WAITING FOR INSPIRATION

    
By Maria Ferrer

I won a free vacation in Bermuda, which is where I was this weekend instead of at the NJRW conference. I didn’t meet with any editors or agents and I didn’t pitch my books, but as I laid on the beach, under the warm sun, the gentle breeze playing with my hair, I did think about possible plots for my November NaNoWriMo project. Truly!

The plots considered and discarded included, a murder mystery where the program director is found dead and the meeting planner-turn-sleuth discovers the killer; a sci-fi drama where the planet’s male population is dying of a mysterious ailment at the age of 25 and the red-haired princess must discover the cure before her beloved brother dies; or a tale noir where a repressed woman explores her sexual appetites. Good choices all, but too cliché and easily discarded.

This author is still in search of a plot and characters.

For people who like outlines and structure (ME! ME!), not having a plot, let alone characters, can cause severe head-throbbing trauma. For others, “no plot, no worry” is a sweet siren’s song and welcome challenge.

I am forcing myself to remain calm and sane, even as NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month aka November—is pulling up to the curb and I haven’t even finished dressing. Gulp!

But I am not going to panic.

I am going to relax. I am going to pretend I am back on that Bermudian beach, my toes digging into the pink sand, with the hot sun toasting me to a nice pink, with the cool breeze combing its fingers through my hair. I am going to close my eyes and envision plots and characters—maybe a murder, maybe a mystery, maybe a medieval. Hmm. Maybe a Laird, maybe a pirate, maybe a police detective. Hmm. Maybe a jilted bride, maybe a princess, maybe a thief. Hmm.

The possibilities are endless as I wait for inspiration to settle on the beach chair next to me.

Where do you find your inspiration?♥



For more information on NaNoWriMo, visit http://www.nanowrimo.org/.
The challenge begins November 1. Good luck.



Maria Ferrer enjoys participating in the NaNoWriMo. She considers it a great way to get butt to chair and pen to paper. Maria has won two NaNoWriMo’s. She’s hoping for a third win. Keep your fingers crossed.

Researching Research

Just about everyone I know in the writing community does their research on line. Now, admittedly, there is a wealth of stuff out there for the savvy researcher (who knows to beware of the legitimacy of the source - Wikipedia, for example, is a great place to start, but never ever take their word without confirming info!). And of course, even for folks like me, who love to do hands-on research, some places are too far flung or don't have the right sources in their neck of the woods. But hands-on research can be so much richer.

Which brings me to the beauty of Manhattan. Within it's boundaries you'll find countless sources for researching, everything from bondage and discipline to the history of the NYPD (bondage and discipline of a different sort, you might say).

On this 22 square mile island are found such a cornucopia of resources that a writerly girl could spend her life wandering from museum, to library, to society, to theatre, to arts organization, to club, to restaurant, to historical site. Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, watching, up close and personal, can add a layer of specificity and detail to my writing that I could never hope to achieve by merely reading on line. Or seeing a photograph on a computer screen, or hearing & watching a YouTube video.

In the Tenement Museum on NYC's lower East Side, you can walk through an actual building, re-created as a tenement from the turn of the twentieth century and get an uncomfortable feel for the way the immigrants lived. Speaking of immigrants, Ellis Island offers an incredible look into the welcome those arriving got, after passing the majestic Statue of Liberty. And stretching further back in time is the Fraunces Tavern Museum of the American Revolution.

How do you describe a symphony in writing? You can listen to it on a CD or YouTube, but nothing compares to the feeling of sitting in a space at Alice Tully Hall or
Carnegie Hall or the dozens of other venues and sensing the vibration of the music, feeling the wall of sound as it sweeps out from the orchestra. My character in my WIP Torch is a singer. Where better to embrace the throbbing pulse or mournful wail of blues and jazz and hear for yourself the power of those songs than at the iconic Blue Note Jazz Club?

What about food? Try describing an ethnic dish without ever having tasted it. Welcome to the Big Apple where there is no dish, that you cannot find and sample - if you dare. Including haggis, for those of you writing those wonderful Scottish highland romances. Just wait for the annual Robert Burns Day celebrations!

The Fashion Institute of Technology has clothing exhibits. The Pierpont Morgan has literary exhibits. The Museum of Natural History has animal, vegetable and mineral exhibits. The Museum of Sex has, well, sex exhibits. And speaking of sex, if you're writing an erotic romance with some paddling involved? Where better to "research" than the club, Paddles, where demonstrations of same are yours for the price of a blush! Or you can really put yourself out there and mingle with members of the NY Eulenspiegel Society promoting BDSM on one of their "novice nights".

If the paranormal is more your thing, well, then never fear! We have the Theosophical Society founded on Madam Blavatsky's teachings, Tarot organizations, Wiccan and pagan shops, and haunted New York tours.

Short trips outside Manhattan proper to the neighboring boroughs will take you to even more great spots. Sagamore Hill of the Roosevelt Family. The Walt Whitman Museum. You can see a Scottish Highland Games at the Westbury Gardens and tour a Gold Coast-type estate at the same time. Or trek further out into Suffolk and enjoy the annual Shinnecock Indian powwow at their newly Federally recognized Reservation. Then there is The Brooklyn Botanical Garden, The Bronx Zoo, The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM to all New Yorkers) and Long Island's Cradle of Aviation museum (where one day you might find me in the cockpit of a WWII bomber plane getting a "feel", for my pilot character in the WWII women's series already underway), plus dozens more.

Beyond all of these unique opportunities to visit historical sites, view artwork, taste food, and listen to performances, there is also the glorious, expansive, New York Public Library system. It is truly one of the greatest things about New York that it supports such a vast operation, dedicated to the enrichment and enlightenment of us all.

And beyond the books, and vast collections of papers and writings, there are the specialty branches that offer even more. The NYPL Science & Technology branch is mind-boggling and for those interested in the history of performing arts in NY, the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts has everything from sheet music that can be copied, tunes that can be listened to, and varying exhibits of costumes, memorabilia and biographical subjects.

Let's not forget, either, the researcher's best friend: the indomitable NYPL librarian. They are a fount of information unlike any computer. Ask for help and you'll find suggestions, resources, clues and ideas you hadn't thought of.

So, when I launch my Gilded Age NYC set historical romance series, you can be sure you'll be seeing me, out and about, at all of the best places. The best places for research, I mean.

See you at the museums!

Foodie Confessional

I was always a foodie. When my mother took me to the local pizza place, I liked a lot of garlic on my slice and instead of folding it in half like everyone else, I piled all of the cheese to the center so I could savor the concentration of its flavor. I would chew it until there was not a bit to taste.

Pizza remains one of my favorite things in the entire world. All different kinds of pizza. Whether it be the neighborhood pizzeria or something more upscale like Otto's in the East Village, I love pizza. At Otto's, I fell in love with their olive oil gelato. Sweets are my other food obsession, but that is the next part of this post. When I traveled to Connecticut to try pizza at Pepe's, all my New York friends questioned why I would leave New York to have good pizza. I am going to New Jersey soon for cupcakes as well. I have wended my way through endless New York City neighborhoods to have different culinary excursions. Any place I go in the city I can tell you where I will eat, or what place I want to try.

Will travel for food.

I think about food all the time. Anywhere I go, whatever activity, I wonder where am I going to eat before or after. Preferably after because then I have something to look forward to as I rehash whatever experience it was that I had. In the past week, I have had Russian, French and Ethiopian. I am due to have Moroccan and Indian in the next few weeks; I like all kinds of cuisine. I'll try anything. I recently signed up for Gastronauts because I really am everything they embody and I patiently wait to be invited to my first dinner!

And after dinner there is dessert...

Ahhh dessert, the thing that I live for the most. The cherry on top of every day. Chocolate is a big love of mine. I remember a quiz in Cosmopolitan to determine how sensual are you. One of the questions was which food can you not get enough of--gooey, cheesy pizza and rich decadent chocolate mousse were two of the possible answers. Honestly I could not answer because both of them create a sense of insatiability in me if they are good.

Is it the flavor, is it the punctuation that food creates around so many experiences in my life since I was a child? Is it the exploration of other cultures, or my love of novelty and trying new things? Whatever it is, food and eating and the environment I do it in are major productions, almost like theater in my daily life. Three times a day, the show must go on...

Recently I was studying up on Ayurveda, and implementing parts of a sattvic diet in mine,

getting recipes from Aparna Khanolkar's site. I read Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet and have implemented vegan and vegetarian aspects to my diet. My relationship with food is like any love relationship; I try things that I have never tried before. Try never to be complacent with eating the same things all of the time. Life is too short and there are too many edible things that I can try. I recently became a fan of beets which I never liked as a child and now love. Brussel sprouts and goat are my next targets. Whether I hit the bullseye or not, whether they become new favorites or not it is the experience. I am all about the experience with food.

Photographs by F. Solomon

A Unique New York Experience

by Lisbeth Eng

“Isn’t everything in New York unique?” you ask. Perhaps a valid question, but in my forty some-odd years in this city, this was a new experience for me. The setting was Yankee Stadium. What could be more iconically “New York” than that?

But then reality shifted and I entered what I will call the “Alternate Baseball Universe.” Three friends had persuaded me to join them at a Yankee game. (My arm still aches from the twisting.) Now it’s not that I don’t like baseball, but being a life-long, die-hard Mets fan, this was not easy. That, and the one hundred dollar ticket price. But I later found out that the regular price for these tickets was $150 and it included food and soft drinks, so it was really quite a bargain.

I was told before I arrived at the stadium that this was a luxury suite. I had been in one once at Shea and it was quite lovely. A private room for about 25 people with your own bathroom and covered open seating facing the action. It was a playoff game in 2000 and I had gotten the ticket through my job. (Not the romance writing job, but the rent-paying job.) My co-worker and I seemed to be the only ones interested in the game and I got the feeling that the other “fans” were out-of-town business people just there for the free food. When the score became lopsided – I think the Mets were losing by seven runs – the others retired to the comfortable living-room-style suite and watched a football game (!) on the television screen provided. My friend and I remained outside in the now-empty covered seating section, leaning out of the opening, cheering on our team and trying to capture the feeling that we were actually attending a baseball game – a playoff game, at that!

Though the Mets lost that game (they went on to become the National League Champs that year – we won’t talk about the 2000 World Series) it was a pleasant experience. I enjoyed all the hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries and chicken fingers I wanted and even got a free Mets cap to take home.

But back to the Alternate Baseball Universe. Riding the D train to The Bronx, I pictured a similar setting for our Yankee game – a covered luxury suite with an endless supply of typical baseball-stadium fare and all the bottled water or soda I wanted. We had already been told beer was extra. Bummer. When we got to the stadium we had no idea how to find our seats. A lovely young woman with a pin-stripe-adorned “May I Help You?” sign pointed us toward a guarded glass door. That led to an elevator and we got off at the level for “Audi Yankees Club” – that’s what it said on our tickets.

This was not a luxury suite – it was a restaurant seating some three hundred guests! Instead of French fries and hamburgers we feasted on lobster fritters, pan-fried soft-shell crabs, shrimp cocktail as big as your hand, sautéed asparagus and very rare filet mignon with béarnaise sauce. No kidding. Oh, and there were fries – sweet potato fries. The miniature pastries on the dessert bar were as tempting as any delicacy from the finest bakery. But lest anyone feel deprived (or forget that he was inside a Major League ballpark), hot dogs were provided, along with potato chips and popcorn. The food was wonderful and gracefully dished out buffet-style by servers wearing chef hats inscribed with the famed “NY” logo.

Yet that wasn’t the weirdest part. Our seats were arranged dinner-theater style before long tables all facing the field. But between the “regular” fans and us was a huge glass picture window. Here we were, watching a baseball game from inside a hermetically-sealed, soundproof, climate-controlled restaurant. We couldn’t even hear the National Anthem (we stood anyway since they piped in the soundtrack) or the roar of the crowd. It was like watching the game on a humongous TV screen, and to underscore the TV-like ambiance, the play-by-play telecast of the entire game was piped in, too.

We were attending a baseball game…but it didn’t feel like it to me. During particularly exhilarating moments – the scoring of a “go ahead” run or a breathtaking defensive play – excited fans are often moved to high-five the complete strangers seated near them. Yet this would have felt unseemly within the sophisticated milieu of the Audi Yankees Club. We were there at a ballpark, but not really there. All the action unfolded before us but we were removed from it. Part of the experience and much of the fun of attending a baseball game is to be among the other fans, not separated from them by glass. Fans are collectively referred to as the “tenth man”. We are part of the game and our “root, root, rooting” for the home team helps spur them to action. Sequestered within our opulent isolation booth, we became observers, not participants.

I don’t regret my expedition into the Alternate Baseball Universe of the Audi Yankees Club. (Yes, there were brochures hawking the luxury autos on a discreet rack near the exit.) The food was wonderful and the company agreeable. It just wasn’t an authentic baseball experience.

Now, this is where I usually make some obscure connection from my blog post to my upcoming World War II romance novel. Hmm…. World War II… war…. Well baseball is a little like war…. Ok, that’s a stretch. So I’ll just refer you to my website at www.lisbetheng.com for more info about In the Arms of the Enemy, coming October 1 from The Wild Rose Press. See, I can write a blog post without gratuitous, blatant self-promotion!

Oh, and in case you’re interested, the Yankees lost.

BIO: Lisbeth Eng is a native New Yorker who works in the finance industry by day and plugs her soon-to-be-released World War II romance novel In the Arms of the Enemy every chance she gets. Visit her at www.lisbetheng.com.

FAST GIRLS

   
by Maria C. Ferrer

“Fast is a (Sexy) State of Mind” ---Rachel Kramer Bussel

Fast Girls.

You know who I mean. Those women who are always dressed to the nines: their skirts a little too short, their blouses a little too tight, their cleavage a little too exposed. Their eyeliner is black and sharp, their lipstick bright and confident, and they walk with the greatest of ease on towering heels. Men flock to them, take them home and call them the next day.

You see them at work, on the trains. You remember them from high school, college where they seemed to know something you did not. They still do.

If you haven’t guessed, I was not a “fast girl” growing up. I wasn’t a wallflower either, as I preferred the label, G.D.I. -- God Damn Independent. But, I dreamed. I wanted to send up a signal and have Billy Joel throw me a line but Catholic guilt was better at stamping out hot-blooded passion than a cold shower.

Now as a grown woman, I AM a Fast Girl in that I am in control of myself, my body, my desires and, especially my reading material.  I just read FAST GIRLS: EROTICA FOR WOMEN, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Cleis Press). It’s an excellent collection of short stories about strong, confident women in control of their sexuality and their fun.

Like Tracy, in Kayla Perrin’s “Temptation,” who at 37 isn’t afraid of getting it on with a 20-year old stud with the hots for her. Like Kirstie, who makes room in her dorm shower for three extra guests in “Communal” by Saskia Walker. (Talk about conserving water!) Like “That Girl” by Cherry Bomb, who offers no apologies for being promiscuous because she enjoys being “hot and spent, tangled between sheets, skin on skin….”

Even in their submission, Fast Girls are in control for nothing will happen without their consent. Take Claire in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s “Whore Complex.” Her lover Adrian treats her like his private whore, and she allows it. She even allows him to offer her services to others. Why? Because Claire enjoys the rewards just as much as he does.

And, finally, how about a good-girl Fast Girl like the heroine in Charlotte Stein’s “Married Life”? This wife is horny and frustrated by her missionary-position-once-a-month husband. She wants sex and she wants it now, but no one will do but her hubby. So when she discovers her husband is a closet hedonist, there is really only one thing to do -- punish him, wickedly!

Yes, Yes, Yes!!!

As Rachel Kramer Bussel states in her introduction to FAST GIRLS: EROTICA FOR WOMEN, “Fast is a (Sexy) State of Mind.”

Fast Girls are bold, free, confident and in full control of their lives and their beds. Fast Girls doesn’t mean naughty or slutty…unless they want it to.  Are you a Fast Girl?♥

LINKS:

For more info on the book and its editor, click here.

To order from Amazon.com, click here.

Maria C. Ferrer enjoys reading all about fast girls, daring men and deep, dark, mouth-watering desires. If only her life were full of the same. There’s a New Year’s Resolution waiting to happen!

I Need A Hero!

Why I Write & Read Romance
Lise Horton

In recent days the gossip-ravenous media has latched on to the latest Mel Gibson saga. There’s been his long-reported history of over imbibing, fisticuffs and DUIs. A while back there was his anti-Semitic rant. More recently the revelation that this member of an extreme Catholic sect, husband to Robyn and father of seven children with her was being divorced. Fast upon the heels of this was the exposure of his extra-marital affair with the beautiful, much younger, Oksana Grigorieva and the ensuing love child (kid # 8).

Now the latest. Lurid, downright ugly tapes have been released and are being listened to and reported on in every news outlet available. Racist, sexist, violent, threatening and lewd screaming at the mother of his child who alleges that Gibson also hit her and threatened her with a gun, in the first case while she was holding the baby in her arms. A restraining order is in place and the entertainment trades reported that his agency, William Morris Endeavor has removed him from their roster. Which, I assume, means they fired him.

Add this to the cacophony of other news of men behaving badly. John Edwards, Al Gore, Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen, Chris Brown, Mark Sanford, Elliot Spitzer, and those are just the guys who’ve been leaving broken hearts hither and yon. How about the truly abhorrent cases of mad love like Scott Peterson, Brian David Mitchell, Josef Fritzl, Bruno Fernandes? Every day’s headlines bring more horror, betrayal, disappointment (and don’t get me started on the likes of Bernie Madoff, Ken Starr, Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby – it isn’t just in the arena of love where guys are doing their darndest to disappoint!) It begs one to ask the burning question:

Where have all the heroes gone?

It is this tawdry state of public affairs, my readers, that is the reason I write and read romance. When this gal’s faced with a tsunami of infidelity, disloyalty, dishonor, rage, hatred, and homicidal acts, not to mention back room business double dealings and greedy shenanigans, I need to escape. Where I turn for solace from the daily grind of reality is to a good fantasy. As in a romance novel. Where a man may have a stock portfolio or a race car, fur or fangs, but he treats his woman right, he’s brave, loyal and true, and, after some good loving, a girl’s guaranteed a happily ever after.

But it’s a fairy tale, you say! My response? Darn right it is! The kind that helps me escape to a world where good triumphs over evil, where the bad guy always gets his just desserts and men don’t cheat with the babysitter, beat the crap out of their lover, or kill them and feed the body to their dog. It’s where heroes and their women battle the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune side by side and hand in hand and share smooches and a glorious, happy ending.

I’m sure that there a oodles of good guys out there, and women lucky enough to have them. For the ladies who enjoy both a good romance and a good man, congratulations on your good fortune! (Would that the press saw fit to cover everyday heroes and honorable men doing good deeds. But NOOOO! What fun would THAT be? So the bilious deluge continues.)

For me, however, I create the heroes I’d love to encounter in my own romances, and I voraciously read others’ novels about their ideal men. And there are great romances to enjoy. Entertaining stories filled with wonderful characters and terrific tales of love. There’s a genre for every taste and heroes and heroines for every sensibility, from virtuous Regency misses to kick-ass urban fantasy heroines who never let their dudes forget they are men, to the Scottish rogues and starship troopers who can make a girl’s bosom heave with a single sardonic glance.

So when I cannot stomach another exposé of a man who done his woman wrong, I indulge in romance. Rather than ponder the broken marriages, destroyed lives, damaged children and families, instead, like Dr. Frankenstein-builds-a-romance-hero, I create my own perfect men. I compile the characteristics of the sort of fella I’d like to get up close and personal with. The kind of dude who’d do my heroines justice and though they may be high maintenance, they’re never low down dirty dogs. When not penning my own, I enjoying the romantic literary fruits of other creative minds. It is how I keep from despairing over the sad state of affairs that is in my face at every turn.

Say what you will - that I’m being unrealistic, that I am turning a blind eye to the harsh truths of life. True and true. But I am certainly less angst ridden, less depressed, and more hopeful for it.

In these trying times, that’s my reason for loving romance novels.

What’s yours?

Encounters

I believe that everything happens for a reason. Such as why my yoga class was canceled and I decided to indulge myself in its place by buying Apple gadgets and essential oils. It was in the store with said oils that I met a model--an alternative model who does fetish. I was fascinated. Recently I began a short story about a model who almost suffocated in a corset. I had read as Diane Kruger described in Allure magazine that feeling and it inspired me. I wrote the first few lines organically, after combining it with a piece I was working on that I had gotten stuck on. Meeting this model who told me that yes it can happen, that you can suffocate while wearing a corset if a photographer does not know what s/he is doing. She also described the beauty in what she does and how her background made her to want to make people think about expressions of their sensuality in different ways. She believes that people are creative in every other part of their lives but when it comes to sex and intimacy they are one-sighted. I read, write and watch erotica. I think a lot is learned about people in how they express themselves in that way.

I had the pleasure of spending time recently with Thea Devine about whom I am going to be doing a Bits and Pieces on, my regular column at the RWA-NYC blog. She changed the way that I think about everything with my craft. I identified with the way she described love and sex and I found my eyes wider because of her. I even got a tiny black Moleskine to write down observations that I make and--surprise, surprise--there are only sensual bits so far! Maybe they will make it into a story but they definitely show me how I see the world and what inspires me...

I am taking an art course focusing on Francis Bacon and for the most part I do not think anyone would describe Bacon as "lovely" or "sexy." When I saw my first Bacon I thought, why would anyone like that?! But I changed my mind about him. I love the rawness of his work--there is a lot lovely and sexy about him. Not even considering that a lot of his work focuses on his lover who was his muse, or that his paintings are featured in the opening credits of the Last Tango in Paris. In my art course, we were shown a Diane Arbus photograph, which I commented on that the two people depicted could not have been a couple because they did not look happy. The instructor said to me that all couples do not have to be happy. I think my mindset was that an unhappy couple would not pose for a picture. But the idea that everything romantic does not have to be happy...When people call me a romantic the last thing they are saying about me is that I am unhappy! I am typing this post on my MacBook with the screen for Before Sunrise minimized, happy for a change that I am able to listen to it and not need to glance at the subtitles. I am fond of the ironically darker love themes in love movies from other countries. Hearing the instructor voice aloud that romance does not have to be happy, it was not that I did not know that, not that I have not explored the themes in fiction and maybe in real life...but to hear something makes it less indelible in my mind. When the fetish model told me you can suffocate in a corset, I had to reread fashion guru Polly Guerin's post about corsets!

I have been writing a lot more since then; the fairly dark love story that I have been working on is developing...which I am going to work on as soon as I finish this post. Every encounter should lead to something that can be transferred to the page or the computer screen.