Posts Tagged ‘My Sexy Saturday’
Welcome, welcome. This week’s My Sexy Saturday theme has forced me to dig deeply into my personal archives.
This week, we’re traveling the universe as we give our wonderful sci-fi romance, of any subgenre, a nod to entertaining us with their wonderful stories.
Y’all know by now that I write contemporary romantic comedy. What you probably don’t know is that one of the first stories I wrote (still unfinished, as a matter of fact) was a sci-fi/comedy/romance. It fills part of two spiral-bound wide-ruled notebooks, pencil on yellowing sheets.
A communications specialist named Marc—human, but from a distant utopian planet that’s nearly all water—scans the universe’s airwaves for beings open to alien contact. He sees an Earthling woman and—despite protests from his brother, who learned all he knows about Earth women from the movie “Earth Girls are Easy”—undertakes a mission to woo her, wed her and take her back to his planet.
Of course, mayhem ensues from the moment Marc sneaks aboard the space shuttle, which is docked at the International Space Station. (Brother Rik notes that Earthlings are the only species arrogant enough to assume no need for security in space.) He’s a fish out of water, so to speak, trying to fit into California culture, win over Kyree’s overprotective friends and convince her she’s meant to be his life mate.
This story will probably never see the light of day. I started it in the mid-90s, long before I joined RWA and started learning about the craft. That means it’s rife with head-hopping, telling instead of showing and other beginner mistakes.
But the premise is fun and I had a blast writing the parts I finished. (Just imagine Marc shopping for condoms for the first time, with assistance from the boyfriend of Ree’s best friend.) I’ll share a snippet here—head-hopping and all—in hopes of brightening your day.
****
Marc had decided it wouldn’t be right to make love to Kyree until he convinced her of his origins. Now was as good a time as any, he supposed.
“Ree,” he began cautiously as they stepped onto the beach. “Remember when I told you I’m from Quaaline?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
Marc sighed. He could sense she still wasn’t ready to believe him. “Never mind.”
Ree gave him an odd look. She hoped he didn’t actually believe he was an alien. She knew some real sci-fi nerds who tried to become someone dashing, like Captain Kirk, Han Solo or Lance Lincolnway, to overcome their awkwardness—but Marc was charming enough on his own. He didn’t have to pretend to be a hero.
Marc watched her face as the thoughts ran through her mind. He raised an eyebrow in amusement and murmured, “If I’m Han Solo, you have to be my Princess Leia.”
Kyree smiled at him. “That can be arranged.”
Because I write contemporary romantic comedy, my books have no carriage sex. There are a few sexy moments in cars — but the scene I’m featuring for this week’s My Sexy Saturday post isn’t one of those, either.
This scene is from SLIDING INTO HOME, Book 3 of my All Is Fair in Love & Baseball series, published by Turquoise Morning Press. I went the short route this time — only 7 sentences. The better to share it in a fun, pinnable quote card!
Sliding into Home is available now at Turquoise Morning Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks, Smashwords, Kobo and iTunes (Sliding Into Home – Arlene Hittle)
RWA14 was a blast—not that I doubted it would be. For me, it was a true road trip. Two of my chapter mates and I carpooled from Flagstaff to San Antonio (more on that soon). I caught up with friends old and new, and learned so much from the workshop sessions I attended. I went to so many marketing/social media sessions that my head threatened to explode.
One of the key points emphasized in many of them? You need a blog.
Umm … Does it count if I have a blog but post sporadically?
The experts’ answer, of course, is a big, fat “NO.”
So now that I’m back in Flagstaff, trying to resettle into what passes for a normal routine, I’m going to aim to blog more regularly. (How is it possible that my last post was in mid-June?) Blogging is heaped on top of all the Twitter/FB/Pinteresting things I should be doing—and none of them are as important as actually writing the next book.
Anyway …
It occurred to me that My Sexy Saturday is a great way to guarantee I post something fresh on my blog every week.
A quick refresher on the rules:
Post 7 paragraphs or 7 sentences or 7 words ONLY. The choice is yours. It can be from a WIP or something you already have published. Your post should be live by 9 am US Pacific Time on Saturday. Put those lucky 7s to work for you!
Here’s a snippet from my June release, BLIND DATE BRIDE. Who needs “Married at First Sight” when you have Kari and Damien?
***
Damien leaned across the table, and for a second, Kari thought he’d kiss her again. Her lips parted in anticipation. However, he merely turned her hand over, palm up, and ran his thumb over the skin at the base of her fingers. She watched it move back and forth, fast then slow, fascinated by the friction-generated heat.
His eyes never left hers, so she saw the instant his desire flickered back to life. Her thighs clenched as her body answered Damien’s call.
The dampness she felt provided a rude wake-up call. She clamped her knees together as she jerked her hand out of his grasp, ruthlessly reminding herself how badly her last run-in with lust at first sight had ended.
Seemingly undeterred, he grinned. “You ready to head to my place?”
“Y-your place?” Surely he wasn’t a mind reader.
“Or yours, I suppose.”
“My place?” This time, Kari’s voice came out in a panicked squeak.
Blind Date Bride is available now as an e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, and in print at CreateSpace or Amazon.
Isn’t “Beauty’s Release” the title of an Anne Rice book? Haven’t read it, but I was in high school when I first heard of it. I remember being intrigued by the mere idea of her Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, written under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure. I’d just read—and fallen in love with—THE VAMPIRE LESTAT, and wanted to read all the Anne Rice books I could get my hands on.
You can imagine that, in small-town Indiana in the late 1980s, the Beauty trilogy wasn’t readily available on the library shelf. I wonder if they have it even now …
Ahem. File that under “jaunt down memory lane.” Funny how the strangest things send you down that road, eh? When I typed in my blog post title, I was off.
Welcome to the My Sexy Saturday in which I get to celebrate the release of BEAUTY AND THE BALLPLAYER. BEAUTY, which went live Thursday, has been many things to me — my first manuscript set somewhere outside the Midwest (in Flagstaff, Ariz), the first one with a baseball player hero, the first (and only) one to final in the Golden Heart (and win the FCRW Beacon).
Yet it’s the second book in my All Is Fair in Love & Baseball series. How’d that happen?
Not only was BEAUTY the second book I sold to Turquoise Morning Press, it fell second in my Arizona Condors timeline. Dave and Mel had already bumped into one another and reconciled by the time Matt meets Meg. In fact, Dave’s experience, which Matt went through alongside him, plays a role in Matt’s reasons for doing some of the things he does to piss Meg off. (DIVA IN THE DUGOUT came out of Matt’s explanation to Meg.)
You know the My Sexy Saturday drill by now, right?
Post 7 paragraphs or 7 sentences or 7 words ONLY. The choice is yours. It can be from a WIP or something you already have published. Your post should be live by 9 am US Pacific Time on Saturday. Put those lucky 7s to work for you!
This scene, from the early chapters, finds Matt kicked out of his hotel room while his brother, super-stylist Stan, cuts Meg’s hard-to-manage hair. Roping his brother into cutting her hair was Matt’s “in” to see her again. While he kills time in the lobby, one of his teammates tries to pick up the hotel restaurant’s hostess. The kid enlists Matt’s help, and Matt realizes she’s a baseball groupie just as Meg and his brother get to the lobby. But Meg doesn’t know he’s a ballplayer, and that’s the way he likes it … so he has to get her out the door before the hostess exposes his identity.
****
Matt pushed the door open and dragged her through it just as flashes started going off behind them.
Desperate that she not turn around to try to see what—or rather who—someone was attempting to photograph, he wrapped an arm around her waist and bent his head to kiss her.
Her lips were soft. Extremely soft. Beyond that, she tasted like something he couldn’t put his finger on. Slightly salty, but comforting.
As he maneuvered her away from the doors and into the darkness, he deepened the kiss. She responded in kind, and he forgot where he was. Forgot everything except kissing this woman who didn’t want him only for his talent.
Oh, she wanted him all right, but not because he could play baseball. That couldn’t be why; she had no clue.
Spurred by the thought, Matt pushed Meg against the wall. He was about to hike her leg up over his hip to draw her closer when his brother’s voice whispered in his ear.
“Matty, you don’t want people to see you out here like this, do you?”
Beauty and the Ballplayer, available now from Turquoise Morning Press and other e-tailers.
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