Liz Everly's Blog, page 133

Sexy Saturday Round-Up

Hello Sexy! It’s Sat-ur-day! Woo-hoo! How about a little vibrator talk? Or maturbation-myth talk? What’s with New Yorkers NOT wearing condoms? Find out all of this and more with our weekly round-up.

From Liz:

A free e-conference for indie writers and publishers. IndieReCon looks fabulous. Check it out.

Research in the 21st Century by Jennifer Robson.

Masturbation myths that men have about women. (This is a Youtube clip.)

From Madeline:

Who’s hotter? Gay porn stars or straight porn stars?

And a thoughtful analysis ;> of what we all can learn from comparing gay and straight porn stars.

I simply couldn’t resist this blog all about love Canadian Style called Romance, eh? 

You KNOW you need these tips for the weekend! We Women.com’s 20 sex positions for partners with a huge penis.

From Bitch: The question is not “Are we ready for a Star Trek vibrator?” but “Is the Star Trek vibrator ready for us?”

From Elizabeth:

Are people forgetting about STDs? Majority of New Yorkers no longer wear condoms.

Well, this is just weird. Mattel’s not selling enough Barbie dolls. The solution? Put her in Sports Illustrated.

Information you don’t need to know: .

But here’s information you do want: what you should know about Kama Sutra.

From C. Margery Kempe:

Tom Hiddleston sings ‘Tinkerbelle and the Pirate Fairy’

Happy birthday to the legend, Nina Simone!

A short but haunting film on Scottish folklore and music

Stay Hungry,

Liz

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to Lady Smart.

Funny Women are Sexy!

by C. Margery Kempe

Back in 1994, I had a weekend that seemed to be on a downward spiral. My car died, quietly and suddenly, and I was stranded in the part of Connecticut that people don’t talk about: the Quiet Corner. This was my experience of the state when I moved there from Cambridge: I drove past the campus, looking for the little college town. Must be the other way, I thought after driving a few miles and seeing only cows and pastures. So I turned around.

Nope.

So I was adjusting to country life after my funky town and losing a car was like losing a valuable limb. It was a blow, canceling all my weekend plans. Then I turned my head. No, literally (and I do mean literally) and suddenly I was in so much pain that I could not move it again.

Joy. I ended up spending the weekend lying on my friend’s couch in pain, almost immovable. I had a television to entertain me. I mostly hate television especially in the States because it means endless, repetitive commercials. But I got a gift that weekend, for which I thank the comedy gods forever because Comedy Central debuted Absolutely Fabulous that weekend with a non-stop marathon (well, non-stop except for advertisements, d’oh!) and I had a new favorite show — one that I have bonded with so many other women over.

Most women will tell you that a man who makes them laugh is miles ahead of the competition, but it seems to be a rare man who appreciates a funny woman. Why? Because it means we’re smart and quick thinking? Sorry, but if you’re intimidated by a woman being funny, you’re really not worth the effort. Here’s to the funny women!

Who are your fave funny women?

Be sure to follow the Lady Smut women — all kinds of things happening around here you’ll want to know about!

SEXSOMNIA!

8% of patients referred to a sleep disorders clinic reported having sleep sex.

I’m so excited about our big news that Lady Smut is getting an anthology published by HarperImpulse! The anthology is tentatively titled LADY SMUT’S BOOK OF DARK DESIRES.  The erotic romance stories are in that range of sexy-spooky-paranormal.

So what’s my story about, you ask? Why sexsomnia of course!

Yes, sexsomnia actually exists.  Yes, there are known, documented cases of people having sex in their sleep and waking up with amnesia not remembering a thing about it.  Sort of a horror story for our one-night-stand-nation. Though sometimes it’s more of a mercy not to remember, isn’t it?….

To me it seems so symbolic.  We LOVE paintings of women asleep where they are vulnerable and seemingly unable to resist.  There’s something deeply erotic about this state for artists.

40 million people in the U.S. have a sleep disorder.

People did not believe that sexsomnia existed for a really long time.  Now it’s easier to swallow the idea in our Ambien generation.  Certain sleep aids have brought to light (especially on airplanes) the bizarre behavior of folks who look perfectly awake and yet aren’t.  Witnessed by a plane full of people, their behavior proves that, oddly enough, you can be both awake and asleep at the same time.

Meanwhile, although sleep science didn’t even really get going until the 50’s and is still the most neglected biological science there is (though we spend 1/3rd of our lives doing it) scientists have finally figured out that you can do just about anything, Virginia, asleep that you do awake.  Driving? Yup. Cooking? Yes—though people who eat in their sleep will often combine foods together in ways that makes them horrifically ill the next day.  Anything you have muscle memory for you can do while you’re in this awake-and-asleep-at-the-same-time state.

The government says insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic.

And that includes boinking.  But you don’t remember what happened when you wake up.

So this was a terrifically fun novella to research, as you can imagine.  Sleep disorders can be genetic (there is a breed of dog that clearly demonstrates narcolepsy is inherited) and most often are experienced by men.  However, some women do get up and night and wander about.  Most sleep walkers end up getting into some serious trouble sooner or later, however.

And apparently, though sleep walking is common in children, it’s really much more rare in adults—and definitely something to bring up with your doctor if you experience it.  In fact, very few people do seek out help for their sleep disorders, (from shame?) so sometimes it’s hard for scientists to build up a robust statistical base for how these things work.  Meanwhile, those people who wind up in court have little documentation of their disorder and this can strain their credibility in the eyes of a jury.

One horrible book on sleep that I read had some callous scientist saying “Sexsomnia is only a problem if the person in bed next to you says it is.”  Yet another scientist goes around documenting court cases where people claim that certain crimes and misdemeanors occurred while they were asleep.  This idea that you can’t be held accountable for what you do when you’re asleep is very intriguing to me.

25% of drivers admit to falling asleep on the road at some point.

Some juries buy these claims, but most don’t.  The scientist studying these court cases uses the transcripts to document behaviors that are reported under oath—trying to sift commonalities out from the desperate lies and tie this back to the budding sleep disorders research.

One proactive lawyer wants to advocate for a kind of sleep parole for people who get off on a sleep walking defense.  They need to take their medication, or seek therapies that will help them sleep safely.  Sleep safely? It’s a brave new world out there, my friends.

At any rate, my story starts off with a young economist at a summer institute.  She’s got the hots for a strapping biologist but no game.  Meanwhile, her economics group has recently started giving her funny looks and glances each morning.  She knows she’s been a sleep walker in the past—and she’s waking up on the floor wearing different clothes—is she sleepwalking again? When she runs into a woman who studies sleep disorders she thinks she’s found someone who can help solve the mystery of what she’s doing at night – and who she’s doing it with.

However, that’s not all.  As I mentioned before this is a paranormal anthology.  So there is a twist at the heart of our heroine’s dilemma.

Stay tuned—and if you haven’t joined our blog, please do!

XO,  Madeline

My Secrets Are Safe With Me

By Elizabeth Shore

We’re all aware of the old adage, “write what you know.” For some writers, that wisdom is like a mantra. John Grisham, attorney, writing legal thrillers. Same with Dr. Robin Cook on the medical front. They have the expertise and credentials to write novels in their chosen fields, and readers trust that the facts relevant to their backgrounds are correct. Those authors are, indeed, writing what they know. But when that logic is shifted to writers of erotic romance, should the adage even apply?

Let’s begin by stating the obvious. Erotic romance authors presumably “know” their subject matter, at least to a degree. Statistics provided by the Kinsey Institute indicate that by age 24, 92% of women and 89% of men have had sexual intercourse. Given that, for the most part, we’re all in or above that age bracket, we can statistically state that we have first-hand relevant knowledge of our topic. However, have I participated in wild sadomasochistic orgies, or copulated outdoors? Maybe. Do I retain card-carrying member status of an alternative lifestyle underground sex club? It’s possible. Or not. The truth is, there’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to publicly air any of my street cred on those fronts. No way, Jose. Those are secrets I’m keeping to myself.

I recently had a conversation with someone where we shared with each other how we respond to the age-old question, “what do you do for a living?” In his case, his job is so highly skilled and technical that the follow-up questions are more along the lines of an effort to understand what the heck he’s even talking about. But for me, if I reveal that I write erotic romance, what follows is a certain lascivious gleam in the eye that tells me the person is simply bursting with wanting to know where and how I get my ideas. After all, I must be writing what I know, right? So, gee, how do I actually know all of that naughty stuff?

It’s interesting how boundaries will sometimes evaporate when people learn that we write in the erotic romance genre. The respect for personal space disappears and people seem to think it’s perfectly OK to inquire about how I get my ideas on crafting sex scenes just because I’ve revealed that I write them.

The question I never get, but which I would willingly answer, is why I write in this genre. Why erotic romance versus inspirational romance, for example? The simple answer is because I like it. I sometimes cook up a pot of bolognese because I like to eat it, just as I write erotic romance because I like to read it. I’m fascinated by the psychological association between relationships and sex, and the complex range of emotions that go along with  the decision to have a physical relationship with someone. When I’m reading a romance and things start heating up between my hero and heroine, there’s no way I’m going to be content if the scene ends by closing the bedroom door. Say what?! No way. Not only do I want that door to stay open, I want a play-by-play of the action. What’s going on physically in the couple’s bodies and emotionally in their heads. I want to know it, and I like to write it.

A year ago I wrote a post about the fact that I’m not, contrary to what some people may think when they learn I wrote erotic romance, a sex goddess. I’m a writer, plain and simple, and erotic romance is my genre. But where exactly I get my ideas for those deliciously naughty scenes and whether or not I have relevant first-hand experience is a secret that stays safely with me.

What do you think, writers? Are you ever asked crazy questions about where you get your ideas? Find your inspiration? Sound off below, and don’t forget to follow us at Lady Smut. We’ll keep your secret.

Celebrate “Lady Smut: Dark Desires”

By Liz Everly

Photo by LucidTech.

The Lady Smut Bloggers are thrilled to announce that our anthology, “Lady Smut: Dark Desires,” will be published by Harper Impulse (Harper UK’s digital imprint). Details are unfolding as to the publication date and so on. We will keep you informed. But we thought we’d give you a bit of a teaser about the book—Lady Smut’s first anthology, with more to come we hope.

“Lady Smut: Dark Desires” offers uncanny moments mixed with steamy romance in four adventurous tales. Haunted houses with ghostly orgies. Sexy goblins and vampires. A sexsomniac roaming a college campus at night.  Dark Desires explores the line between sex and fear in the realm of the happy-ever-after and hot satisfying sex.

When a vampire materializes through her computer, successful vampire-romance romance author Brenna Bang finds herself marked for inescapable passion with a tech savvy bloodsucker. (THE IMMORTAL LONGING OF BRENNA BANG, by Liz Everly)
Christina tries to figure out how to unlock her grandmother’s wardrobe and uncover what happened all those years ago when the goblins came to offer their sensuous erotic fruits. (THE LYING, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE by C. Margery Kempe)
Jenny needs to unravel the mystery of what she does at night and who she does it with in order to subdue the sexual demon inside her. (SEXSOMNIA by Madeline Iva)
Locked in an abandoned mental asylum, an ambitious filmmaker soon discovers she’s trapped with a Dionysian god.  He offers her a glimpse of astounding future artistic success—but it will only come true if she’ll perform an erotic ritual to free him. (DIVINE by Elizabeth Shore)

All things being what they are in publishing, the titles of the individual stories, or indeed, of the anthology might change. Stay tuned, we will keep you informed.

In the mean time, join us in celebrating this new Lady Smut venture. HUZZAH!

Every Time Feels Like the First Time

Recently, I finished writing the first book in my Castle Haven Spies series. (Don’t judge; it’s only a working title.) Five years from the moment I joined RWA in 2008 with the set determination to become a published author to the time I sent the completed, polished manuscript out on submission. It was a long, involved con and I made a lot of mistakes in those five years, had a lot of delays, a lot of missed opportunities, a lot of life interfering, a lot of dark, depressed moments, a lot of stupid, bloody moves. But I didn’t stop and now I’m faced with a hurdle I haven’t had to leap in five years.

I’m writing a new book.

What writing process I have is cobbled around moments of brilliant epiphanies followed by days and weeks of “how the hell do I pull that off?” struggle. I’ve woken from a dream and spent hours pouring that story out on the page only to set it aside for years and I’ve stumbled home from a night out, scribbled incomprehensible lines down on a scrap piece of paper towel (once on the top of a pizza box) only to be able to make no sense of it in the morning. Every writer has stories like these, mad bursts of genius that must be recorded before the fickle Muse skips away laughing again. A true “pantser”, I am usually first struck by an idea for a specific scenario or conflict and like a junkie on a fast high, pour out the scenes in a writing exsanguination. The rest of the novel slowly comes to shape around those ideas layered in with characterization as people are harder for me to make real than turning points.

But not this time. This is something new: the first time I’m writing the second installment in a series. This time, it’s planned. This time I start with the characters sketched out and waiting to discover their immediate futures. I’ve new locations to be research in absentia (given that I’m not travelling to St. Petersburg any time soon), the bare bones of a plot, a basic idea of the internal journeys, and an overarching series story arc waiting to be navigated. It’s a personal Jenga tower of strategically balanced pieces that I’ll bungle in and out of place when one wrong move could collapse the entire project.

It’s freaking me the hell out.

Because this is no longer a whim, a dream, a some-day-I’ll-write-that-book good intention. This is serious shit. This is what it means to be a professional writer. This is travelling on faith that the first book, and indeed the series, will sell and I’m not wasting my time writing the second (and eventually, the third) book of a series that may never be good enough to publish, because I may never be good enough to publish. This is when every doubt, every fear, every workshop, every instruction, every do or don’t do rises up to jenga with my head. Too much cliche, too overdone, too unoriginal, too long, too short, too pat, too little, too much.

This is starting from scratch.

With a bang.

Literally.

The wooden door to the Edinburgh club’s second-floor bedsit exploded back into the thin wall. Deidre MacPherson kissed the floor before she’d fully registered the intrusion. A naked man followed her down from the narrow bed. A very big, very naked man. He crouched over her, his wide hand pressing her into the planked floor so her bare breast mashed against the rough wood. There was one startled second of hesitation before noise engulfed the small room. Deidre screamed as shards splattered from the walls and covered her head while gunshots collided her past into her present with horrific repetition.

Pots of foundation and plastic slats of eyeshadow and blush peppered the air as bullets ripped the makeup stand to shreds. The man yanked the flimsy bed on its side and dragged it before them. Seconds later, the gunman shot up the mattress popping puffs of cotton into the air. There was too much fog in Deidre’s head to make sense of the chaos, like she’d drunk the worm and danced it too. Vague images filtered through. The sear of hot lights. The hard chair between her spread thighs. The soft itch of feathers on her shoulders. The large man in the front row fixated on her every move.

I remember him.

He’d stalked her through the club, breaking down the dressing room’s reinforced door as though it was tissue to prowl past a buffet of half-dressed dancers without acknowledgment. She’d led the way up the backstairs, breathless with arousal, absurdly glad to have left most of her clothes on the stage if only for speed’s sake. His belt was undone by the time they’d crossed the upstairs landing and he’d bent her over the bed and shoved deep inside before the door had closed behind them.

Oh yes. She remembered.

Two loud coughs erupted above her head followed by a heavy thud. Deidre glanced at the gun in her lover’s hands through the crook of her elbow. “Stay here,” he ordered and didn’t wait for her agreement before moving for the door. Disregarding the splinters surrounding her, Deidre rushed to put her back to the wall as he stepped over the dropped body and covered the distance in three steps. A second intruder burst across the threshold. Deflected, her lover’s gun went off aimlessly. The two men erupted into hand-to-hand combat so quick and vicious, Deidre could barely discern the motions. She scrambled for the broken bedside table and snatched her sgian dubh from its shattered drawer. The fight was fast and dirty and, in the end, no contest. Her lover dropped the second body to the floor, broken neck at an unnatural angle. Naked, panting, and with an erection that would make Dionysus himself green with envy, he took in Deidre’s armed and ready and equally naked form with a hot, battle-charged look that flooded her sex with moisture.

He took those three steps back to her, crowded her against the wall, and pinned her knife hand against it next to her head. The blade dropped to the floor as her legs spread to accommodate his hips. With barely a hitch for position, he was in her, banging her hard and fast and without finesse, making her scream and moan for the entire twenty seconds and six thrusts it took him to make her come. He bit the side of her breast. His free hand slipped between them to tease circles around her over-sensitized clit. Deidre struggled for balance and found it on his shoulders. Behind him, she saw the bodies of the men he’d killed, men who would’ve kill them, and spiralled up again. Clutching tight she rode him, rising up and down on his erection until the haze in her brain shattered clear under the most intense orgasm of her life. Her lover grasped each globe of her rear and pounded her against the wall as his orgasm burst into her body unhindered.

Eyes clenched shut, Deidre fought off reality, unable to deal with the last wild ten minutes much less the last ten hours. But the strange man who’d shared her bed, saved her life, and blown her mind with amazing sex had no such difficulty. He kissed her, hard and with declaration, the seal on a deal she hadn’t known they were negotiating.

“We’re in it now, Drea.”

Excerpt from THRILL ME ©2014 Kiersten Hallie Krum

Folllow LadySmut where we’re always as good as the first time.

Don’t Adjust Your Color: A Brief and Incomplete Look at TV’s Interracial Kisses

By Alexa Day

In the United States, February is Black History Month. (The U.S. government is apparently okay with calling it African-American History Month, too.) I took a little detour in anticipation of Valentine’s Day last week, and my homage to May Day earlier this month was more about Alexa Day history. But today, I’m looking at one of my favorite parts of black history: the interracial kiss.

You don’t have to be a geek to know that the credit for television’s first interracial kiss usually falls to Star Trek. It’s not a bad story, really. In the social turbulence of 1968, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura share an embrace before an audience of aliens who have compelled them to kiss each other. The story in real life is that the network folks worried that the kiss wouldn’t play so well in the South, so they tried to film an alternate scene, but when William Shatner ruined all the takes by crossing his eyes, they had to use the kiss.

It’s a nice story, and it sure looks good, right?

Is *the* kiss just *a* kiss?

But this is not television’s first interracial kiss. The fact that so many people think it is … well, that’s a marvel of television marketing.

In 1967, Sammy Davis, Jr. kissed Nancy Sinatra on television, the year before Kirk and Uhura kiss on Star Trek. Sammy and Nancy were in a musical number on Nancy’s show. I dare you to watch it without wanting to get your boogie on, but don’t blink or you will miss that kiss.

I’m not counting this as television’s first interracial kiss, either. Let’s be honest. Sammy gives Nancy the sort of kiss a man should give a friend’s daughter. No doubt most of us have received similar little pecks from our parents’ friends. Most of us are not coming away from that experience saying, “He kissed me.” (And if you are, you probably wrote Penthouse about that. Admit it.)

So much of the trouble with identifying television’s first interracial kiss comes from our definition of the word “interracial.” I have a blind spot of my own here; I usually think of interracial in black and white terms. Literally. If we define the term more fairly and inclusively, we need to look at Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. No one’s going to dispute that Lucy and Ricky kissed long before Sammy and Nancy or Kirk and Uhura. Indeed, Lucy’s pregnancy caused quite a censorship stir in the 1950s.

[image error]

You know what all that smooching leads to? Having to find another way to say “pregnant.”

But if we regard Lucy and Ricky (and at Lucy and Desi) as more of an interethnic couple than an interracial one, we can point to Lisa Lu and Michael Landon in Bonanza. In Day of the Dragon, Lu’s character, Su Ling, gives Little Joe a sweet goodbye kiss. (Instead of a photo, how about a whole post from Brian Camp’s Film and Anime Blog?) That was in 1961, post Lucy and Ricky, but before Nancy and Sammy and before Kirk and Uhura. Lisa Lu was, as I understand it, one of several Asian actresses who shared a kiss with a costar across color lines before 1968.

Still, the question remains: Did Star Trek give us television’s first passionate, black on white interracial kiss?

The answer is still no. In 1964, British television beat the U.S. to it with Emergency – Ward 10. Dr. Louise Mahler

No coercion here on Emergency – Ward 10!

and Dr. Giles Farmer acted on their longstanding feelings four years before Kirk and Uhura had to be forced into each other’s arms. I don’t know anything about Emergency – Ward 10 – I sure hope one of our Lady Smut friends and family does! I’ve got lots of questions, starting with why it’s so hard to find a picture of the Mahler/Farmer kiss.

Today, television features so much interracial smooching that I often get up in arms when the characters aren’t kissing across color lines (hello, Sleepy Hollow folks, looking at you). I cheered for lots of my era’s scripted kisses. What can I say? This is my chosen subgenre, after all, and I’ve got to enjoy this while I can. One day very soon, this won’t even be a thing anymore. We’re already at a place where scripted television and its commercials have moved on to interracial families and parenting issues.

I still think it’s important, though, to remember where all this started. We can take the interracial kiss, couple, relationship and marriage for granted today because others made it a big deal when they had the chance.

This is a really good time to follow Lady Smut. Kisses are just the beginning around here.

Sexy Saturday Round-Up

By Liz Everly and the Lady Smut Bloggers

Hello Sexy! Happy Saturday. Many of us are snowed in across the U. S. and so we at Lady Smut hope to provide you with some entertainment today. Check out these fabulous blog posts and stay warm .While you are at it, please check out our SHOP page, where many of us have our sexy books listed. It’s a great time to curl up with some HAWT reads. (To that end my first book SAFFRON NIGHTS is now only $1.99 on all major e-book retailers. )

From Liz:

Boy toys, girl toys and other cuckoopants gender assumptions by one of my favs, Chuck Wendig.

Point of view in erotic fiction.

Sex positions to try to spice it up!

Feat you eyes on the art of Francesco D’ Isa. http://www.gizart.com/

From Elizabeth:

You’re not alone if you’re alone on Valentine’s Day.

It still has the power to shock when said aloud, but should it? Perhaps we need to reclaim the C word.

On this Valentine’s Day weekend, give yourself some “me” time and read up on ways to fall back in love with your life.

It’s possible that this dress of Paris Hilton’s is the ugliest piece of clothing I’ve ever seen in my life.

From C. Margery Kempe:

Mills & Boons Little Notebook

Play Candy Crush? Want to feel the real crush?

Finally, some statistics on book sales that look at the whole market

From Madeline Iva:

Bizarre Stories of Victorian marriages

This video is all about how facebook is sorta defrauding people.  Plus the journalist telling the story is pretty darn cute.

Does sex addiction even exist? 

Forced cuddling?

How to freshen your writing? Margie Lawson sez by using looks, glances, & gestures.

Book Bub knows what turns you on when it comes to choosing a book.

Stuck in the snow: dial up these 10 movies with terrific teen heroines.  

Stay Hungry,

Liz

P.S. The Lady Smut Bloggers have great news to share very soon. So, stay tuned. You don’t want to miss it. Subscribe, today!

Happy Valentine’s Day

Lovers from the Lais of Marie de France

All the Lady Smut team wish you a happy Valentine’s Day. If you love someone, draw them near. If love has eluded you, keep hope alive by reading more steamy romance. If you feel alone on this day of hearts and flowers, follow the #joinin tag on Twitter to share the day with other folks who find themselves on their own — a wonderful holiday tradition (for all the holidays) started by comedian Sarah Millican.

Sonnet 13 – And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

The love I bear thee, finding words enough,

And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,

Between our faces, to cast light on each?—

I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

My hand to hold my spirit so far off

From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof

In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood

Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—

Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,

And rend the garment of my life, in brief,

By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,

Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief

Be sure to join the Lady Smut crew every day for more news and delight. And here’s a free gift, today only!

Him, Her, & That Wild Thing Between Them

Love Sick graffiti by Banksy

by Madeline Iva

Hey Ladies, Gents! Happy Snow Day if you live on the East Coast.

At this snowy fluffy Valentine-y time of the year I’d like to stop and consider one aspect of what a famous romance author calls ‘the holy trinity’ of romance.

You’ve got your hero, your heroine, and then you’ve got that mysterious thing going on between them.

What is it? Unseen but strong.  Felt by parties–and even by the people around them at times.  You know what I’m talking about, right?

One time when I was a youngun, I was hanging around this horse barn and hopped up on the wooden fence of a paddock to say hello to a nice horsey with a big blaze down his nose.  He came right over and stretched out his nose for a kiss.  Little did I know I’d been touching the electrical fence the whole time.  The current flowing through me suddenly leaped out to Mr. Horsey through my teeth when he was about two inches away.  My teeth bit together with a hard clack, the electricity shocked him hard, making him shy away violently.   This invisible force–it’s like that.  Not always pleasant, but certainly strong and very memorable.

Love Is In the Air, graffiti by Banksy

I’m not talking about love exactly, nor just lust.  It’s  the wild chemistry along with the ability to be friends–but it hurts a little too.  It’s the whole snarly whatever-it-is thing, including acceptance, antagonism, tenderness, and fortitude.

It’s hard to name, but this force–this ghostly spirit–is what we romance writers try to capture when we sit down to write a book that will grip you by the back of the neck and shake you–because you like it that way.

It can be a little ugly and rough around the edges .  It can be pure, and based on the hope of more later–even much much later.

Your heroine can be plain Jane, the hero tortured by fate or whatever (not my favorite kind to read about)–but something about that thing between them sucks you right in and won’t let you go.  It’s like the gravitational pull of a planet and leaves you spinning. Romance wouldn’t be romance without it.

So here’s to this mysterious wild force that draw two people together–whether they were always ‘meant to be’ or are a case of opposites attracting.

Here’s to the energy flow between them that can clack their teeth together and leave them feeling kinda sick but also different for forever.  This is the kindle and spark of passion that is built into the atomic structure of romance–whether in movies, books, or what have you.  It’s what binds you to your true love, and what binds you to the romance genre.

It can make you feel dizzy and without appetite, listless, sleepless, and exhausted.  The french say amor fou–crazy love–perhaps a slightly meaner version of what we call love sick.  Koreans go eat a bowl of black noodles over it to celebrate and despair of it at the same time.

I would say that it’s better to be in love than not–even if it’s making you feel miserable.  You’re experiencing the best kind of ‘real’ magic that exists in the world.  It’s a fascinating phenomenon–enjoy.

Meanwhile, here’s a very naughty article that proposes Valentine’s Day was once a Pagan Spanking Fertility Ritual.

Here’s a tamer article on the origins of the holiday from NPR.

Seemed the day was all about unleashing the repressions that built up (a day of amor fou?).  It was too popular to give up when the Christians came along, so they took it in another direction (less amor fou, more love sick).

Happy St. Valentine’s Day.