just tried to spell that repoire - ack - twice) and once I got used to her sort of brash, in your face manner, I've been finding her helpful. That in itself is odd because usually female anythings don't do it for me - doctors, nurses, shrinks, you name it. We discussed my slip up on Monday and did the pros and cons of what happened. It turned out to be more in the pros column which was a shock but great surprise for me. Basically what I did, got me to group where I needed to be and it always jumped started something in my head so I was able to get "out of my head". Tuesday and Wednesday were much better days, more productive and calmer emotion-wise. So despite the failure it was to my skills set, my action had some benefit which is a relief.

One thing my therapist did ask me was since I have two releases out this week - how was I celebrating? I paused for a very long time - mind searching for some way to celebrate but more importantly, some reason for celebrating with the release of two very insignificant short stories. And unfortunately, that's how they seem to me - insignificant in the land of m/m where authors who write novel-length works are my heroes and also my intimidators. Due to all the batting around of insecurity and excuses of why my "short stories" were inadequate and silly in the sea of "good stories", I had no answer for her. So she told me what to do - "go out and by yourself some flowers". I thought she was damn crazy - not that I'd never bought flowers for myself in a casual way but to buy them specifically for something I'd done, something I should be proud of - preposterous, especially since it always confuses me whether I have anything to BE proud of.

I'm not sure what it is with me that having two under 10,000 word stories coming out just seems lame because I love other people's short stories and don't feel they are lame or inadequate or insignificant. Finally Home was 30,000 but it still seems small pittance to me compared to anyone else's work. I'm not sure how to get out of this mindset. I mean I do have WIPs that will be considered novel-sized when I'm done, but I'm not so sure if even those will strike some achievement chord in me. Is that something you have earn or learn?  Anyhow, as you can see I did buy the flowers and even wrote myself a little card - my family all think I'm nuts but that's nothing different.

My birthday is in 3 days - not something I ever look forward to, plus there's Valentines' Day which, with the state of my marriage, is definitely no big deal. How about someone just give me this, just for a day and then I can be content. ☺
PS - did you see him on Glee - and no I don't usually watch - but BAZINGA. He made me so happy I cried.

Release day for Love & Patience and some pretties

My new release is out at Less Than Three Press today - February 8 (oops, it's out tonight - yays!). Love & Patience is part of the Kiss Me Quick series at LT3 along with some other fabulous short stories written just for Valentines' Day. Check them all out.


I'm sure I've already pimped it enough but here's the blurb again, along with a short excerpt. AND since it's about an angel, I couldn't refuse posting a few angel pics. :)


LOVE & PATIENCE blurb


One week out of every year the angel Anael spends time in a remote cabin with the human he loves—a human who does not know his lover's secret, who for the last five years has patiently waited for the day that one week might finally become one eternity ...


Pimping link --> Love & Patience at Less Than Three Press


Excerpt:

They'd been there before, at that exact point, under those exact circumstances, doing the exact same thing: bodies pressed together, heated, heaving, heady with need. But never any further. Anael had felt the subtle ache of temptation beat stronger each time destiny had led them down this path, each time he'd taken fate into his own hands and chosen to return year after year.

Del was older now, at least in human years, but the body covering Anael's was still hard and strong and beautiful. He'd never revealed the truth to the man he spent a week with every year, just spent the time he'd been allotted with his chosen being, appearing without a word and disappearing in the same manner—no promises, just one week of bliss. He'd always managed to restrain himself against Del's scent, touch, and thoughts, never allowing himself to soar over the edge of his full-blown lust. But every year his longing for complete sexual fulfillment, his yearning to be joined in love and lust with Del, became harder to control.

He knew right from wrong, knew the fine line between wanting Del, feeling him, kissing and touching him, and allowing himself to become an actual sexual being. He had responsibilities and obligations, had been taught and lectured about his role in the universe since he was a child and had been taken from his parents' home to be put onto the elite track of service. He'd never had a choice, always told he was special, that the normalcy of other angels' lives, the slip-ups and irregularities of their behavior, did not—would not—apply to him.

Anael's reputation and his willingness to push the envelope had encouraged the higher powers into allowing him to be somewhat physical with Del; to touch him, kiss him, enjoy the pleasures of the flesh to a certain degree. And he did enjoy their time together, had been enjoying it for five years, far too long. Five years of spending time with a man who made him happy, feel special in ways he'd never believed possible, feel human which was a total impossibility. Del loved him, and being the Angel of Romantic Love, Anael knew that for a fact, and in another turn of impossibility, he had fallen in love with Del.

He'd entrusted his feelings and frailty of heart with only one confidant, his mother, the one who'd raised him to still believe in true love and in the possibility for angels to find it. She had not discouraged him in believing and reveling in the true feelings that poured from Del's heart and soul, nor did she encourage him to go any further in his love. It probably helped that Anael's human had never tried to push the boundaries of what Anael was comfortable with, had never tried for more than Anael was willing to give.

Anael could feel Del's feelings engulfing him whenever they were together, could feel the warmth of being loved wrap around him more and more with each encounter, despite the full year between each of their meetings. Del had somehow hung onto those emotions, and they appeared stronger each time Anael spent time with him. He knew he had two choices with regards to the relationship, and it was a relationship to him, the only one he'd ever had, ever would have. He had to stop his annual visits to Del, to set him free and let him go or... the other option was almost unimaginable.

This first one is the fabulous art of Dan Skinner, of course








 This last one is the next tattoo I want - with different wings.