I love to read quotes. I find them inspiring in life, in writing , in my weight loss challenge. The best thing about them is that anyone who reads them , can take them and apply them to whatever it is they’re struggling with.

Like this one from Helen Keller:
Character cannot be developed in ease & quiet.
Only through experience of trial & suffering
can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired,
& success achieved”

Now, I don’t hink she was talking about writing, but it can certainly apply to it. We authors like to joke about how our characters take over out minds, and sometienms it’s fun to torture them. We laugh about it because we know they’ll have a happy ending. But in life, we don’t always know there will be a happy ending.

Yet, the quote is inspirting in life too. To me anyway. What about you? Share an inspiring quote with me, and be entered to win a free eBook from my backlist!

KRIS is the WINNER of a free eBook!
Just email me your choice from my backlist Kris, (You can use the CONTACT button on my wensite) and I’ll send it right to you.

Thanks Everyone for the quotes! I love them.

Bad Boys are a favorite type of hero among romance readers. And we all know why. We want to be “the one” to tame them with love.

But what about favorite type of heroine? Personally, I love reading stories about quirky free spirited and independent heroines. You know the kind. The ones that laugh at themselves and make you laugh at the same time. Sometimes clumsy, sometimes too smart for their own good…always cute and sassy.

But when I write, I like to write Bad Girls. The ones who can kick ass and take names. IN my newest release, SEX AS A WEAPON, the heroine is a thief. And the hero is the cop on the hunt for her. It’s too much fun to write about women who live by their own rules, and Vanessa was no different. While I do write erotica with no traditional Happily Ever After, SEX AS A WEAPON is a romance, and does have a HEA. Aren’t you curious how a cop and a thief find their way?

Check out the excerpt on my website, and comment tell my what you think of Vanessa in the comments here for a chance to win a signed copy of THE COP.

I’ll contact the winner tomorrow.:)

Update: WINNER of the draw. Alyssa! Email me via my website (http://www.sashawhite.net ) to give me your snail mail addy. :)

The other day on my Chat Loop we got on the topic of holistic healing. I find it very interesting because I do believe in being able to manipulate a person’s energy or Chi. So I though maybe I’d share my own experience with Reiki:

After 18 years of bartending, and ten years of martial arts training where I got to be the “demonstration dummy” for a lot of wrist locks and throws, I developed carpal tunnal in both my wrists. It was diagnosed over 8 years ago, for the first while it just caused numbness in my fingers. About 5 years ago it got to the point that I would wake up in tears in the middle of the night because of the pain, my fingers would get so swollen and so mishappen that I couldn’t hold a comb or toothbrush let alone get dressed and do up a freakin bra in the morning.

Doctors told me I needed surgery, but surgery would only give me 50/50 chance of it getting better, as well as it might even get worse. I hate Dr’s and surgeries to start with unless it something that can ONLY be fixed by surgery…so I chose another route. Since I had a lot of martial arts experience I already knew the power of the mind when it comes to controlling and managing pain (I’d been in some pretty rough competitive fights, as well as worked as private security and a bodyguard for a couple of years) So I thought about acupunctur but in researching it heard about Reiki. Instead of going to see someone who does it, I took a course on it. *grin*. It was amazing. I got my first level through the course and it really did help. A year later when I was in South Africa, (No such things as coincidence) it turns out that one of the girls who I lived with was a massage therapist from Italy, and the other was into Reiki, (her mother was a Reiki master) I have no more offical training, but I’ve learned alot about mediation and energy flow and all sorts of holistic things just through being open to it..and you know what? I never had surgery and I don’t need to wear wrist braces anymore…and I’m a writer fro a living. Typing being something that anyone with carpal tunnal knows, can be extremely painful.

I think the best thing about Reiki and manipulating energy in any way is that people can get what they need from it. I needed healing, I got healing. Erin just needed relaxation, she got it. :) It’s all about believing, in my opinion. Sort of the Field OF Dreams school of though… If You Build It they will come….if You Believe, It will happen.

Now: as an aside, one of the novellas in my April/07 single author anthology LUSH has a massage therapist for a heroine - one who see auras and is a bit of a healer.

Like I said, I believe in this sort of thing. Do you? Have you had any experiences with holistic healing or energy manipulation? And if you hasven’t had an experince yet, but found it might be an option if you needed healing, would you try it??

I’ve got coverflaps for LUSH to give away to anyone who answers my questions and wants one. :)

UPDATE: Those tyhat commented and want coverflaps, I’m emailing right now. If You haven’t recieved an email please contact me via my wesbite. :)

Practical Magic is one of my all time favorite movies. It’s got everything, Love, romance, friendship, family , magic.

One of the scenes that always sticks in my head is near the end. Sally (Sandra Bullock’s character) is sitting on the steps with and empty courier envelope and a ring in her hand. Her sister (played by Nicole Kidman) is standing there watching her, waitting to see what she’ll do about not getting a more personal note from the man. (Aiden Quinn *sigh*)
She asks her sister “What would you do, Jilly?”
Jilly gives a little smile and says “What wouldn’t I do … for the right guy?”

Does everyone feel this way? I mean I feel this way, but I’ve never been in love. I’ve never met “the right guy” so it’s easy for me to say. What do you think? Would you give up your dream job, your dream house… Would you do anything for the right guy?

I think it all started with Ally McBeal. Did you ever watch that show? I used to love it. The dancing baby was the best, but I also loved the way their tongues would fall out when they saw a hot man. LoL. There has been a few times in my life where I think I’ve looked like that.

Bon Jovi was on Oprah a few weeks ago and I made a point of watching. I watch Oprah every now and then but I can’t handle it every day because it gets to be too much. However, I’m a huge BON JOVI fan. I’ve always been a fan of the band, but as I grew older, I became a fan of HIS. Married to his high school sweetheart for 16 years with 4 kids, the man is amazing. He acts, he sings, he writes the songs.

And he inspires.

What do these two things have in common? I’m getting there. You see, back in July I did an interview right here for Access Romance and one of the questions was “Do you have a theme song?” Immediately, I knew what mine was.

“It’s My Life.” By Bon Jovi. There are others that suit my moods, and once that I can look back on as once that could’ve been theme songs at other points in my life. Like Jimmy Buffet’s “Maragaritaville.” Uh huh, that could’ve been my theme song for my early twenties when I was working in nightclubs and partying was my lifestyle. “I Need A Man” by Annie Lennox is still an occasional theme song for me. *blush* But in general, I’ve decided that It’s My Life is the main one.

It’s perfect for how I’ve always lived, and how I always want to live. Plus I think I feel in love with the song when I heard the “This is the ones who stood their ground. For Tommy and Gina who never backed down.” Why did that line make me love it even more? Because Tommy and Gina are the couple the song “Living On A Prayer” is about. And like books, recurring characters can make things richer.

So..do YOU have a theme song? What makes that particular song strike a cord with you?

Click MORE to read the Lyrics for “It’s My Life”

(more…)

In this day and age safe sex is a must. However, that does not mean that every sex scene in every romance or erotica novel has to include condoms, or a serious discussion about the consequences of unsafe sex.

No matter how many times we say we want reality in our romances, we don’t. After all, we want every story to a have a “happily ever after”, and that isn’t realistic… but we want it. That’s what defines romance.

So yes, it gets to me when I hear there are authors out there saying that in this day and age you have to include either a reason sex without a condom is safe, or include reference to condom use.

There are a few reasons I disagree with this.
One reason I already touched on – even though we want our romances, especially our contemporaries, to follow the rules of reality, what makes a novel (notice I don’t say a story) but what makes a novel fit into the genre of romance, is the HEA. And HEA’s are not always realistic.

Second, realistically speaking, as much as every single person out there knows that unprotected sex is dangerous, it happens. And when it happens, there isn’t always a big discussion over it the next morning.

And lastly, I think it’s wrong to make a blanket statement that others might take as a “rule”. New authors are very susceptible to what published authors say casually, or offer up as their opinion. Aspiring writers don’t always understand that just because one author says they do something one way, that that doesn’t mean it always has to be that way.

Why did I pick this topic today? Because last week at the RWA conference I had an unpubbed author come up and question me about the fact that Katie and Joe do not use condoms in BOUND. My answer was pretty simple at first.

It never occurred to me.

I wrote the story from Katie’s POV, and she was so strong in my mind I felt as if I were channeling her. The condom thing never came up in her mind, so it never came up in my mind. After talking to this writer about it for a bit, and thinking about it (I really did not think about it, I trusted my characters) I realized that the fact that Katie trusted Joe, and felt safe enough with him to have unprotected sex only reaffirms the underlying point that Katie TRUSTED Joe completely. There was a connection between them from the instant she set eyes on him, and this only goes toward that.

In THE CRIB, Lexy and Devon have unprotected sex the first time they are together as well, only in that story, there is a discussion about it the next morning. This is because Lexy is a very distrusting person, and while she got carried away, she never gives an inch.

To me, these things help to define the characters and the relationships that are the core of the story. And on some level readers must be getting that as well because not one reader or reviewer has commented on it. Even when this particular readers asked me she specifically said she never noticed that Katie and Joe didn’t use condoms until after hearing that there should always be condoms used, or at least referenced to. She read the whole book and never gave a second thought to the condom thing. The non use of it did not take anything away from the story, and in fact, I think it added to the depth of what was happening,even if only in an unconscious way.

That said, I now want to share with you some GREAT news about BOUND. RT reviewed it in it’s September issue and Jennifer Wells-Marani has awarded it 4.5 Stars!

She says, “Fans of 9H Weeks will get a delicious thrill from this kinky, titillating tale of dominance and submission, loss of inhibitions and discovery of new experiences. The quirky supporting characters and intriguing casino workplace are the cherry on top of this sinful, decadent delight.”

Whooo Hoooo! I guess she didn’t notivce the lack of condoms either. *grin*

Is anyone ever really happy with his or her body?

You read a lot about how women are so wrapped up in their weight. I admit I am too. Especially since I gained weight and I can’t fit my jeans properly. Other women tell me I “carry it well”, and my big butt and plump hips don’t stop men from hitting on me. Yet, I still feel very self consious about my body. Except when I’m writing hot sex scenes. Then my self consiousness disappears.

Maybe women’s sensitivity about being called fat or big is such a widely known joke simply because women are just more open with their insecurities. Then again it could be because men get such a kick out of seeing women rip each other apart, and one the first things a women insults another woman on is her looks. Hair, makeup, the size of her ass. . . But I digress; the competitiveness of women is a topic for another day.

Today, with the summer heating up and clothes getting skimpier… and people being so self consious in those clothes, I want to talk about what makes us FEEL sexy. Most people have problem areas that they feel very self-conscious about. Women worry about the size of their hips or their breasts. And while most men won’t admit it, some worry that their dick is too small, or even too big. Or if they’re hairy chest is gross, or that their abs aren’t a perfect six pack.

I mean, sure we LOVE looking at hot men, but do we expect the men in our lives to actually look like this? We have to remember that men don’t expect the women in their life to look like an airbrushed model either. We are putting that expectation on ourselves.

I talked to a guy once, (Through research of course ) that really stressed about the first time he made love with a new woman because his cock was too big. He said it caused all sorts of problems with positioning and comfort. Which ya know, I can understand, because even though we women love out romance heros to have the “massive hammer” as it was put to me, we don’t really want that do we? I mean, well…we might want a nice one..but not… anyway….. there is such a things as too big…sure we stretch enough to give birth, but that takes hours of the body slowly preparing itself, and in the end it isn’t a really a pleasant sensation.

And isn’t that what sex is about? Barring pro-creation, it about Pleasure.

I’ve never been in love, but people tell me sex is always better when you’re in love. I’m guessing that’s because you trust that the person you’re with loves you for you, and not for your body size. With that trust comes a sense of freedom, a loss of inhibitions. (Sadly, for some people …that takes alcohol! I’m a bartender, I see this way too often.) I wonder if erotic stories are doing this for women too. You see, when we read them and we get turned on, we forget to be self consious about ourselves. I’ve recieved several emails since BOUND’s release from women saying that after they’d read it they went an jumped their hubby and had the best sex in a long time. One Reader even put it in her review on Amazon.com that she wanted her husband to read the book, so he’d get the hint of what she wanted.

I don’t think it’s my stories alone that does this, (although I love to hear that it’s stirring emotions of all sorts in readers) but the fact that reading a well done hot sex scene that also contains emotion, helps us get past our subconcious, to the root of our sexualtiy. It helps our bodies to remind us that we want to give and receive pleasure. And our emotional freedom from the self consiousness makes it that much easier to achieve.

For me, my sex life got a whole lot better when I decided to concentrate on being healthy instead of worrying about my size. I won’t deny I want to lose 80 pounds, but I’ve learned that whether I am over weight or not, (and no, I haven’t always been overweight) my body is still capable of giving, and receiving pleasure. And I learned to not always depend on the guy knowing how to give me that pleasure. Men like to be told what feels good, and what makes you uncomfortable because for them, it’s a point of pride that you get to come before they do! Maybe more than once!

I guess what I’m trying to say is …stop worrying about how you look, and think about how you feel. Sexuality and sexual enjoyment is a gift we’ve been blessed with. Embrace it. Wear the short shorts or the skimpy lingerie that makes you feel sexy and attractive. Enjoy what your body can do for you! And if you need a little help…try writing out one ofyour fave sexual fantasies, and leaving it on the bedside table for your signifigant other…or maybe email it to him at work? It coudl make things get very hot, and I’m not talking about the temperatures outside. *wink*

Oh! and to help get you in the right frame of mind..click on the hot photo of the man for a larger version. LOL