I have the image of that Staples commerical, with dad pushing the shopping cart, dancing around to the Chistmas tune while clicking his heels ...lol! It always makes me laugh whenever I see that! And it reminds me, that for me, it is the most wonderful time of year.
The picture above, while not from my backyard, looks identical to what I see. In fact, when I found the image I tried to find information on the photographer because I'm certain its one of my neighbors. This is exactly, my backyard--except the Crown Forest is not quite ablaze in color yet-- but it's coming!
Fall is, for me, the most wonderful time of the year! Not just because the kidlet is back in school (which, today is the first day....yeah!!!) but because of the colors, the crispness in the air, the smells of leaves, and corn. 'Fall is in the air' is a saying that is put to use here in Cowville! lol! The scent of fall is definitely sprinkling the air. The cornfield which is beyond my backyard fence is sounding very fallish. In the summer, the stalks sound supple and silky brushing against each other. Now they're sounding crisp, rustling. The green is slowly fading, too. And the Crown Forest beyond the corn is beginning to turn as well. Signs for Apple Fest are already being posted, and the local paper is pleading for entries for 'get your best apple crisp recipe ready for the contest'. It's fall here. And I can't wait to go pick apples, while eating a caramel apple--oh, and a still warm, sugar and cinnamon donut followed by some apple cidar!!! That's a mainstay!
Not only do I love the physical changes of the season, but also the food, the comfort of digging out a cozy, well worn sweater, or sweatshirt. One of the things I relish about the fall is the return of routine. I am a creature of habit, and too many lazy days makes me...well, exceedingly unmotivated! I like routine. I like to know what I'm doing. I'm much more productive that way.
Every fall, I make new years resolutions. It seems fitting. The school supplies area all fresh and new, and there's new hopes and expectations for the year ahead.
Every year, the resolutions are the same. Be more organized. Especially in my writing. Find time to balance writing and family. Cook more and quit eating out so much.
Basically, that's my resolutions for this year, with one addition. Weight Watchers. Yeah...groan....(and you know damn well, I'm still having my caramel apple and donut at Apple Fest! :)
I want to find more energy and motivation, and perhaps losing a few pounds and eating better will help me. So today is D-day. The first day of Weight Watchers. I'll keep you informed about how it's going, and I'll beg you for support when it's not going so well!!!
Today it's chilly--65 degrees. I can hear the corn stalks through the open kitchen window, and I'm in my favorite rag-tag hoodie! I've got my coffee, and my 'to do list'. I'm feeling fresh and motivated. So how about you? Does anyone else make any plans, set goals etc...at the beginning of the fall? Anyone sorry to see summer go and the autumn breeze blow in?
My thanks to all of you for stopping by my tour stops;) Many of you journeyed right up to the end with me and I appreciate that! I met some wonderful folks, shared some fun stuff, and saw some pretty classy Internet diggs!! Oh, and I can't forget the number of books I gave away! (Nor does my postal person!lol)
My thanks to the LIT ladies and Lord CM,for allowing me to post my daily updates/winners.
The LIT manor has some wonderful guests coming your way, and a special celebration to kick-off the release of our first Celtic Spice anthology, WINTERS DESIRE! Watch for the deets here at the LIT Manor. Oh, btw, I've been taking pictures around the manor these past few months-some cleverly done through keyholes!;)) I hope that our "scenic tour of the LIT Manor" slide show will be a part of the end of October celebration.
Ok, admittedly, this pic is pretty risque! But I'm a hussy, and I LOVE this pic. Plus, it gives the right tone for my post.
You see, VampFanGirl and I had a chat last week about one of my guilty reading pleasures and that is the forced seduction.
Those 'bodice rippers' of long ago were famous for this, and as a result so controversial. But with the boom, or bloom of erotic romance, the alpha male who isn't going to take no for answer has resurfaced.
Now, I do not mean rape. Although, I did just attend a Women's Health conference for the day job and they had an esteemed professor talk about women's fantasies. She went on to explain each one in depth, including the most controversial one--which tops the list of fantasies. The rape scenario.
The whole room (which were health professionals)gasped, including, hussy me. I was shocked. But broken down, and in the professors words, it all made sense. There's an element of danger, with a strong, forceful male that calls to the 'primitive' female side of us, that soceity cannot break down. It's in XY DNA. We have an intrinsic need for males to compete for us, to fight for us. It's that DNA that says 'yeah, this man can protect and provide for me, and the children he'll give me'. Then there is the overwhelming feeling of being desired. So desired and wanted that the male is prepared to cross lines to have you. Then, and the most important part, the fantasy plays out as the woman wishes. After all, it's in her mind, and she can stop it whenever she wants. That's the definitive point of the fantasy.
So, really, to me, the 'rape fantasy' is more of a forced seduction in my mind. You know the scene, the hero wants the heroine, despite everything. She says no, he says 'c'mon', and he goes about making her change her mind. Again, it's the overwhelming feeling of being wanted and desired. Which, really, us women want. There's the element of danger with a man who is in charge and strong. It makes us wonder how is the hero going to get her to change her mind? Force? Skills? Talk?
The forced seduction scene is still controversial, despite the plethora of graphic sex, in all forms in romance. And this is, admittedly a controversial post to some. But as this is a blogging bordello for HOT historicals, I thought I would throw it out for food for thought.
Do you like the forced seduction angle, and if not, do you think you could ever be persuaded to read a book that had a scene in it? If you thought of it as fantasy, would it work better? Do you think forced seductions work best in historicals, or in any genre?
Hey guys, I'm a Wicked Writer! I had a total fangirl moment when an email from Shayla Black entered my inbox yesterday. Shayla Black? REALLY?? OMG!!!!! I totally love her Doomsday Brethren series and am anxiously awaiting the second installment in September.
Anyhoo, Shayla invited me (Sophie Renwick) to become part of their group, Wicked Writers. I'm in really good company, and I might possibly be having more fangirl moments to come! The authors of Wicked Writers are Shayla Black, Sylvia Day, Cathryn Fox, Mackenzie McKade, Karin Tabke, Melissa Schroeder, and Monica Burn!!!
Wow...join up and having fun chatting with the girls. It's a busy loop and they chat about all kinds of things and I think they do give aways etc... They also talk Hotties, too for us Hussies! Click the banner and it'll take you to the site to join. See ya there.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Double blog booking: Aug 25: I'll be dueling blogs at Beth Ciottas blog and Sisters in Sync Beths group blog with a couple of her friends. Be sure to check out both fun sites! Beth is an awesome talent not to be missed and a genuinely cool person to boot!
Thanks to all who have helped keep me alert while driving on this journey! Home is beginning to look pretty good, but I've saved some of the best for last;))
I needed an extra cuppa this moring as I headed out in the 59* autumn morning! It is gorgeous today and I'm actually seeing a few leaves starting to turn color!
Congrats to Larissa Lyons who became a winner of a copy of TORTURED at House of Muse over the weekend! Emil me at amanda@amandamcintyre.net to claim your book!
Double blog booking: Aug 25: I'll be dueling blogs at Beth Ciottas blog and Sisters in Sync Beths group blog with a couple of her friends. Be sure to check out both fun sites! Beth is an awesome talent not to be missed and a genuinely cool person to boot!
I may have to take up learning more about Aussie Football!!! Seriously, a delicious site for a wonderful cause!!! I have a new found admiration for Aussie football!
Check out the trailer that goes into the behind the scenes look of this annual calendar that raises money for the McGrath Foundation Breast cancer Charity.
ROUND ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE-Mackinac Island Last night I had the honor of making a night visit to Blogtalk Radio w/the effervescent and downright charming Renee Bernard as host. if you missed it, the chat is archived at www.blogtalkradio.com and can be downloaded to your IPod.
Since it wasn't a stop that allowed for a contest giveaway. I'm stopping by home this morning here at the manor, before I head to Night Owl Romance blog so that I can offer a copy of TORTURED for DAY seven...
Also, For those of you following the schedule, the special interview with Lord CM has been rescheduled to a later time in the month. Watch here for when that will post!
Today chance to win a book at the LIT manor: Everyone has(or should have) a place they think of that reminds them to slow down down the pace, making sense of their lives, take a moment to breathe. For me that is the shores of the Great Lakes-preferably Mackinac Island..I actually used the imagery during child birth to focus--true story;) my second spot? the hammock on my deck out back. Simple, right?
What's your "thinking spot?" Your "happy place?" One winner will be chosen at random from comments.
Ever wonder what Amanda sounds like? Does her voice have an annoying nasel twang? Does she snort when she laughs? (yes, when I really get going) Just want to hear the actually VERY FUNNY host Renee Bernard have a go at Amanda?? Then tune in cuz its ALL happening Tuesday night - from the comfort of your little computer in your best comfy chair!
Check listing for : CANNED LAUGHER Tuesday Night, at 8:30pm EST, on www.blogtalkradio.com
I'm part of a group called Romance Unleashed--a bunch of romance authors who got our start with the Zebra Debut program back in 2004-05. Last year, we launched the first-ever "Unleash Your Story" event to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (one of our RU members has two children with Cystic Fibrosis, so this cause is very near and dear to our hearts). Today, I've invited fellow RU author Teresa Bodwell to join us here at the LIT Manor to tell you more about the Unleash Your Story event, and how you can join us. Teresa, take it away....
Unleash Your Story—August 31-September 28
Unleash Your Story brings writers and readers together to raise funds and awareness for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. We are harnessing the power of story to make a difference for the tens of thousands of kids and adults living with this fatal genetic disease. The Power of Story
Of all the vehicles available to modern humans, the most versatile is the story. A good book can take you sailing on a pirate ship, hunting werewolves or dancing at Almacks. It’s a combination time machine and space ship that knows no limits.
Stories entertain. They make us laugh and cry. Provide an escape from reality, comfort in grief, a reprieve from pain and an inspiration to reach your goals.
When a reader opens a book and jumps inside, she releases the words from their two dimensional prison into a four dimensional world of time and space where magic happens. It is the combination of reader and writer that does the trick. The writer conceives the story and the reader completes it.
Now imagine hundreds of readers and writers coming together to unleash their stories. This is the concept behind the Unleash Your Story: Make a Difference write-a-thon/read-a-thon. With many readers and writers each doing a little, we can make a big difference.
The reality
Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the U.S. and 70,000 worldwide. A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections. This same mucus obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food. To combat these issues people with CF depend on many drugs and supplements to survive.
In the 1950s, few children with cystic fibrosis lived to attend elementary school. Today, advances in research and medical treatments have enhanced and extended life for children and adults with CF. Many people with the disease can now expect to live into their 30s, 40s and beyond. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation works to find better treatments and, ultimately, a cure for this fatal illness. (Information from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation website).
Even with the advances we've seen over the last several decades the story of cystic fibrosis is grim for tens of thousands of kids and adults suffering from this disease and the hundreds of thousands of people who love them. Working together we can help change the story by bringing improved treatment and the hoped for cure closer to reality. How you can help
Each Unleash Your Story participant sets a reading or writing goal and asks friends, family and fans to donate to CFF in support of their goal. It's sort of like a walk-a-thon, except there is no knocking on doors or wearing out sneakers. Instead you sit in your favorite reading or writing spot and crank out the pages!
Unleash Your Story runs from August 31 through September 28, 2009. Our fearless leaders in the 2009 campaign are Lori Wilde, Pacesetter Author and Michelle Buonfiglio, Pacesetter Reader. We'll have fun prizes for those who keep up with our pacesetters as well as incentives for reaching certain reading, writing and fund raising goals.
Last year Unleash Your Story raised over $11,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Our goal this year is to more than double that amount to $23,000. With your help we can reach this goal!
The Basics
What: Write-a-thon/Read-a-thon for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
When: August 31-September 28. Registration starts in early August.
How to participate: 1) Register; 2) set a reading or writing goal; 3) set a fundraising goal; 4) form a team or work as an individual; 5) contact friends, relatives and fans and ask them to donate in support of your goal. All donations go directly to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and are tax deductible. No need for you to worry about collecting donations.
Learn more: Visit UNLEASH YOUR STORY or write to info@unleashyourstory.com.
Just a bit of wickedness going into this weekend.... a bit irreverant, but worth the few swoon worthy glimpses in this funny video! ;)) Enjoy! LOL Amanda
Winner at The Romance Club: booklover1335 Congrats and please email me at amanda@amandamcintyre.net to claim your book!
Daily tour winners will be posted here unless we have a guest. In that event, post will show the following day. Regular blogging will continue so you will need to watch close. Winners are announced at each blog on the tour as well. Next stop: Novel Thoughts-Aug. 7 See you on the road! Amanda
Well, good day to you all! It's been a bit since I posted, so I thought I better get my bum in gear and do something! So, I was pondering what to write, when I began to reflect on my weekend, which in Canada was the long weekend (Civic Holiday) It was hot and humid, and sunny. Good Cannuck weather!!! So, we went for a drive to Kingsville which is a charming little town on the shore of Lake Erie. It's in Essex County which was the county where I was raised, and my old stomping grounds. It brings the warm cozies, and I try to visit frequently, while introducing my family to the things that I used to do, and the places I used to go. (hey, I'm Scottish and like the Irish, the Scots are a traditional kind of people. Home is always in the heart!)
So, we're driving around and we come across a little tea room that I've somehow missed on my numerous drives through Kingsville. You see, I love tea, and tea rooms, and afternoon tea makes me giddy with excitement (I also collect teapots!) My husband knows this. The going for tea thing is something I've done with my mum for years, and now that I have a ughter she comes with us. (Interestingly, all our baby/wedding showers are in 'afternoon tea' form and the men cannot wait to be let back into the house so that they can scarf down those little tea sandwiches made with colored bread!) So, I digress....hubby knows I love tea rooms, so we pull into Annabelle's and enter a bygone era!
What a beautiful place and the afternoon tea was perfect and formal and everything you would imagine afternoon tea would encompass. Although, when one reads those tea scenes in romance novels, it usually involves ladies sitting elegantly in a salon of a townhouse gossiping avidly. Well, let me tell you, it's rather novel to be sitting across from a man who is a mechanic and a little over six feet tall, hoisting a fragile red and white willow tea cup in his hand! Even stranger, watching him systematically go through the three tiered silver stand while trying to 'gentlemanly'. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this was supposed to be a light reprieve back in the day. Something to tide you over. The man was eating like he hadn't eaten in days. (his favorite sandwhich was the creamchesse with maraschino cherries)
Our conversation was pleasant and we talked about things we hadn't in a while. And there was NO writing talk, although I will confess to having some fleeting thoughts about seduction at an afternoon tea....:)
It's funny. Why do we think that only women would enjoy such an event as tea? I mean, my husband is one of those manly guys. Yet he had no qualms about sitting at a little table with fancy china and fussy little sandwiches. He also thoroughly enjoyed the scone with Devon cream and jam!
I asked him about it after, and he shrugged. "It's neat, and besides, it reminds me of your wedding shower, when I was invited in after the 'ladies' had left to sit with your family and eat the leftovers with the other men. It made me part of your family." Ahhhhh!!!! And that was quite a sight, watching these tall men balancing little plates on their laps and trying to delicately eat little sandwiches!
So, I have resolved to take my mum to Annabelle's for a little tea and gossip, and thought it would be lovely to go to an afternoon tea at RWA while we're in NY a couple of years from now! Of course, there's a midnight tea at the RT convention, a lovely 'Madhatters' event that you might want to check out!
So, tell me, have you ever been to an afternoon tea? And if so, what is your favorite part! If you would like to do a virtual tea, then visit Annabelle's and have a look at the lovely pictures. She has a cute little shop on site as well. Also, Amanda has posted the second stop on her blog tour, just beneath this entry. For a look at her stop, just drop down below!
I begin as we all do from home. The LIT manor was built from pure inspiration. We were three historical writers who could not at one time, find a home for those who amp up the steam a bit in their historical writing. Charlotte and I were already writing for Harlequin Spice and I knew Kristi from working with her through the RT (Romantic Times) convention Genre program. (She is my Historical captain and a brilliant one to boot!) We were soon able to convert her to the steamier side of historical writing and soon she discovered not only is she good at it, but enjoys it as well!
So it began, with fertile minds, an enthusiasm unleashed, and a goal to create a place where readers and authors could settle in and chat together about any number of subjects including, but not limited to, hot, sweaty, heart-pounding historicals!
We then decided that we needed a male figure…a manor "mascot" so to speak,(heavens , don't tell him that!) who could keep his eye on things when we were away, interject his male viewpoint now and again, and basically serve as balance to the three females living in the manor! He’d have to be breathtakingly handsome (of course!) a bit irreverent, confident, flexible (yes, physically and attitudinally) let’s see…available for all types of research, able to carry on a conversation with many types of people (though women are his favorite guests) dabble in the culinary arts, sharp dresser, and have knowledge of history. The fact that Lord Craven Moore (dubbed by a reader most eloquently) has a particular passion (and expertise) for women came as an added bonus. He keeps us in balance, offers himself at all hours, and has a smile that will melt the flesh right off your bones.
Note: Never underestimate the power of three fertile author minds;)) Taking the perfect fantasy male from each of us—we breathed life into Lord Craven-Moore. It is a good thing that he is fictional, or else we’d all be in trouble, I think.
I hope some of you will be able to come along on my journey across the Internet highways and by-ways, as I visit some very interesting sites along the way!
I will be giving away a copy of TORTURED at every stop chosen at random from those who leave a comment!
So tell me what fun place have you visited this summer?
I’ll also be blogging about my true-life19-day road trip I took recently! Next stop-August 5- EYE ON ROMANCE! (*see the full schedule below)
See you on the road! Amanda
“25 BLOGS in 25 DAYS…the TORTURED tour!”
http://www.lustintime.blogspot.com -- August 4 http://www.theromancebookclub.com -- August 5 http://www.cheekyreads.blogspot.com -- August 6 http://www.novethoughts.wordpress.com -- August 7 http://www.mechelearmstrong.blogspot.com -- August 8-9 http://www.CoffeetimeRomance.com/CoffeeThoughts -- August 10 http://www.lustintime.blogspot.com -- August 11 http://www.blogtalkradio.com -- August 11 7:30* PM http://www.NightOwlRomance.blogspot.com -- August 12 http://www.RTBookreviews.com/2009 -- August 13 http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com--Aug. 13 (excerpt)NEW* http://www.theromancestudio.com -- August 14 http://www.faerycourt.com/faeryblog -- August 15 http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com--August 16 (Interview)NEW* http://www.myspace.com/amandamcintyre -- August 17 http://www.freshfiction.com/blog -- August 18 http://www.Caridad.com/blog -- August 19 http://loveisanexplodingcigar.com -- August 20 http://www.GenelladeGrey.wordpress.com -- August 21 http://www.mcintyreshouseofmuse.blogspot.com -- August 22-23 http://www.myspace.com/SpiceBriefs -- August 24 http://www.bethciotta.blogspot.com -- August 25 http://www.emilybryan.blogspot.com -- August 26 http://www.RomanceBookWyrm.blogspot.com -- August 17 http://thechatelianes.blogspot.com -- August 28
