Guest Interview - Shyla Colt

Today I would like to welcome the lovely Shyla Colt to my blog with her new book The Wanting

So, glad you could join us, Shyla :-)

Hi Doris, thanks for letting me visit with you today!

You're very welcome.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m a 30 year old mother of one with an overactive imagination and a marine husband. Music and the written words have been my two major passions my entire life. So when I turned thirty I knew it was time to take the plunge and give publishing my best shot.

:D

What made you write ‘this’ story?

For the longest time I’ve been obsessed with all things alien.. There’s just something about life from another planet that intrigues me. What would they look like? Would they have powers?  All of those unanswered questions are like a treasure trove of potential. I even spent my 25^th birthday in Roswell, New Mexico, and it was there in their library I came up with the concept of a family of royal aliens who are forced to leave their home among the stars when their sun begins to die.  The Wanting is the first story in that series I’ve entitled  The D’Shar Men.

Describe a typical day’s writing for us

Well I’m a stay at home mom to a 18 month old so it really varies. I write during her naps, and when she’s entertaining herself. But the bulk of my writing is done after everyone including the hubby is down for the night. I usually aim for a chapter a day but if I’m having a rough patch with writing it might be something as simple as at least a scene.

What inspires you?

A little bit of everything. Music is a huge inspiration, but so are movies, films, newspaper articles, etc. The strangest inspiration I’ve ever had was an old fashioned auto shop I spotted while on a walk with my daughter.

If you weren’t a writer what would you be?

Can I say no telling? Lol. One thing I’ve learned is life has a way of happening on its own terms.  I would still be a stay at home Mom, but after my kiddo started school… I’m not sure what would be next for me.

Do your characters ever surprise you?

All the time! I’m notorious for saying,  I had no idea that was going to happen, or my characters took over my writing last night.  For me, characters are almost like living beings. They have their own personality, and agendas, and if you aren’t true to that they’ll gum up the works when you try to write.

What could not do without when you’re writing?

I’d have to say music hands down.

What words of wisdom do you have for the aspiring authors out there?

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there with your work.  The only thing a publisher can do is say no, and if they do, they often tell you why they won’t’ accept it. Which helps you hone your craft, and your story to re submit.

Where do you see yourself in ten year’s time?

Wow. Hopefully with 2 more kids added to my brood, and a successful writing career in full swing.

Do you have a favourite quote?

Oh I have many, but right now  “ If you’re driving through hell keep going.”  I’m currently working on the sequel to my first book ,Don’t Fear the Reaper. So heaven and hell are on my mind on a daily basis.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Oh yes! It’s the bane of every writer’s existence when it rears its ugly head.  It’s usually a sign to me I need to enjoy another hobby or stop trying to force my characters in a direction they don’t want to go.

What other books can your readers look forward to?

If they haven’t read Don’t Fear the Reaper there’s that. I also have a book from Breathless Press due in December called Wolf in Waiting.

And finally can you share an excerpt with us?

I’d love too!

Excerpt

“I don’t know what kind of alien sleight of hand you worked on me, but it needs to end.”

“D’Shar men mate for life. I told you this,” he said.

His demeanor softened by her shaken voice.

“I can’t eat or sleep, and when I do my dreams are filled with you,” Zasha said.

The darkness settled over them and wrapped them in its embrace like a blanket. The false intimacy it created along with their position between the trees concealed them from prying eyes. That knowledge made him bold.

“Tell me what you want me to do,” he said. His large hand slid up to free her hair from its constraint.

The heavy weight wrapped around his fingers. The contact between them served as a balm to the frayed nerves worn with each day that passed. Before they were civilized, his people’s behavior was deplorable. Public mating rituals were performed in front of the pack to prove their claim to all, and a fight to the death over the woman of their choice was considered normal. Much of the behavior had been bred out, and what was left was usually controllable. Her reluctance to admit their bond pushed him to the brink of his limitations. He’d never felt as alien as he did this past week.

“Relief, I need relief.”  Zasha’s voice had gone husky with need. Her slim fingers wound in his hair as her body trembled.

“Okay,” he said.

Phelan bent to take her lips with his own. The sweet flavor of peaches danced along his tongue as her nails scrapped his scalp. Her full lips were pillow soft against the gentle nips she administered turned aggressive as they moved from his mouth to his neck and back again. Tiny white teeth marked their territory, and he loved every moment. Zasha’s urgency was a delicious torture that overrode rational thought as he lowered her body down to the soft blanket below. Under the concealment of night they were nothing more than two lovers ensnared by the romance found in the classical chords.

“God, Phelan, I’ve missed this.  I’m so cold when you’re not around.”

“Then let me warm you,” he whispered into her ear.

His tongue traced the delicate shell of her ear before he indulged in the column of her neck. Zasha’s content sighs and the feel of her nails on his back beneath his shirt spurred him on. His hips ground into hers, the hardness between them unmistakable.

“Phelan,” she moaned. Her long legs spread as wide as she could manage in the pencil skirt fit of her dress.

“Shh, you have to be quiet.”

The corners of his mouth twitched upward at her hushed protest when he rolled off her and propped himself up onto an elbow. His lips dipped to cover hers once more as he eased up her skirt. His hand skimmed beneath the crisp cotton of her dress, and ran along the damp cloth barrier. Her cream had soaked through her panties and rolled down her thighs.

“I love how wet you get for me, Zash.”

“Phe.” The sound of his name shortened on her lips made his cock twitch. The unconscious familiarization made him growl. A flick of his wrist popped the elastic band off the cloth that barred his entrance. Thick digits drove inside her flooded tunnel. Her slick walls tight around his fingers as she rocked her hips.

“That’s right, Zash, take me inside you.”

The fluttery response from her vagina made him smirk. She liked it when he told her what to do. When he took the control from her and pushed her boundaries. He added another finger and titled his thrust to hit the sweet spot inside her.

“Come all over my fingers, baby.”

He took her cries into his mouth as she convulsed, her pussy a vise grip around him as her cream overflowed. Phelan removed his hands and smoothed her skirt back down before he sucked his fingers into his mouth. The salty sweet flavor a tangy taste he relished as she slowly came back to Earth.

“Is that better, Zash?” he asked, voice strained as he adjusted his painful hard-on.

“Yes.”

Zasha voice had gone soft, and he could feel her mental retreat. He hooked an arm around her waist and eased her to set beside him as he tucked her beneath his shoulder. Damned if he’d let her run again so soon.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Giving you more relief.”

“Phelan—”

“No.”

“No?”

“Call me what you did before.”

“Phe?”

“Yes.” He breathed. “Why do you fight this, Zasha?”

“Because it’s too much too fast! I don’t know you, and I sure as hell don’t trust some alien biology I’ve never heard about before.”

“It’s not exactly a fact we bring up to people in polite conversation.”

“The point is you’ve had your whole life to wrap your mind around this. I’ve had seven days.”

“That should be long enough for you to realize this isn’t going to go away,” he said.

The silence that fell between them all the answer he needed.

“What do you want from me, Zasha? The Wanting will become painful if we continue to ignore it. You don’t want to come together in a blinded lust. It’s too dangerous for you.”

Loving that excerpt Shyla! Can't wait for the book :-)

Thanks again for having me over to visit Doris!

It was a pleasure :-)

If you’ve enjoyed the excerpt  The Wanting can be purchased at Evernight Publishing  on Sept. 30^th. Also keep in mind all Ever Night books will be on sale on Oct. 1^st.

www.evernightpublishing.com

Contact Shyla

www.shylacoltsstraightshot.wordpress.com

http://twitter.com/ShylaColt

Celebration time

Come celebrate with me :-)

The Tardis Scribbles is one today, so to mark the occasion, there is cake and the bubbly in the cooler. So budge up, plenty of room on my bench and help me celebrate an incredible year. I've brought some friends and don't mind sharing. I'm nice like that ;-)

though some of them, can't seem to keep their fingers out of the cake...

excuse me for a minute, while I help him clean up

*ahem*

well, it's only polite after all ;-)


When I set up this blog a year ago, I had no idea of the incredible journey we would take and what a ride it's been. I've blogged about my road to publication before, so I shan't bore you with it again.

*grin*

Today is just to mark the occasion and a good excuse for a knees up, not that I need one, really.

I have a very  busy couple of months ahead of me, as I have just sold my paranormal romance Lure of the Blood to Evernight Publishing.

This follows on from the news that Awakening will now be released as a single title by Breathless Press - it was previously scheduled for inclusion in their Hotshots anthology and of course my original baby Scandinavian Scandal is scheduled for release 21st November through Noble Romance

You can see why I'm celebrating, right!

There will be give aways coming up to celebrate my releases, and I have some wonderful guest authors come visiting over the next couple of months, starting with the lovely Shyla Colt on 30th September.

So do make sure to check back often :-)

Now, excuse me, my naughty guest has gone and got himself covered in chocolate again.

*sigh*

The things a woman has to do....

GrumpynessRus syndrome

As the title says, I am in downright grump today. No particular reason, other that I went to bed in a bad mood and woke up still in one.


*sigh*


Don't you just love these days - not!


Inflicting my grumpyness on Twitter, as you do, brought the offer of cake - yum, thanks Lisa and this little video, which is too funny not to share and did make me laugh out loud - thanks J.S. :-)

Watching that made me smile again, gotta love the Muppets. I used to watch them religiously growing up. They're even funnier in German I tell you!

In a further effort to cheer myself up and as a reminder to me that all things do pass I also wanted to share these poems.

Song for a Fifth Child
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.


And this is another favourite of mine...


Wean Me Gently
by Cathy Cardall


I know I look so big to you,

Maybe I seem too big for the needs I have.

But no matter how big we get,

We still have needs that are important to us.

I know that our relationship is growing and changing,

But I still need you. I need your warmth and closeness,

Especially at the end of the day

When we snuggle up in bed.

Please don't get too busy for us to nurse.

I know you think I can be patient,

Or find something to take the place of a nursing;

A book, a glass of something,

But nothing can take your place when I need you.

Sometimes just cuddling with you,

Having you near me is enough.

I guess I am growing and becoming independent,

But please be there.

This bond we have is so strong and so important to me,

Please don't break it abruptly.

Wean me gently,

Because I am your mother,

And my heart is tender. 




As you can probably tell from the poems, some of my grumpyness is down to my two youngest and feeling very touched out at the minute.


Tandem nursing can be wonderful, but it can also make you feel like you never do anything but nurse and my four year old seems to dissolve into a bag of tantrums every time I ask him to wait.


*sigh*


And with the six week old being in the middle of a growth spurt, well.... you get the picture I am sure. No wonder I have lost the ability to write, which is frustrating the heck out of me.


However - this too shall pass! 


If I say it often enough I might even believe it! ;-)

Book review - Deadly Captive - Bianca Sommerland

It's been a while since I reviewed a book on here, but this one really grabbed me. I was hooked from the first page!

Lydia awakes, bound and blind, to the whispered urgings of a man who has his hands on her. His words confuse her at first, but she soon understands they are both in the middle of a performance that will determine whether she remains in captivity or dies. The crowd must be entertained, and her cellmate makes sure it is.

Forced submission is not the only horror Lydia endures. She has no memories of life before her imprisonment, and Joe, her cellmate, is her only comfort as the powerful creatures that hold them captive torture and debase her. Together, she and Joe cling to the will to survive long enough to break free and seek revenge. Their desire to sustain one another triumphs over their wardens' efforts to destroy them. There is no pain, no suffering, that can tear them apart.

Beyond their cell, their love is tested. Can they hold strong in the face of the challenge of the new powers they have gained along with their freedom?

This is not an easy read. The violence is very real and as this is written in the first person, there is no escaping the intensity. I felt at times like hiding between my hands whilst I was reading it! But, I just *had* to keep reading to find out what happens next. The violence and the torture Lydia in particular has to endure, sometimes at the hands of Joe, is stomach churning. You can't help but admire her will to live and the lengths she will go through to protect Joe, even if ultimately this completely backfires on her and you feel all is lost.

Lydia and Joe go through an incredible journey and I only found myself relaxing slightly towards the latter half of the book, when I felt fairly sure that there would be a happy ending of sorts for them. This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I never could anticipate what would happen next, right to the end and I wanted more when it ended.

This is not the sort of story I normally read, but I am so glad I took a chance on it, having been drawn to it by the cover, because it is such a compelling read.

I couldn't find any fault with it at all. In fact I will have to read it again, because I clicked pages so fast in my need to know what happened next! 

Be warned though this isn't for the faint hearted, but incredibly well written and will have you think about it for some time afterwards.

Available through Noble Romance 

Routines or rather lack thereof

Are you a routine person? Do you need one to write? Or are you a go with the flow and see where life takes you kind of person?

Well, I fall somewhere in between, like most people I expect. Once upon a time, many, many moons ago, pre children, I was a highly organised, schedule, everything had its place kinda person. Yes, really. Stop laughing in that corner. I was house proud, heck I even ironed. Once upon a time as the fairy tale goes....

Even when baby number one arrived I was still very much in charge. And being the easygoing baby she was, it worked. She fed four hourly, slept through the night from three weeks, my house was spotless, hey I had this parenting lark sussed. Everyone else obviously did something wrong...

You know what's coming, right?

Baby number two arrived, a dark haired little stranger, who cried lots, didn't gain weight as he was supposed to, didn't sleep and to top it all my angelic first baby turned two. And as though a switch had turned in her head, she changed. Oh boy, did she change!

So I turned into a rather frazzled mum of two. Yet still I clung to my ideal of routines, spotless house etc. etc. Hardly a wonder I ended up with post natal depression. Going back to work, when baby number two was six months, helped.  Everything slotted into place eventually and it clearly didn't put me off, as baby number three arrived almost three years later to be followed by the next one in just twenty one months. Whoops :-)

That's when I finally stopped ironing, but I still wore myself into a frazzle trying to stay on top of housework. Really, why? I do smile at myself nowadays, thinking back to the days of obsession with housework. Talk about making life difficult for yourself.

And then baby number five arrived, very high needs and all thought of routine and doing anything but barest survival went out of the window. She never slept and I do mean never. What worked one minute, didn't work the next...To this day and she is eleven now, life is never dull with her around. I keep telling myself that it's good to be assertive. And being a drama queen will one day mean she will be holding an Oscar ;-)

She did teach me one important thing though. That I *can* function without sleep and that everything passes in time. Nothing in life is fixed and when you have a child constantly changing the goal posts on you, you learn to adapt - fast. In fact I learnt so much about myself. She does still push me to the absolute limits of my  patience and endurance, but you know what. I *can* get through it, no obstacle is insurmountable and well, sleep is for wimps ;-)

Anyway, I digress as usual. Let's just say life is a lot simpler since I allowed myself to take each day at a time.

Yet, pre Markus I slipped back into being a bit of a control freak. There are almost four years between Markus and Tj and he was a very easy baby. So plenty of time for *me*.

Plenty of time for plotting and writing.

And then along came Markus, who is now five weeks old. To a large extent he has just slotted in. Sure I can't put him down much, but hey I can type with one hand, and he is very, very cute. Sleep, well that varies. Last night he slept a staggering six hours, admittedly in my bed with his nose next to my boob, but he slept. What's more he went back to sleep till after the school run. Unheard of!

The night before he didn't sleep at all and spent most of the day screeching. This followed on from a weekend of non stop feeding and screeching if not attached. So, it swings in roundabouts really. Yesterday my stress level were sky high - today I am floating on an isle of extreme serenity.

Yesterday it took me all afternoon to just change a few lines on my wip. Today I woke up full of ideas and bursting to write them down. Whether I'll manage to actually do so, remains to be seen, mind you.

Markus may throw me another curve ball. Difficult to write when you have to dance round the kitchen, singing Fireman Sam to stop your baby from crying, like I was doing yesterday. I do pity the neighbours at times.

 *grin*

What has all that got to do with routines, you may ask? Well simply put, in this house at least it pays to have a routine to not have a routine. Of course some are set in stone, like school pick up times and dinner times and bed time for the kids. But that's as far as it goes.

I was setting myself writing goals of a thousand words a day, but all that achieves is get me stressed when I don't manage to reach them. Stressy mummy = shouty mummy and nobody likes her.

So I simply *have* to let go. A day I manage to write is a good day. On days when I can't, I just have to remind myself that my little fellow is only five weeks old and before I know it, he will be all grown up and off to school and then I'll have far too much time on my hands!

Remind me of this, when I am knee deep in an editing dead line and panicking ;-)

Mind you, when he looks like this

and this

I forgive him anything ;-)

New Voices 2011

At the dawn of Mills & Boon New Voices 2011 I find myself in a contemplative mood. Checking on the facebook site, there are so many excited aspiring authors, eagerly awaiting the launch. And I wish them all the best of luck. Several ladies of my critique group are re-entering this year and I will be cheering everyone on from the sidelines. The excitement is palpable and it takes me right back to last year. :-)

I've said it before, but without New Voices 2010 I wouldn't be where I am today. A friend entered last year - she is entering again this time - and I thought to myself, why not give it a go. For as long as I can remember I've created stories in my head and I always thought that one day I would like to write a novel. So this time last year, I actually sat down and put my random thoughts on paper.

I fired off my first chapter in a day and clicked upload. Not something I would recommend you do, lol, but I tend to jump in at the deep end. I was so excited about Sven and Sylvia. Now as first chapters go, it wasn't abysmal, lol, but it could have been a lot better. I really was a bit clueless at the time.  I am sure this year's entrants will be much better prepared.

I didn't get anywhere in the competition - no surprise there!

*grin*

BUT, I gained so much from entering. I received some encouraging feed back, met some lovely people who have become some of my best friends, learned tons and most importantly the seeds were sown. I realised that writing was really what I wanted/needed to do. The one day I may, became the, I will complete this manuscript, and the original version of Scandinavian Scandal was born. This blog was also born during the days of NV last year.

Nano 2010 soon followed and it saw me complete anther manuscript, the start of a series of three and I just kept right on writing. There was no way I couldn't write, the characters in my head clambering to have their stories told.

The friends I met on line became my fellow writers, the newbies group was born and eventually UCW, the wonderful critique group I belong to now.

I started submitting to publishers and the inevitable rejections were crushing, but only to be expected. Through it all I had the conviction that one day, I would make it. My New Year resolution this year was to be published by the end of it.

I completely re-wrote Scandinavian Scandal, turning it into an erotic romance. The woman who blushed writing sex scenes discovered that actually I had a knack for writing them, when I resurrected two characters, who had been part of a fun story I wrote way back then with the original newbies group. I wrote Astrid and Rashid's story with my tongue firmly stuck in my cheek in just over a week - think I was inspired - and Awakening was born.

Fast forward a few manuscripts and works in progress and in one incredible week all the hard work paid off and I received contracts for both these stories, who will be released in November.

It has been an incredible year for me since New Voices last year and I am sure that it will be an incredible year this time round for many of the aspiring authors entering. And it is the entering that counts. It is the first step to pursuing your dream and even if, like me, you do not get anywhere in the actual competition, you never know where you will find yourself this time next year :-)

I wish you all the very best.

RIP Erica

This post is long overdue and I still cannot believe I have to write it. :-(

Regular readers will remember that we lost Eric to poisoning back in May. I blogged about the whole sorry situation here. Erica arrived soon after, an adorable little bundle of fluff. Funnily enough we also found Erica on Facebook. A friend posted that she needed a home, and after a brief discussion with hubbie, it was agreed that getting another kitten was just the right thing to do, to bring some closure and healing to the whole family after Eric. I blogged about it here and you can tell how excited we all were.  Tj in particular adored little Erica and vice versa...
But it was not meant to be for long. The night of 25th August, she had her dinner and then promptly went off to play. We were watching telly a little while later and we could hear a cat being sick in the girl's room. We assumed it was Sookie with a hairball or something, nut nope it was Erica. She was sick several more times and we assumed she must have eaten something that didn't quite agree with her, but it just didn't click, because her symptoms were so different to Eric. She looked bedraggled, as though she'd been in a fight, so we put her strange behaviour down to that. She acted really frightened, cowering and going backwards and I started to get concerned, but hubbie just said, "she'll be fine, she just got the sh&* kicked out of her. Let's see how she is in the morning."

I do wish I had listened to that little voice in my head that thought "No, this isn't right." The look she gave me, when I stroked her, will stay with me forever. It was def a pure,"Help me, mum."

*sob*

I got up late in the morning, due to a bad night with baby Markus and one of the first things I did was check on Erica. She appeared to be sleeping, so we left her be.  A few hours later I found her on the floor in the girls room and the minute I picked her up, I knew something was seriously wrong with her. She was such a little live wire normally and she just lay there, barely responding. We rushed her off to the vets straight away, but I knew deep down that she wouldn't make it. She was in a worse state than Eric had been in and if a cat so much bigger than her couldn't fight it, then how could she?

The vets confirmed our worst suspicions that this was another poisoning and that she was in a very bad way. They couldn't even get blood out of her to check what she had ingested, as her system was shutting down so she was put under a heat lamp and on a drip.

Hubbie came home without her and we prepared for the worst. The phone call when it came was devastating. She was brain dead, had to be assisted to breathe and whilst her heart was still beating and she came round very briefly, she lost all brain function soon after. So, we gave our permission to have her put down immediately, as she wouldn't have lasted until hubbie could get there.

I bawled my eyes out. holding baby Markus, whilst my poor husband had to go and collect our dead kitten, fielding questions from the kids, who were playing out the front. "Why is mummy crying? Why can't we come with you? What is wrong with Erica?"

You get the picture.

By the time we got her back home, all we could do was stroke her in her carrier, because rigor mortis was setting in and it would have been far too upsetting for everyone.

Sookie came to investigate and it was a horrible sense of deja vu. Kiyo, our German Shepherd cross was besides himself, whining and needing lots of reassurance for days. Just like Eric had been, Erica and Kiyo had become firm friends. Some of my fondest memories are of big Kiyo and teeny Erica curled up together in his cage. Her pouncing on his ears and him, being the daft dog that he is, just letting her bite said ears!

And little Tj, he just doesn't understand. We buried Erica in our garden that same day and to this day Tj asks why Erica went to sleep and why she doesn't wake up. It breaks my heart all over again, when he does and his little face falls when I have to explain that she is never coming back.

The inevitable next question is.

"When are we getting a new kitten?"

It will come as no surprise that we will not be getting another kitten. I simply couldn't put myself and the family through any more heartache. To have lost one cat to poisoning is bad enough, to have lost two is just agony. I have no idea what is going on. Clearly, someone, somewhere is putting something poisonous down, be that by accident or heaven forbid design, I cannot even begin to contemplate. The street we live in has lots of cats and we have lived here over twenty years and always had cats with never a problem, so for this to happen in such a sort time frame is beyond belief.

The worst thing about it all is the speed of it. One day you have a perfectly healthy cat, the next a dead one. :-( And knowing how much both of them must have suffered doesn't bear thinking about. It is such a horrible, horrible way to die. Eric had fits, Erica had hallucinations - that was her acting frightened etc. It is no consolation to know, that even if we had managed to get both of them to the vets earlier, the end outcome would have been the same. Neither one stood a chance from the minute they ingested that poison and whatever it is, is lethal and extremely fast acting.

Like I said above, I still cannot believe it happened and we are all very raw still.

Erica helped us heal after Eric, but there is no closure this time other than the passage of time. I still expect her to pounce on me in the morning, meoawing at me until I tickled her to her satisfaction.

The loo roll is once again safe from attack, as are our feet, and anything else that happened to find itself on the floor and easily pounced on. I have never known a kitten to have as much fun as Erica with a bit of chocolate wrapper for instance. Hours of entertainment for all of us. Sookie too is once again safe from being chased around the house and Kiyo's ears do not bear claw or bite marks anymore.

And Tj has lost his sleeping companion.

She went from this tiny little thing

to this - about to attack the loo roll

to this - which is the last picture I took of her

I take some small comfort in the fact that she was loved and had a great time in our nutty house, but you know I miss her!

I miss her silly little antics, the way she used to greet you with loud miaows and stalk you round the house until you made a big fuss of her, the way she used to pounce on you when least expected, the way she used to attack the TV when Hubbie watched Formula one racing or the boys watched football...

The way she'd curl up next to me and Markus, determined to get her cuddles on my lap, baby or no baby. Waking up in the middle of the night, listening to her crunch Sookie's food on my window ledge, seeing her darting up and down the garden like a demented fluffy missile, the shouts of watch the dinners, as she'd try to eat off the kid's plates...

 *rolls eyes*

She was a little character and she should have lived a long, healthy life, but it wasn't meant to be.

Please, if you are reading this, next time you use something in your garden, check to make sure it's safe for cats and other animals and perhaps warn your neighbours too. Even if you don't like cats - and heaven knows it can be annoying having other people's cats in your garden - spare a thought to the fact that they are someone's pet.

And losing a pet *really* hurts!

The power of boobs

Now that I've got your attention....


Most people would assume boobs with this image.

                                              Photo: Anton Zabielskyi/Shutterstock images


Certainly these kind of images are used to sell all sorts of things, so let's not underestimate the selling power of boobs. 


But, that is not the power I am musing about today, as regular readers of this blog will not be surprised about.


Nope, I am talking about this kind of power.

cause let's face it and to quote one of my daughters "They aren't for decoration purposes!" 


Though you'd be forgiven for thinking they would be, with some attitudes prevailing today. Look at the following for instance. A restaurant wants to ban breastfeeding.


You can read about it here and there is a poll. I would encourage you to vote if you feel strongly about this either way.


Personally, and I speak with a continued breastfeeding experience of nine years over four children, and as the mother of a brand new, nursing lots baby boy, I have never had a negative experience breastfeeding in public. And I have literally fed my babies/toddlers and on occasion child anywhere. Most people don't even notice what you're doing and really, a quietly nursing baby has to be better than a screaming in hunger baby, right?


It is very easy to nurse discreetly, without any elaborate nursing cover, though it being summer and living in tank tops my trusty muslin has become my friend. I have no wish to flash my friend's husband or the unsuspecting passer by or waiter ;-)


And the vast majority of nursing mothers I know, feel the same. So, why this is such a big deal to some people is beyond me. Babies gotta eat, and breastfed babies eat lots and frequently. Nursing mothers would turn into hermits, if we didn't breastfeed in public and once you have older children you really don't have that option anyway.


But this post is not about the in and outs of breastfeeding in public. I have no wish to spark a debate and everyone is entitled to their own opinion on this of course.


No, actually it is a big yeah and go you to me and my 'decorations'. ;-)


You see, little Markus is now three weeks old and he has finally been discharged from midwife care, having regained his birth weight. He lost a fair amount of weight after his birth and then proceeded to only put an oz a week for two weeks, but over the last week he has managed to put on a whole pound! So now weighs an impressive 11lbs 4 oz officially and we can forget about scales and just enjoy him.


What's even more impressive is, that he has gained this weight in a week that has seem me burn the mid night oil till four am. on occasion, to complete first round edits on Awakening and pre- edits on Scandinavian Scandal. 


By the way I have utterly and completely fallen in love with Sven again, my hero in Scandinavian Scandal. 


*sigh*


It had been a while since I read it last and once I sorted all my floating body parts, deleted about a hundred 'had' and that wonderful phrase 'she found herself' I send it off to my editor. I sure hope she likes Sven. I'm not ashamed to say that I sighed myself through reading parts and even cried. There are some very emotional scenes in that story as well as lots of hot sex!


And I had to smile to myself too. Heroine Sylvia is a mum of three and her whirlwind Timmy has some hilarious scenes with poor old Sven. And believe it or not breastfeeding finds its way into this story too, only briefly, but it's there.


In fact every one of my stories features children and breastfeeding to some extent. It's not even a conscious writing decision. It may not be the heroine doing it, it may just be a conversation or going on in the back ground but it's there, nonetheless. 


Hey, they say write about what you know and for me that will always involve children. And besides, us mums deserve our sexy heroes too, right?


So look out for it in my upcoming books. Even Awakening features a child briefly, not a mean feat in a story just over 9K, but then Astrid is a school teacher.

And just because I can, gratuitous picture of my little Markus :-)