Friday, April 3, 2015

Enough Thinking Already!!




My boss, a fourth degree black belt and my Sensei, is always coming up with new ideas and new projects to work on - for both of us. The other day he told me a story about someone shaking their head at him and asking him how all his ideas came to him. His reply was, "That's easy. I don't think about them. Whenever I stop thinking, that's when the ideas come." That struck a chord with me.

I've had so many friends carry on about being "stuck" and having "writer's block." Then there's me. I'm not one of those people who has to force books to appear. In fact, ideas seem to lurk around corners and attack me when I'm not looking for them. My first series, Wild Blue Mysteries, came from a dream one night about a cat. Literally! The entire series developed from there while I walked around town and sat in coffee shops.

As I type this, I have two series in various phases of publication and one more I'm plotting when I get free time (a rare commodity with three kids and a job!!) My second series, Gilda Wright Mysteries, came from my karate training and current job. Lots of ideas stem from learning how to protect yourself from the "what ifs." Isn't that how most writers get their great ideas? From an attack of the "what ifs"?

One of the best things I have learned from is the dreaded deadline. No time for writer's block when you have an agent or publisher waiting for your work. You have to sit and let the thoughts flow.

A writer friend of mine told me she has problems finishing a book. She has great ideas, but has problems finishing writing an entire book. My number one advice to her was to get a glass of wine (or tea or coffee...) and to stop thinking and let the story flow. The ideas WILL come. Stop trying to change things as you go along, there will be plenty of time for that during the editing phase when being stuck will be the farthest from your mind!

Speaking of which, I'm off to my editing cave! Have a wonderful Easter!

Diane Bator

You can find me at:  http://bookswelove.net/authors/bator-diane/








Thursday, April 2, 2015

WILD WEST WHOREHOUSES, NECESSARY OR EVIL - MARGARET TANNER

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HISTORICAL WHORE HOUSES - A NECESSARY EVIL? – MARGARET TANNER

The movie, The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, was made in 1982, and featured Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. It was based on a story by Larry King and inspired by the real life Chicken Ranch in La Grange, Texas.

The Chicken Ranch was an illegal but tolerated Texan brothel operating from 1905 until 1973. It was located in Fayette County a couple of miles out of La Grange.

The original brothel that became the Chicken Ranch opened in 1844. It was forced to close during the civil war but later re-opened.

There have numerous books published with a brothel or bordello, as some people like to call them, as a central part of the story, particularly in Westerns. For example. Who can forget Kitty, Marshal Matt Dillon’s “lady friend” in the TV series Gunsmoke? She worked in a saloon. It was never actually mentioned on the program, and I didn’t think anything untoward either as I was young and innocent in those days, but looking back, it is fairly obvious, that being a saloon gal, she would have been, well let’s say, not as pure as the driven snow.

Two of my historical novels from Books We Love have brothel scenes in them.

In Fiery Possession, there is a high class brothel known as Glory’s. In my novel Savage Possession, there is also a high class brothel called the Black Stallion. Both of these establishments figure prominently in my stories. Like the old West, in frontier Australia, there was a huge single male population but very few women. 

THE 1860's BROTHEL IN FIERY POSSESSION

They passed through the almost empty main street of town, and about half a mile further on pulled into the drive of a large house. It was a double storied place, with delicate cast iron lace work on the balcony. An impressive entrance door had a huge fan light with pictorial stained glass side panels. Surely this wasn't where Glory operated from? 

In the cobbled backyard, the man helped them down before depositing the bag on the ground.

“Thank you.”

He acknowledged this with a nod, touched his hat, and drove towards a red brick coach house.

Glory hurried over, her large breasts bulging from the low cut bodice of a bright green dress. “You’re here at last!  Come to Auntie Glory.” She scooped Mark out of Jo's arms, and left her to carry the bag inside. “I thought,” she spoke over one shoulder, “you might prefer to come in through the back entrance because it's private.”

Inside this section of the house, Jo was surprised to find it tastefully decorated. In the hallway stood a seventeenth century, long case clock with marquetry inlay and a glass 'bull’s eye' at the bottom of the trunk. Entering the sitting room, she noticed several miniatures on the walls.

“How lovely.” She tried to hide her surprise at finding such a tasteful décor.

“Surprised, are you?”  Glory might well have been a mind reader.

“It's different than what I expected.”

 “I've had a bath house built recently.” Glory sounded almost childlike in her endeavor to impress. On the back lawn, almost concealed behind tall shrubs, stood a brick building with arched windows and doorway. The central bath had water pumped through pipes from the river.

“It's the latest thing, Jo.”

Out in the daylight, the thick make up could not conceal the deep wrinkles creasing Glory's face.

“It's all very nice, but maybe a bit pretentious, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

The other woman patted her on the shoulder, laughing uproariously. “Don't quite know about pretentious, but I like it. So do the customers.”

They passed a large pond with pink water lilies floating on top. Jo averted her eyes from the centerpiece of a white marble statue of a naked woman mounted on a rearing horse.

“Whereabouts do, well, the girls, work from?” 

“Upstairs. I'll show you around inside now.”

The gaming room had mahogany tables and chairs. Another room, obviously a private bar by the numerous bottles displayed at the back of a circular counter, was upholstered in velvet. Glory did not offer to take her out to the public bar, to Jo’s relief.

In all the rooms, Jo noticed that the ceilings had white plasterwork and intricately crafted cornices. Basket-shaped chandeliers formed the lighting. No expense had been spared to cater for everyone's comfort.

The bar room consisted of a small highly polished dance floor and a large piano set on a raised platform. Frescoes of naked cherubs decorated the ceiling in this room, and one wall was crafted out of beaten copper. Classy, all right, where a local man with money might indulge himself for a few hours, or a wealthy traveler could stay for days.

Glory explained that the girls circulated round the tables, letting the men choose their drinks and a partner if they felt so inclined.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

FUZZY, FURRY FANTASIES by Shirley Martin

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If you could change into an animal, what animal would you like to be? I'd like to be a wolf, master of the forest, running wild and free.

The process of changing into an animal--fiction or not--is called shapeshifting. When I began writing my shapeshifter novel, "Wolf Magic" I wondered if there were any books on the subject. A trip to the local bookstore proved that, sure enough, someone had actually written a book on shapeshifting. This book was extremely helpful, giving me insight on the life of a shapeshifter.

According to paranormal readings, the physical world is only one of several worlds.
     1. Our physical world is at the bottom.
     2. On top of that is the etheric plane.
     3. The astral plane is directly above the etheric.
     4. The mental plane is on top of the astral.

Esoteric study teaches us that we exist simultaneously on four different planes of existence. And shapeshifting shows us that shapeshifting is a spiritual journey to connect to animal power.

Does everyone have an animal side somewhere in their subconscious? Some people believe so. This animal side is more or less present in the shapeshifter at all times. In a deep kind of mental shift, agility on two legs might be difficult. In this state, the shapeshifter can't appear normal to others. Indeed, shapeshifters may howl or growl at others.

Here's how the shift affects Annwn, the heroine of "Wolf Magic."  Annwn is a nurse-in-training at the druids' hospital.

     "She nearly tripped on her feet as she hurried along, struggling with an overwhelming desire to race on all fours. She didn't want to be in the hospital, longing to go outside and roll in the dirt. Passing other nurses who  greeted her along the way, she responded, shocked to find that her voice sounded like an old man's, low and gravelly.

On the way to the men's ward, she reached the closer where clean linens were kept. She clasped the doorknob but couldn't open the closet door!"

Have you heard of bilocation shifting? Oh, you don't know what that is? Bilocation shifting happens on the etheric plane. At this point, dear reader, it may be necessary to suspend disbelief. But on the other hand, it doesn't hurt to have an open mind.

In normal bilocation, the body that materializes is a carbon copy of the human's own body. (This is what you see when you see a ghost, if you see a ghost!)  Among those who believe in the paranormal, it's accepted that matter exists not only on the material plane, but astral and etheric matter also exist, as explained at the beginning.

One of the characteristics of bilocation shifting is that the body, in its animal and human aspects, exists in two different places at the same time. Any wounds received by the animal body are also, at the same time, at the exact same place on the human body.

How does bilocation occur? First, the person becomes unconscious, as if in a deep trance. The person "acquires" an animal body, such as a wolf, in the etheric form. The etheric body roams freely. Now suppose the etheric wolf body goes outside, running in a neighbor's yard. If someone sees the wolf, he may well throw a stone at it, hitting it in the eye. At the same moment, the human will awake, screaming with pain. (See, I told you that it might be necessary to suspend disbelief.)

Now, ladies and gentlemen, stretch your imagination as far as it will go and ask yourself: What about actual physical shifting? Some people really do believe in this. Accepting that it can happen, physical shifting is one of the rarest types of shifting, but also the most dramatic. The most common shifter types are wolf, fox, cat, and bear. The fifth most common is bird.

So what animal would you like--

Oops, gotta go now. A full moon is rising over the forest, and I smell a rabbit.

http://bookswelove.net/authors/martin-shirley
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