Survival Romance

If Microsoft and Cisco can take down pirate sites, why can't RWA

2010-06-27T10:13:00.000-04:00

Not just RWA. If RWA, SFWA, Authors' Guild and others would work together, we would make better progress.

"Dear Scott Turow, Allison Kelley, John Scalzi,

Thank you very much for everything your organizations do to defend authors' copyrights against copyright infringement. We very much appreciate having an address to which to send our complaints, and the comfort of knowing that you compile a database of the most egregious "pirates" and pirate sites.

Despite small triumphs, ignorance persists among honest readers; lies about the legality of "sharing" go unchallenged, and the problem is getting much worse.

Please Scott Turow, Allison Kelley, John Scalzi will you talk to one another, set up one powerhouse task force, meet regularly, share resources, engage your members, give authors one central "Go To" address where we can submit complaints, report piracy sites, blogs and yahoogroups, cc our individual take-down notices.

One forceful industry voice could shut down an entire account and insist on a hosting site complying with their own TOS where their TOS has been repeatedly violated, instead of individual authors taking down one file at a time.

Thank you.

Rowena Cherry"

Friday Night Reflections: Great summer read - Insufficient Mating Material by Rowena Cherry

2009-06-10T22:04:00.000-04:00

Friday Night Reflections: Great summer read - Insufficient Mating Material by Rowena Cherry

A dead man fell from the sky...: Anal Impalement

2009-03-28T08:19:00.000-04:00

A dead man fell from the sky...: Anal Impalement

My "blue scrotum" excerpt

2009-03-01T15:00:00.001-05:00

There isn't a "bright" blue scrotum in my book. There's a "glorious blue scrotum". Can you find it?

In this scene, the villain --who is known as The Saurian Dragon-- has decided to convince an alien king Viz-Igerd that his queen is committing spectacular adultery. To that end, he has doctored a radio transmission from the man, Grievous, much as it is alleged Mr John Gibson's remarks were doctored

The Dragon considered. Grievous was a memorable character, and it was dangerous to underestimate an enemy. “The same, I think. But I cannot be positive. Dirty-pink Earthlings all look alike to me.”

“They look like Djinn!” Viz-Igerd agreed, blind drunk. The King seemed struck with the physical similarity. This was not the first time His Majesty had commented. Presumably, the splendid idea of breaking intergalactic law with one of a billion human women had taken root.

“I hope you can still hear me, Your Imperial Highness. I have to say that I would not have thought it of Princess Electra....” Tarrant-Arragon’s man appeared to continue his report without a pause. The editing had been smoothly done. “…There’s no way to put this delicately. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. Bunking… both of them.”

The Dragon narrowed his eyes, watching Viz-Igerd carefully. The re-use of “bunking” had been a calculated risk. It sounded sufficiently like ‘bonking’ for his seditious purposes.

By now, at least three official transmissions were curving their way around the space-time continuum at different speeds, and in different directions, all making reference to Electra-Djerroldina enjoying unlawful carnal knowledge of someone. Or not. The flow could not be staunched. The only sensible course was to goad Viz-Igerd into such a blind fury that he’d never take a rational moment to consider that ’Rhett would be the more plausible lover.

Other auditors would hear accurate versions, of course. And Viz-Igerd’s mind could always be wiped with Djinncraft, if exploratory mischief-making turned out not to be advantageous.

“Dragon! What is a Fust-er-Cluck?”

That one had obviously been festering in Viz-Igerd’s imagination for some moments.

“Where that human comes from, it means an orgy,” the Dragon mistranslated. “That is, various clumsy sex acts performed in rapid succession, with the greatest excesses condensed into a relatively brief time.”

He glanced at his victim. He refrained from discussing how many participants were required for an authentic orgy, as opposed to a Volnoth “Orgy of State,” where only the King copulated with the Queen, although they both watched multiple goings-on. Amusing as it would be to torment His Majesty, he did have to protect his only son. ’Rhett had to survive. He was the succession plan. ’Rhett would be the next Saurian Dragon, and all the sooner—perhaps— if he wanted to avenge Electra.

Yes, the Queen might have to be sacrificed. However, a show trial without a named co-conspirator might be difficult to orchestrate. Fortunately, he’d identified a satisfactory scapegoat in Prince Thor-quentin. No one cared about Thor-quentin.

“I imagine that your Queen and the vigorous young Great Djinn Prince are thoroughly enjoying the rut-rage.” He turned the screw, while gesturing blandly to the hologram, where the messenger was still speaking, and trying to scrape invisible dirt off his footwear. “It would be Electra-Djerroldina’s first rut-rage, would it not?”

Poor Viz-Igerd, unable to control his embarrassment, was displaying his… displeasure to hear that his queen was creatively fornicating her way to Earth. There was some species of primate on Earth—the name of it would come— that had a boiled-red face that turned redder the angrier it got. It seldom had to fight. The facial reddening was threat enough. Ah, yes! The red uakari. That was it.

Then, there was the ridiculous vervet monkey from somewhere on the African continent, which came with a violent red tallywhacker, shown off to great advantage—to those easily impressed or demoralized by that sort of thing— against a glorious blue scrotum. The Volnoth threat-to-mount had nothing on the vervet for sheer outrageous… cojones.

The Dragon discovered that his urbane finger steepling had turned to pantomime- villain hand rubbing, and stopped himself.

“Anyway, Sir,” Grievous continued, “it seems your sister can’t get it off… without… bunking… Prince Thor-quentin…”

“Bun-King?”

“Need you ask?” The Dragon sighed expressively. He’d never thought of phrasing it quite as Viz-Igerd did, and his unruly mind filled with a crinkly bed of lettuce, three kinds of runny cheese, man-handled meat, and all the trimmings.

“…And, Prince Thor-quentin is proving a right bugger.”

“What is a bugger, Dragon?” Viz-Igerd’s voice sounded choked, which was not altogether surprising, given the way His Majesty was twisting the chain of office around his neck, like a panicked Earthling bureaucrat “social” worker trying to loosen a knotted necktie.

This excerpt is from KNIGHT'S FORK by Rowena Cherry

This is the news video mentioning the monkey with the bright blue scrotum. It seems to be a different species from the vervet.

Rowena Cherry's Knight's Fork wins Amazon Clicks Award

2009-01-11T09:56:00.001-05:00

http://www.amazonclicks.com/Allwinners.html

I am absolutely thrilled that Knight's Fork received enough votes to win the award, and I'd like to thank all the authors who voted.

Thank you!
Rowena Cherry

Survival and the American auto industry

2008-11-16T15:39:00.001-05:00

I'm a Science-fiction Romance writer. I look at History (which repeats itself) also current events, and I wonder What If...?

Not that I write it, yet, but Steampunk is where the writer changes one invention from the time of the industrial revolution, such as H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine". That was the "age of steam", hence steam punk.

More recently, there is "cyber punk" which I suppose relates to choices made in Silicon Valley in the 1980s. One of the hallmarks of punk writing is that it explores the road not traveled and the consequences of a different decision whether made by a scientist, a businessman, or a politician (I assume).

I'm using "gunk" punk because if steam is what the Nineteenth Century machines are remembered for, then gunk might be what petroleum-driven cars leave behind. Or maybe I've been watching too many STP commercials.

Gratuitous decoration

This is a car made by my husband, with his own hands and the help of a few people he contracted with privately. He burned his hands on hot clay, he came home with his eyebrows covered in dust from sanding... he lost 10lbs from all the exercise. This photo was taken at SEMA by Jonathon Ramsey for Autoblog.com http://tinyurl.com/5kv9jf

So, what if... in the 1940s American didn't have a manufacturing industry and depended on Germany and Japan? I'd probably be blogging in German, right?

History is being made right now, that's why I'm laying claim to "gunk punk" (unless someone has already thought of it, or someone has a better name). Peter M DeLorenzo of autoextremist.com
http://www.autoextremist.com/current/ may have done so, but he doesn't write fiction as far as I know. He has a jaw dropping rant going on.

Peter is also selling an alarming book (non-fiction) titled "The United States of Toyota."

Alarming cover art.

I am now imagining myself as a writer in, say 2020 (hindsight pun!) looking back on the third week of November 2008 when Congress made a catastrophic vote NOT to make a loan to the last American car companies.

It's a "Mad Max" world now. Or perhaps it's Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow" world with a touch of "1984". The Jesuits and the Japanese rule. We have an Emperor. And a Pope. And a third Minister of some sort, because good things come in threes.

Onstar speaks to us in Japanese in our cars. We cannot turn it off. They got Murdoch, too. And Comcast. All our Direct TV has Japanese subtitles. We cannot turn it off. Big Brother looks a lot like Vladimir Putin with Botox to get rid of the ugly Western crease in his eyelids. He tells us what to think.

America is bankrupt. When the world bank foreclosed, one of the creditors took Hawaii, another took the island of Manhattan, another took the Great Lakes for the water. No one wanted Detroit... I could go on. In a grim way, this is rather fun.

Maybe my imagination is overactive. I hope so! I was having trouble fitting any kind of Romance into my budding novel of milieu.

My point is, pay attention to the information that is available, and store it up for future reference. (Thank goodness for flashdrive!). There's a massive dissonance right now between the truth and what people are saying in the media.

If interested in GM's version of car myth vs fact visit http://gmfactsandfiction.com/

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Poverty Inteview for Oct 15th Blog Action Day

2008-10-15T00:48:00.001-04:00

Interview on Poverty for October 15th (Global Blog Action Day)

Rowena
I'm embarrassed, but I'm not familiar with the correct way to address a member of the Capuchin order (or any other monk). Are you Father, Frater, Brother….? And is it polite to call you a monk?

Jerry
The vision of our founder, St. Francis of Assisi, was that we would be brothers to the world—first of all, to other human beings, of course, but also to all of creation—the birds, the animals, the fish of the sea. He spoke of “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon”, and taught us that we must deal respectfully with all of creation. This was eight hundred years ago—he was “into” ecology way back then! I say all this to arrive at the point that since we strive to be brothers to the world, it is never incorrect to address any Capuchin as “brother”, even if he happens to be a priest. (Some of us are priests and some are not, but the bottom line is that we are all brothers.) And technically we are not monks, as monks are “attached” to a certain monastery for a lifetime whereas we are much more mobile. So it is more correct to call Capuchins “friars” (which comes from the Latin word for “brother”, though we are similar to monks and even call some of our residences monasteries.

Rowena
I've seen The Sound of Music, and I've read some of Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael mysteries, and I saw Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds.

What is the difference between a monk and a Catholic priest, in terms of job description, career expectations, pecking order, contact with members of the public?

Jerry
As I stated above, a monk is attached to a particular monastery for a life time; that does not mean that he can never leave the premises, but that he is “connected” to that monastery for his entire life. Most priests in this country are diocesan priests, meaning that they are “attached” to a particular diocese for a lifetime. A diocese is a geographic area of the country, of which a bishop is the leader or shepherd. He is the leader of all the Catholics in that area, and the diocese is organized into local parishes or churches. Those churches are served by priests who in most cases have been ordained to serve within that diocese.

However, within the Catholic Church there are also religious orders, such as the Capuchins, who are groups of men or women who feel called to live the vowed life (poverty, chastity and obedience) in the spirit of their founder. In our case, that was St. Francis of Assisi; in the case of the Dominicans, it was St. Dominic; in the case of the Jesuits, it was St. Ignatius of Loyola. The bottom line for us in religious life is that we feel called to live that vowed life within a community of like-minded individuals. Thus, living that life faithfully and authentically is our bottom line. Now, within those religious orders of men, some members are priests and some are not priests. Our common life; our charism and spirituality are the same; it is just that the way we live it out is different: the priests do so as administrators of the sacraments and by celebrating the mass, those who are not priests work as teachers or social workers or nurses, etc. Those who are priests “report” to the leaders of their order, whereas priests of the diocese are under the leadership of the bishop.

This is getting to be a very long answer, but in response to another part of the question, within the Capuchin Order we try to live without a “pecking order.” We proclaim ourselves a fraternity of equals, with no special privileges for anyone, whether ordained or not ordained. Members of some monastic orders live quite contemplatively without much contact with the world beyond the monastery walls., we Capuchins are very involved in the world. However, although we Capuchins try to be contemplative as well, (spending a significant portion of each day in prayer and contemplation), we are very involved in the world. In fact, our mission is no less than to “transform the world through reverence!”

Rowena
Is it true that nuns, monks, and Catholic priests all take vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience? If not, who takes what vow?

Jerry
Men and women members of religious orders (ordained and non-ordained) take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Some take a vow of stability as well, meaning that they are attached to a particular monastery for life. Diocesan priests take vows of chastity and obedience.

Rowena
I'm sure that there's a very good reason why there are three vows, and they are "Poverty". "Chastity" and "Obedience"? Would you liken those three vows to the three legs on a stool?

Jerry
My understanding of the vows is that all people are called to live poverty, chastity and obedience, but that vowed religious are called to live them more intently. To me the vow of poverty means to use respectfully the goods of the earth, to share those goods with others, and to use no more than we need. Chastity means that I view others as magnificent creations of God, who are to always be treated respectfully. And obedience means “careful listening”—to God, to life, to others, to those in authority. And it seems to me that living poorly, respectfully and with a “listening spirit” is fundamental for anyone--vowed religious or not--to living life fully and harmoniously with others and with all creation.

Rowena
What is it like to take a vow of poverty, and to live a life of poverty within a monastic order?

Jerry
Once again, I do not technically belong to a “monastic order”—but I did take a vow of poverty. Throughout the centuries (and the vowed religious life goes back for centuries and centuries) there has been great discussion and debate about what the vow of poverty “means.” My understanding is that the vow calls us to a respectful use of all things material, to hold in common what we have, and to share what we have. On a practical level that means that the car I drive belongs to the community, not to me personally. It means that I have no bank or checking account in my name, and that the salary I earn is turned over to the community and placed in the general fund to cover the needs of all. It means that I must respond to those in need and share what I have with a wider world. And it means that I live simply, without accumulating a lot of “things,” or chasing after a lot of money.

Rowena
Could you compare and contrast monastic poverty with the poverty you see in Detroit? (Or any other inner city)

Jerry
The most obvious difference is the fact that those of us who have taken a vow of poverty almost always have what we need in order to live with dignity and comfort, whereas many others who live in Detroit do not. Again, my understanding of the vow of poverty does not mean that I am to live in destitution—there is nothing blessed about that. Rather, it means that I live simply, using only what I need, and sharing what I have with others. The difference is that while most of us who have taken a vow of poverty do not have a great deal of “things”, drive modest cars, dress and eat simply, we do it out of choice and conviction. Many others, however, are forced to do so—there is no choice about it.

Rowena
Is it true that in Brother Cadfael's time, impoverished and unwanted young people were sent to a convent or monastery? If so, why wouldn't that work in modern times?

Jerry
I am not certain about the social conditions specifically during Brother Cadfael’s time, but I do know that throughout the centuries entrance into a convent or monastery was sometimes a viable option to a life of poverty when there were few other escape routes. I guess the key thing here is choice—a choice to enter the vowed life must be made freely, without coercion. The life style must fit one’s temperament and “spirit”; otherwise, I suspect the person involved would not enjoy much happiness in trying to live a lifestyle that does not “fit.”

Rowena
How is a Capuchin Soup Kitchen different from a Salvation Army soup kitchen?

Jerry
Although I have had little experience with a Salvation Army soup kitchen, I suspect that we would have much in common. I believe that our motivators are basically the same—the idea that we are all sons and daughters of a common God, and that we must care for each other. I am certain that we share a belief in the goodness and dignity of all human beings. One possible difference is that –and I’m not sure about this—is that the Salvation Army perhaps uses their facilities as places to proselytize—preach—whereas we do not. Our founder, St. Francis of Assisi, said, “Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.” In other words, we try to preach by the way we live our lives. We feed hungry people because it is the right thing to do, not because we want to preach to and convert them.

Rowena
Why is there so much poverty in Detroit? Would there be less poverty if there was more chastity and obedience in our society?

Jerry

Another Capuchin brother once said to me that what we have in Detroit is ”economic apartheid”, that when most of the white people moved out beyond Eight Mile Road, they took with them most of the jobs and the financial resources of the city. While I believe that that analysis is somewhat simplistic, I do believe that there is a great correlation between racism and poverty. But the decline of manufacturing in these cities is also a huge factor, as well as limited educational opportunities and poor transportation systems for the people left in the city. And while I have not thought a whole lot about this, I suppose a case could be made that if everyone treated everyone else respectfully (chastity), and everyone really listened to their inner voice and the voice of God speaking to us (obedience), there would be less poverty in the world because we would conclude that it is unconscionable that some of us enjoy such excess, while millions have not the basic necessities of life. And we would do something about it.

Rowena
I was very impressed with your organic vegetable gardens on the abandoned lots of Detroit. I've also heard that lots in Detroit are unsold (owing to the debts and back taxes) for $1 each.

I also hear the saying "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish…" What would happen if the Capuchin monks taught Detroiters to grow their own vegetables?

What would happen if the Capuchins organized allotments (tiny communal market gardens) ? Like Habitat for Humanity, only for vegetable gardens instead of dwellings?

Jerry

There is a strong movement underway in the city right now to encourage people to grow a portion of their own food. The Greening of Detroit is very active in this endeavor, and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen works in collaboration with that organization. In fact, the Soup Kitchen has a greenhouse where each year approximately 100,000 vegetable seedlings are grown for distribution to individual gardeners and community gardens throughout the city. Each year the program grows in number of participants and levels of enthusiasm, and some of the gardeners are now selling some of their produce. Here at the Soup Kitchen some of our guests have tiny plots where they grow vegetables of their choice, and it is gratifying to observe the care with which the gardens are tended. Working with the earth is also very calming and healing, and I really believe that gardening can help heal the wounds so prevalent among the people of our city.

Rowena

I see you do "Teach a Man to bake…" Tell me why the Capuchins chose baking as a new career for men who have been incarcerated. Can a man "bake" his way out of poverty and destitution?

Or, is the baking a way of providing the bread to accompany the vegetable soups?

Jerry
Our ROPE program (Reaching Our Potential Every day) teaches baking techniques and life skills to formerly homeless or incarcerated men. The idea is not simply to learn a skill or trade, but to simultaneously address the issues that brought the men to homelessness or incarceration in the first place. Thus, participants do receive training in baking, but at the same time deal with their addiction problems, or work on obtaining their GED or other educational pursuits, or receive professional counseling to come to peace with issues that have caused them turmoil in their lives up until now. The hope is that after they have been in the program a year they will have saved enough money and resolved enough of their personal issues that they can successfully “re-enter” society and become assets to their community. Some might choose to continue working in the field of baking; others may pursue truck driving or whatever other career might interest them.

Rowena
How does donating clothing, furniture, and appliances to the Capuchins for distribution differ (if at all) from donating to the Red Cross or Salvation Army, or Purple Heart?

I've never received a postcard or a phone call from the Capuchins telling me that their truck will be in my neighborhood, and asking if I have anything to donate.

Jerry

I’m not sure about all the other organizations named, but one possible difference is that items that are donated to us are distributed free of charge to people in need—we do not sell them. And while in the past we were able to send trucks out into the neighborhoods to pick up donations, the costs of fuel and labor now make that prohibitive.

Rowena
What have I not asked about Poverty that I ought to have asked?

Jerry
Entire books have been written about poverty. I could go on and on—but I think we have a good overview here at least.

Rowena
Are the Capuchins only in Detroit? If not, where else are your Soup Kitchens, Gardens, Art Therapy Programs, Food package donation outlets, and shower facilities?

What have I not asked about The Capuchin Order and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen service sites that you'd like to mention?

Jerry

The Capuchins are an international order of brothers, found all over the world. In the United States (and internationally as well) we are divided into geographic provinces. There are six provinces in this country, and this Province of St. Joseph is headquartered here in Detroit. We are about two hundred members, and are separate from the other provinces in terms of finances and personnel. The Province of St. Joseph sponsors a similar food program in Milwaukee, though not of this magnitude. I am not familiar with much of the work of other provinces, although I do know that the friars in Denver operate a homeless shelter, as do friars of the Pittsburg province stationed in Washington, DC. Traditionally throughout the world we have been known to minister among the very poor.

I would like to close this by acknowledging that the work we do is made possible only through the generosity of the people of this community. Our annual budget is seven million dollars, and most of that money comes from fundraising activities and donations from generous benefactors. It is very humbling to me that people trust us so. I also extend to anyone interested, an invitation to come and visit us. We are very proud of what we do, and love to show it off!

Useful Contact Information for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit
Website
www.cskdetroit.org

To volunteer
volunteer@cskdetroit.org
313-822-8606 ext 10

To donate
313-579-2100 ext 173

Thank you very much!
Rowena Cherry

http://blogactionday.org/js/d36c82f64f9d18ccbaf02723a96e02a7b5276306

Prism Winners include Insufficient Mating Material

2008-10-10T11:20:00.002-04:00

Light Paranormal
1. Dead Girls are Easy by Terri Garey
2. More Than Fiends by Maureen Child
3. Highland Guardian by Melissa Mayhue

Time Travel
1. Wired by Liz Maverick
2. Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband by Melissa Mayhue
3. Forgiveness by JL Wilson.

Erotica
1. Mona Lisa Blossoming by Sunny
2. Pleasures of the Night by Sylvia Day
3. Double Dating with the Dead by Karen Kelly

Futuristic
1. My Favorite Earthling by Susan Grant
2. How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 days by Susan Grant
3. Insufficient Mating Material by Rowena Cherry

Novella
1. Over the Moon by Sunny
2. Street Corners and Halos by Catherine Spangler
3. Wild Hearts in Atlantis by Alyssa Day

Dark Paranormal
1. Immortals: The Awakening by Joy Nash
2. Betrayed: A House of Night Novel by PC Cast
3. Touched by Darkness by catherine Spangler

Fantasy
1. The Eternal Rose by Gail Dayton
2. Lucinda, Darkly by Sunny
3. Voice of Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready

Best of the Best
Wired by Liz Maverick

Best First Book
1. Grave Illusions by Lina Gardiner
2. She Wolf by Teresa D'Amario
3. Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband by Melissa Mayhue

When survival is a matter of Promo

2008-09-21T15:28:00.002-04:00

Off topic, but hardly interrupting a vibrant discussion!

KNIGHT'S FORK is a page-turner from the very first one to the very last. I enjoyed it so much, after I reached the last page I started right from the beginning again. KNIGHT’S FORK has it all! If you only have time to read one book this season, I highly recommend you run out and grab a copy today.

~Kimberly Leslie

http://romancejunkiesreviews.com/artman/publish/paranormal/Knight_s_Fork.shtml

Three other reviews have been posted on Amazon, and the book is in stock, as are Forced Mate and Insufficient Mating Material

Blurb:
What is a queen to do when the sperm donor of her dreams says no?

Carpe Scrotum. Seize Life by the Testicles! The Queen Consort of the Volnoth needs a sperm donor and only one green-eyed god has the right stuff. Little does she know that she has pinned all her hopes on the crown jewels of the fabled Royal Saurian Djinn. Not only is he the son of her greatest enemy, but he has taken a vow of chastity.

Knight's Fork continues the alien romance series of the god-Princes of Tigron, begun with Forced Mate. It takes up right after the grand downfall of my most heinous villain in Insufficient Mating Material, and this time the hero is 'Rhett.

'Rhett has incurred the resentment of his elder brothers/cousins for his more-virtuous-than-thou attitude, his spoilsport interference when they want irresponsible sex with unsuitable partners, and simply because he is his father's only son. They decide that he must be hiding a sordid secret, and they set out to find out who she is.

Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
http://tinyurl.com/Buy-KnightsFork

Hang on!

2008-05-11T13:58:00.001-04:00

I can't resist a totally --well, not totally-- gratuitous hunk to start the day. Look out for further news from me about how this manly pose was transformed into a poster representing 'Rhett (Prince Djarrhett) the hero of the sequel to Forced Mate and Insufficient Mating Material. Or maybe you've seen the ad with the temporary cover?

My favorite photographer, Mitchel Gray is a genuis, and he has excellent artistic taste. What a fabulous pose!

He could give me a Bear Hug any day!

Anyway... Not only is today (Sunday) Mother's Day, but it is also the start of
Bear Awareness Week.

Angie Fox, Carrie Masek, Sandy Lender, Cynthia Eden and Charlee Boyett-Compo are joining me on internet voices radio tonight between 9pm
Eastern and eleven pm to give a whole new depth of meaning to Bear men and Romance.

We'd love some listeners, even for a little while.

FOR CRAZY TUESDAY: In the last program, Jade Lee and Emily Bryan (aka
Diana Groe) talked about everything below the belt in honor of Earth
Day... from Brazilian waxes for courtesans, to castration, to foot
binding.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday.htm

FOR CHERRY PICKING SPECIALS, which is the irreverent and irregular
Sunday night-time show about Romance heroes and the animals they shift
into being when the right female comes along.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/rowena.htm

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
http://www.internetvoicesradio.com

Law of the jungle

2008-04-14T13:51:00.001-04:00

Copyright is being infringed every day, and there is not a lot we (midlist and lower) authors can do about it.

As fast as we discover another site where our books have been illegally scanned, turned into e-books, and are being "shared", then spent half a day writing to the site's moderators, and perhaps getting the links removed... the thieves go elsewhere.

I saw a journalist blog the other day that because J K Rowling won't miss the royalties, it is acceptable for readers to steal from every other author, too.

It's not OK. Not all copies that are read illegally would have been paperbacks sold, but some will, and for some authors, those lost sales will make the difference between whether or not they are ever offered another contract.

When I see that JK Rowling's books are also on the pirate site, I'm glad, because I know that eventually, that site will be shut down, because she is good at defending herself, and the big guns sink pirates faster than lots of little pop guns can.

Today I'm cheering, because I keep the rights to my characters. Don't you? I don't know how someone can publish an Encyclopaedia of Harry Potter without mentioning any of the characters!

I hope the New York judge sides with Ms Rowling!

Anyway....If you think it is only fair that the government defends the book industry's copyrights with the same vigor that they protect the music and movie industries, please consider signing this petition.

Or, pass on the url. Let's make a stir!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ebooksandpirates/
_________________
Rowena Cherry

Not really survival.... just overjoyed

2008-03-28T08:10:00.000-04:00

Preditors and Editors has awarded my site the Author's Site Of Excellence Award.

Needless to say, I am thrilled!

Insufficient Mating Material wins CAPA award

2008-02-15T17:32:00.002-05:00

Survival isn't always romantic in the conventional sense

2007-07-25T12:45:00.000-04:00

Males do some pretty disgusting and unromantic things from time to time. No doubt females do, too.... such as eating the head of the male while, or just before, he impregnates her.

Infant cockroaches, and infant koalas eat their mother's waste. And one type of infant spiders eat their mothers.

When it is a matter of survival, one does what is necessary, no matter how gross.

That was gross!
Moreover, it's not something that inspires me to write a scene for a romance. I just cannot imagine any heroine wanting to kiss him for any reason under the sun any time soon after that.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the nearest object of great attraction to flies, in order to have heard the camera crew's remarks during filming. Unlike SURVIVORMAN, who was filming his own, original series, in Africa during February/March --and who carries 50lbs of his own, self-operated filming equipment--, "Bear" Grylls has a cameraman with him.

Judging by the quality of the video, I'd guess that the cameraman was shaking with laughter.

Males are better equipped to carry out this survival trick. There is a long tradition of unspeakable things that thirsty men will drink. Warm beer. "The stale of horses" to quote from one of Shakespeare's plays with Roman heroes. "Goat's" in a recent film about a Beerfest (involving competitive drinking).

I wonder what kind of toast would be appropriate?
Here's looking at you?
Bottoms up?
Your very good health!

All the best,
Rowena

Alternative-Read.com: REVIEW: Insufficient Mating Material ~ Rowena Cherry ~ Dorchester Publishing

2007-07-21T08:36:00.000-04:00

Alternative-Read.com: REVIEW: Insufficient Mating Material ~ Rowena Cherry ~ Dorchester Publishing

Inspiration everywhere

2007-07-01T15:21:00.001-04:00

But some things are simply not conducive to writing "heated science fiction romance."

Take men in trees.

Now, in Insufficient Mating Material, I do place my hunky hero up a tree when the heroine, thinking herself alone, says something that prompts the hero to ask the "How about it?" question.

I've got six or seven "important" ash trees in my back yard. They are not equally important. The one that grows through the deck is much more important that the others, though their canopies all dropshadow my roofline.

We've got the alien Emerald Ash Borer in Michigan, and it is a continual and expensive struggle to treat the trees. I am doing a good job of making the wood taste unpleasant, but not all my neighbors are.

Last Thursday, reluctantly, I tore myself away from the romantic and riveting pleasure of writing about the first heroic lip lock between my hero and heroine in order to keep an eye on three tree surgeons who were giving my trees a first class pruning.

I can't say that it was a romantically profitable morning. One chap could have modeled for Pieter Brueghel. Another for Jabba the Hutt. Oh dear, that is cruel. I suppose he would not have made such an unfortunate impression if he hadn't been wearing only low-slung trousers and a short T-shirt which he used as a face towel when the ambient heat became too much, and sent his pores into overproduction.

It took from 8am to 12.15 pm including chipping, road sweeping, and so forth.

After that, the man who cleans my deck came.

I did not have to worry about him falling out of a tree and the insurance ramifications of that (you thought I watched those guys out of lust?) but men with power sprayers just cannot help squirting things they are not supposed to squirt.

This guy's method of preparing the soil for planting pacysandra was to squirt it. He squirted a hornets' nest, too!

Plant hybrids inspire alien-romance world building

2007-06-10T09:40:00.000-04:00

Hybrids aren't just cars that run on more than one fuel source.

There are hybrid animals, and hybrid plants which occur either naturally or with the assistance of mankind, also hybrids in Greek and Roman mythology. Some hybrids are sterile, and some are not. Some hybrids are called after a combination of the father's name and the mother's (father's name first).

The mythological creatures do not appear to follow this convention... and in fact, now I understand the convention, my mind boggles over the Manticore (man-lion-scorpion).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid
wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid

The etymology is delightful. According to wikipedia, hybrid comes from the ancient Greek for "son of outrageous conduct."

I could have called my Tigron world's black sabre-toothed tigers ... pangers, or tigthers, but I think that would have complicated matters.

This week, I'm more interested in plant hybrids. For world-building in a hurry --not that I recommend taking a short cut, but sometimes one has to-- a few hours in the grocery aisles can be quite inspiring. After all, if you are unexpectedly space-shipwrecked and marooned on an alien world, you're going to be obsessed with what you can and cannot eat.

There are some astonishing hybrids available in the produce section, as well as exotic fruits and vegetables that might or might not have been hybridized. I look at the Ugly Fruit, and I wonder whether it evolved to be visually appealing to anything (assuming that its fruit is "designed" to be dispersed with the assistance of creatures that eat the fleshy parts and eject the pits).

There's something spiny and orange that looks like a cross between a sea urchin and a sea slug, and I'm fascinated by those waxy green globes that come inside a pale green papery looking flower. If you were to change their colors, rename them, and describe them carefully as if you'd never seen them before, you'd hardly need to dream up your own fruits and vegetables for your alien romance's world. And, then there are the roots. You have to be careful what you do with your root vegetables, in my opinion.

How did we ever start to eat root veg? Did we observe a primate and copy them? Did our earliest ancestors' curious gaze fall upon something intriguingly orange, or pleasantly white, pushing up through loose soil? I suppose we do have an instinct (as children) to pull things out of the ground and bite them as an experiment. I'm told that I ate a worm once when I was a toddler! Would your aliens have similar instincts?

Your human heroine has to eat in outer space --or on whatever unfamiliar territory she is trapped-- so not all her food can be unrecognizable (or she'd have to have major allergy testing) or her gut would not be adapted to handle it. We're accustomed to stories about our domestic pets eating human delicacies which are not natural for them... which their guts are not adapted to handle. I've been thinking about what natural carnivores can and cannot eat, because I want my tigers to play a larger role in my next story.

In fact, having spent several hours reading the ingredients on dry pet food for research purposes, I do have to wonder under what circumstances a dog in the wild would eat corn on the cob. Or rice!

There are some schools of alternative healing thought that claim some of our painful ailments (such as arthritis) are a consequence of us eating fruits or vegetables that we are not adapted for, or to which some of us are allergic. My mother cured very painful arthritic swelling in her hands by giving up all produce in the tomato families. Other people have a problem with potatoes. (Some have a problem but don't know it.)

In Insufficient Mating Material, the hero and heroine are marooned on an island on an alien world, and they have to test food and deal with the possibility that the heroine might not have a tolerance for some of the fruits and vegetables growing there.

Why do I think roots are a problem? Carrots are easy, and you can eat them raw if you want to. Parsnips look like big carrots only white... but you really do have to cook them. Watch out for onions and shallots, because they look like tulip bulbs. There are different roots that look alike. Take ginger root and Jerusalem artichoke. They are both about the shape and size of a small, pudgy hand, with gnarly, stub-tipped fingers, root filaments like fleshy hairs, and are beige-gray.

On our world, some plants do not want to be eaten, especially by the roots (!) so they evolve to be poisonous. What happens in your alien world?

For those interested in research, or obsessed with plausible alien anatomy --and possibly inspired by the fact that a carrot fresh from the ground does not necessarily look "carrot shaped"-- M.I.T. (an eminently respectable place of scholarship) sells --or used to sell-- a to-scale, and anatomically correct poster called "Penises of the Animal Kingdom".

I thought the plural was Penes, but I suppose a few people wouldn't get the point.

And having Googled that, because none of the three of my dictionaries within easy reach gives any guidance on what a proper person should call multiple schlongs, I'm off to pursue other lines of romantic alien research.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
Insufficient Mating Material
"racy, wildly entertaining futuristic romance" ~Writers Write

Insufficient Mating Material's heroine

2007-05-27T11:00:00.001-04:00

Insufficient Mating Material has just been launched in the UK as of May 25th 2007. I'm told that it can be found in Tesco, WHSmith, Waterstone's, and Blackwell

"Be good..." they say. "And if you can't be good, be careful!"

It must be almost impossible to be careful when all the worlds are watching all the time, and not always sympathetically.

Princesses and celebrities have everywoman's problems, but their problems are magnified a hundredfold by the telephoto lens of public scrutiny. Everyone wants to know who they are seeing, what they are drinking, what they did in bed and with whom, whether or not they are pregnant...

A single alien princess might precipitate a constitutional crisis if an unflattering camera caught her just as a breeze was bellying out her bathing costume... especially if it was common knowledge that she'd slept with a foreign terrorist for kicks.

Princess Martia-Djulia has all the problems of a youngest child (the third child) but more so. It seems pointless to compete with her brilliant older brother and sister. Until senility overtakes them, they will always be older, wiser, better-read, more experienced, more athletic, more powerful.

In a world of feudal primogeniture, the older she gets, the lower her status. She is only interesting if she is scandalous.

Insufficient Mating Material's heroine was introduced in FORCED MATE, where she got a great deal more than she bargained for when she flirted with a handsome --and most unsuitable-- commoner.

She also went through her brother's private "stuff" and got caught, did the gustatory equivalent of spiking the drinks at her brother's wedding banquet, made a compromising video of herself in bed with a tattooed stranger, and fell hopelessly in love with a hunk who was honor-bound to marry someone else.

She makes her dramatic appearance in Insufficient Mating Material as the Royal bride at an Imperial shotgun wedding. As she surveys the throngs who have come to see her married to the mate of her dreams (who has miraculously been relieved of the fiancee he intended to marry and brought back to her) her happiness seems complete...

CHAPTER ONE

Never in all Great Djinn history has any Imperial Princess had such a Mating Ceremony on such short notice, and to a mate freely chosen by the Princess!

Princess Martia-Djulia savored her unique happiness. The second best part was that she was going to get away with it. By taking an alien and a commoner like Commander Jason to mate, she poked a defiant finger in the eye of Imperial tradition.

“You’re glowing,” her tall, grimly magnificent brother commented as he joined her on the raised throne-stage and offered her the support of his bent arm for the slow, gyring descent of the stage into the Throne Room below the Imperial suite.

“I’ve a lot to glow about,” Martia-Djulia retorted. She could have made a barbed remark about how Tarrant-Arragon had tricked his own cold, pale bride into saying the irrevocable Imperial Mating Vows, but she didn’t.

After all, Tarrant-Arragon had hunted down Commander Jason, and brought him back to her.

Her thoughts returned to her Jason who shared her taste for subversion and mischief-making. He was the Mate who would change her sad, lonely life; her boring, bottled-up life. He was her rescuer, her lover, her private hero, the warrior who made her feel young and beautiful, and who awed the Fewmet out of her insolent, uncontrollable sons.

He was the only male in all the forty-two gestates of her life who had ever given her an orgasm.

Martia-Djulia took a deep, happy breath as the last notes of the Fanfare Royal drifted up from the balconies of the Throne Room, and the Crown Prince’s throne stage —its stark, craggy contours pleasingly draped for the occasion in her favorite colors of dusk-sky mauve and midnight-purple— descended silently, like one of her brother’s deliberately placed chess pieces, only fortress-sized.

“I can hardly believe it,” she whispered to herself as she nodded graciously to the crowd below. “I’m about to be Mated to the only male who has the physical strength to pick me up and sweep me off my feet, and the desire to do so.”

Tarrant-Arragon lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, when I think of Jason’s passion--” she said, "When I think of how violently he knocked the ceremonial headmask off an interfering Saurian Ambassador, and of the wicked, sexual insults he threw….”

“You liked that, didn’t you?” Tarrant-Arragon teased. “But, I hope you don’t expect your new Mate to pick you up, attack Saurian Ambassadors, and hurl sexual insults in front of our distinguished guests.”

Martia-Djulia took in the carefully orchestrated tableau where she stood on the stepped stage, waiting for Jason to make an entrance through one of the Throne Room’s soaring central portals.

What would he be thinking? Would he remember how they met at a Virgins’ Ball in this very Throne Room? Would he mentally undress her with his strange, dark-nebula eyes and notice that she looked better than he remembered?

Surely, even a fashion hawk like Jason would approve of her sense of style. For her second Mating, she could hardly usurp the pallor of a Royal Virgin bride. She had chosen the subtle, shifting colors of a fast-frozen sea, glittering with the palest, most precious gemstones aligned in all the right places for the most flattering effect.

“They all came back!” Martia-Djulia breathed, gazing out at the heads of state, ambassadors, military leaders, and subject royalty who had been hastily recalled, some before they had returned home after her brother’s nuptials.

“Of course,” Tarrant-Arragon murmured. “On occasions like this, no matter how lofty the ceiling, it is never high enough, is it?”

The pentagonal Throne Room shimmered with the warmth rising from the thronged guests. Massed body heat made the vast room a battleground of assorted perfumes and less intentional odors that only Djinn nostrils might identify.

Suddenly, Martia-Djulia was conscious of emerging mature notes from her own signature perfume.

“Tarrant-Arragon,” she whispered anxiously. “Did I overdo the Queen of the Night?”

“You seem to have put it absolutely everywhere,” he drawled, and grinned, confirming that his Djinn-sharp olfactory senses were as embarrassingly acute as those of a sea-predator.

“I’ll let Jason lick it off,” Martia-Djulia quipped brazening out her secret embarrassment.

“If he’s got any Djinn in him, he might find that joy a little overpowering,” Tarrant-Arragon said.

Martia-Djulia felt a vague, fleeting apprehension. Was it a certain enigmatic tone in her brother’s voice? Something wasn’t right. Tarrant-Arragon had once threatened to kill Commander Jason if her lover turned out to be of rogue Djinn lineage.

Why was Jason late?

Her anxious gaze searched the double avenues of ground-lighted, living trees which flanked the four grand entrances.

“Ah. The so delightful Henquist and Thor-quentin.” Tarrant-Arragon jerked his head to indicate the upper level balcony where her two tall sons leaned negligently on the elaborately carved stone balustrade. “They look pleased.”

Martia-Djulia smiled hopefully at her usually sullen, sulky sons, until she realized that Tarrant-Arragon was being ironic.

...

“Nervous?” Tarrant-Arragon asked mockingly.

Before she could retort, a loud fanfare made further conversation impossible. The pentagonal room vibrated with the thunder of massed war-drums. Colored plumes of scented smoke surged up and tumbled from the Imperial throne-space, reminiscent of an ultraviolet tinted, pyroclastic cloud. The Emperor’s throne-stage thrust up through the smoke like a coldly gleaming, ice-volcano rising out of a swirling fog.

Her father, The Emperor Djerrold Vulcan V, appeared to stroll on the pinkish-purple vapor trails, high above his guests. Martia-Djulia tried to imprint on her memory every detail of this splendid, dramatic illusion.

“Dear friends, welcome back,” the Emperor began with his customary, affable menace. “You are now here to witness the exchange of vows between my younger daughter and her new mate. Since The Princess Martia-Djulia is a widow, and a mother, and since this is her second marriage, there will —obviously— be no display of proofs of virginity.”
He pointed his Fire-Stone-Ringed forefinger around the room, his guests shrank in their seats, and he smiled tigrishly.

“There will come a point when my dear daughter will ask anyone who objects to her choice of mate to speak out. Anyone who dares to do so will be incinerated.”
Star-blue lightning sizzled and flashed from the Emperor’s finger. Regrettably, her father had flatly refused to even try to color-coordinate his laser ring’s fire for this one occasion.

“Out of consideration for your fellow guests’ nostrils,” Djerrold Vulcan V continued pleasantly, “I advise against any interference. Proceed!”

High above, another fanfare blared from long, deep-noted instruments. The massive central doors at the far end of the Imperial throne room opened.

“I kept my promise,” Tarrant-Arragon said quietly, “…to bring back Jason, if he agreed to come, or to find you a mate like your Commander Jason.”

She wasn’t paying attention, though it was an odd thing to say. Unseen, a massed male voice choir roared out the Mating Anthem... usually heard only once in a generation at the Mating of an Emperor or the Emperor's male heir.

This, too, was her due. She’d been promised that her Mating would be as splendid as the one she had organized for her big brother. And so it was. Only prettier.

“Here he comes!” Martia-Djulia whispered, trembling.

A tall, broad-shouldered silhouette limped from the darkness beyond the doorway.
His beloved, scarred face was a shadowed, distant blur… but something wasn’t right. Had Tarrant-Arragon tortured and starved Commander Jason into agreeing to Mate with her?

“What is wrong with him?” she hissed accusingly. Time stretched out. A sense of creeping horror chilled her vitals. “You promised not to force him.”

Her thoughts raced back to three Imperatrix cycles ago.

She vividly remembered what they’d agreed, just before Tarrant-Arragon left to exact terrible revenge on the unknown villains who’d tried to assassinate him on his honeymoon.

I want him to be happy, she’d protested when Tarrant-Arragon caught her trying to erase compromising footage of Jason on top of her. Jason’s happiness hadn’t been on her mind when she triggered the surveillance systems.

Do you think he’d be happy with me if I force him to be my mate? she’d asked her brother, who had no scruples when it came to mate appropriation.

No, Tarrant-Arragon had bluntly told her, dashing any lingering hope that she could blackmail Jason into returning to her bed permanently.

At the Virgins’ Ball, Commander Jason had made it clear that he’d rather be searching the rim worlds for his errant mate-to-be, but he was on duty. Since he had to be at the Ball, he’d been in the mood for a revenge dock in any bay that would accommodate him.

Martia-Djulia had only wanted illicit excitement — until Jason gave her so much, she wanted him to do it for the rest of her life.

“Did you force him? Did you torture him?” Martia-Djulia demanded urgently.

“Not really,” her appalling brother replied.

Something was wrong. Martia-Djulia's heart thumped. She clasped nervous hands to her glittering breast, and glared in an effort to get a better look at her promised Mate. At this distance, across the Throne Room, it was hard to tell…. Closer he came. Closer.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of Martia-Djulia.
Read her story in Insufficient Mating Material

Survivors and Romantics

2007-04-29T09:01:00.000-04:00

The Romantic Times Booklovers' convention in Houston is winding down. The book fair is over, the next Mr Romance has been chosen, my speeches have been given and my handouts have been handed out.

In effect, I spoke about research every time, though in some cases it was presented as Swordfighting secrets, and I'd like the romance-writing world to know that my handouts are going up on my website.

Best wishes,
Rowena

If I had to... could I?

2007-04-08T15:15:00.000-04:00

Before I write about heroines, I research the situations into which I dump them, and I like to think that if I were their age, in the shape they are in, and in similar circumstances, I could do almost as well.

But could I?

Could I purify and filter water without a commercial tablet or a store-bought gadget on my plumbing? If global warming reduced my neighborhood to something close to a dust bowl, could I find water? Could I follow my own survival advice that I dish up in my "survival romance" Insufficient Mating Material? Could I make pizza from scratch... on a hot rock?

Well, could I?

I might surprise myself. We women may be tougher than we think.

Actually, I used to make pizza when I lived in Dorset. I had a coal fired oven, which meant that I had to shovel coal into the fire box, wait for it to get really hot, and then bake. My paternal grandmother didn't have a refrigerator. She had a slab of marble in a cupboard under the stairs!

But as for doing some of the things Survivorman does.... I'm not sure, and I hope I never find out, but I pay attention, and I'm thinking of buying some of the best fire making tools I've seen him use on his show, and keeping them in my handbag. It won't do much for the shape of my bag, but a bit of extra weight-lifting should keep my arms and my bones in shape.

Insufficient Mating Material contains quite a lot of information from various survival sources and the consultative wisdom of Survivorman, Les Stroud. Like the hero, Djetth (Jeth), I took part in competitive life-saving at school. I still have all the badges that I earned. However, when I think back to all the mushrooms we used to gather in the local cow pastures at dawn, and the berries we picked from hedgerows in Autumn: hips and haws, elderberry, crabapples, blackberries, I wonder whether I'd dare to today, if I weren't desperate.

My mother would be a lot better at survival than I. She has a head start because she is a passionate (and almost an organic) gardener, and for fruits and vegetables is pretty much self sufficient.

The problem is (for everyday people), practising making shelters by cutting down vegetation is not environmentally responsible, and experimenting with strange berries when I don't have to seems to be asking for trouble.

Happy Easter!

Rowena

Survival of the fittest

2007-03-18T10:32:00.000-04:00

I developed this poster from custom artwork done by Ed Traxler for my Insufficient Mating Material book video, and from photographs given to me by Les Stroud (aka SURVIVORMAN).

Now, I use it as a visual aid for when talking with romance experts in bookstores, or potential readers. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words!

Survivorman is holding up a conch shell, which is quite useful for heating water on the campfire, if one doesn't happen to be marooned with a saucepan. There are also scenes involving fishing using whittled stakes, and in making a shelter from vegetation, so his pictures were all very relevant to what goes on in my romance!

I like to multi-task, so when my husband agreed that we could drive down to Florida (for the Amelia Island concours d'elegance), I arranged to make strategic stops at major bookstores along my route (the I-75) to do "drive-by signings" of INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL, and hopefully to tell booksellers some highpoints about the alien/survival romance.

In my drive-by signing bag I packed: autographed stickers, a purple ink gel pen, spare pens, my poster, a hair brush, bookmarks, business cards.

We set off from Detroit, not as early as I'd have liked, but on the other hand, the morning rush-hour traffic had cleared. By around 3pm we were in Lexington, Kentucky, which I'd chosen because I thought that --if we had a tiresome drive owing to weather or roadworks-- we might want to stop at the Super 8 near there.

There is only one Barnes and Noble in Lexington, so that is where I signed, while my husband and child stretched their legs and enjoyed the store's fine displays of magazines and games.

The next day, around eleven a.m., I was in Knoxville, having got off to a record slow start which had not a little to do with a blocked toilet (not blocked by us) which meant that I had to repeatedly flush what you might expect, by bailing water (from the bath) using the room's fortunately-large-and-plastic trash bin.

There's only one Barnes and Noble in Knoxville, too, and I had a great time chatting with the CRM.

Around three pm, we almost overshot our turn-off. Actually, we did. As one of my favorite secondary heroines is called Tarragonia-Marietta, of course I had to sign in Marietta!

I had appointments at two stores, but we'd seen the Atlanta Northbound traffic back-ups, so decided to drop by a third store to while away the time, and keep us off the motorway for a while longer, but still going in the right direction.

Finding the Cobb Parkway store took a lot longer than we expected, partly because I hadn't "MapQuested it", however, we received a pleasant welcome, and three extra copies of Insufficient Mating Material were signed as dusk descended.

On the third day, we got into Jacksonville in the early afternoon and found the first store, on Atlantic, with relative ease although I'd misidentified an East-West street, and thought we were going North-South!

I didn't have an appointment for the Dalton store, because they are closed on Sundays, which is when I was doing my telephoning. However, that was in a mall, and not too hard to locate. We gave up trying to find the Mid-Town store, owing to my misreading of the map, and the fact that we wanted to paddle in the sea before sunset, now we were so close.

Armed with a better map, and expert directions, we found the store the next day, and I think the St. John's Town Center was the most impressive store, in the loveliest open air shopping mall that I've ever visited.

Signed copies of Insufficient Mating Material can be found at:

KY

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Man-O-War
Hamburg Pavilion
1932 Pavilion Way
Lexington, KY 40509
859-543-8518

TN

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Suburban Plaza
8029 Kingston Pike
Knoxville, TN 37919
865-670-0773

GA

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Town Center Prado
50 Barrett Pkwy Suite 1100
Marietta, GA 30066
770-422-2261

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
The Avenue West Cobb
3625 Dallas Hwy SW
Marietta, GA 30064
770-424-0511

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
2952 Cobb Pkwy
Atlanta, GA 30339
770-953-0966

FL

B.Dalton Booksellers
Regency Square mall
9501 Arlington Expressway #250
Jacksonville, FL 32225
904-721-2446

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
9282 Atlantic Blvd
Jacksonville, FL 3225
904-721-2446

Barnes & Noble Booksellers
St Johns Town Center
10280 Midtown Parkway
Jacksonville, FL 32225
904-928-2027

(Also, Barnes & Noble Booksellers

The Streets of Westchester
9455 Civic Centre Blvd
West Chester, OH 45069
513-755-2258)

see the Insufficient Mating Material video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLuEtY7oP7A

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL takes up where FORCED MATE ended, with Djetthro-Jason (Jethro-Jason) severely beaten, about to undergo surgery to change his face and identity before his shotgun wedding to the frivolous Princess Martia-Djulia (Marsha-Julia).

No one gives a thought to what Martia-Djulia might do when she realizes that it’s not her unsuitable lover, Commander Jason, but a stranger being frog-marched up the aisle to become her Mate.

Her surprising reaction sets off a firestorm of rumor… and rattles a murderer who thought he’d gotten away with an ancient crime.

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL EXCERPT

A Tricky Experiment

“Maybe, sweetheart, we should have sex to prove to you that you can and will enjoy it.”
“I enjoyed it once. I am very happy with my memories. I don’t need you or your experiment to prove anything,” she said stiffly.
“Once?” He raised an eyebrow. His lips twitched. Too late, Martia-Djulia realized that she had just contradicted one of her earlier statements.
“The Aim of the Experiment is to discover whether or not we are sexually compatible,” Djetth said loftily. She suspected that he was amusing himself by parodying a formal checklist. “Method: to have mind-blowing recreational sex using positions and techniques that mitigate or avoid unfortunate consequences. Expected result--”
“What unfortunate consequences?”
“Insects in your hair?” he teased. “Sand in your baby box. A baby. Infection. Injury. Legal consummation of a Mating we might not want.”
His gaze flickered. Martia-Djulia had the impression that his list was deliberately ordered.
“Injury to whom?” she asked, ignoring the glossed over “baby.”
“I’ve wondered why you haven’t blasted me backward onto my butt since our Mating Day. I’ve certainly deserved it.”
“Yes you have!” she agreed heatedly.

ISBN 0-505-52711-1

Bit of Self-promo

***** Five Stars!
Excellent adventure and highly recommended!
~ Detra Fitch, HUNTRESS REVIEWS

This book has one of the best ending sequences. … Ms. Cherry has created a seriously evil villain. … Trust me, INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is a book you don’t want to miss. Be sure to check out the back-story in Rowena Cherry’s FORCED MATE.
~bookmaedin, for www.ibookdb.net

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is an outstanding sequel to FORCED MATE! Cherry skillfully combines mystery, romance, and humor with a fast-paced science fiction adventure. I couldn’t put it down! ~ Jean, Fallen Angel Reviews

Rowena Cherry is one of the best sub-genre writers due to her skill at placing the heroic characters in impossible scenarios
~ Harriet Klausner, Affaire de Coeur

For those of you who read and enjoyed FORCED MATE, the long awaited story about Commander Jason is finally here and what a story it is! It was well worth the wait! I highly recommend running to get this book the minute it hits your local book store!
~Kathy Boswell, The Best Reviews

… a powerful romance laced with devastating family secrets, treachery and a sizzling passion hot enough to singe your fingers as you turn the pages. Ms. Cherry pens a compelling plot with vivid imagery and fascinating characters that will leave you breathless….Ms Cherry has become an auto buy author for me.
~Billie Jo, Romance Junkies

Best wishes,
Rowena

Mark Your Calenders! New Hunt Coming in May!

2007-03-13T10:17:00.000-04:00

***MARK YOUR CALENDARS***

COMING IN MAY 2007

The New Pillow Scavenger Hunt!

Featuring these great authors and a lot of cool prizes, including autographed books!

Amy Knupp, Barbara White Daille, The History Hoydens, Jaycee Clark, Jenna Black, Jordan Summers, Joey W. Hill, Jory Strong, Michelle Pillow, Kalen Hughes, Kate Austin, Kelley St. John, Lacey Alexander, Lauren Dane, Mackenzie McKade, Mandy Roth, Maya Banks, N.J. Walters, Nicola Marsh, Patricia Sargeant, Portia Da Costa, Raven Vampire Nightclub (M Pillow and M Roth Joint), Rowena Cherry, Samantha Storm, Shelley Munro, Shiloh Walker, & TJ Michaels & MORE!

Check back for details!

Insufficient Mating Material--survival excerpt

2007-02-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

I encourage anyone thinking of buying one of my books to read a free sample chapter from my website or Barnes and Noble.com, or just stand in the romance aisle of your favorite local bookstore and check out a few pages.

These might be some good pages to scope out for a fair idea of whether or not this book is your cup of tea.

Royal wedding: page 33
Sexually frustrated swearing: page 199
A fish bit my ... : page 244
Battle scene: page 253
Cover scene : page 264
Grievous explains "the trots" to an alien: 273

Here is a very short excerpt with genuine survival advice.

In this scene, the hero, Djetth (pronounced Jeth) and the squeamish fashionista
Princess Martia-Djulia (Marsha-Julia) are marooned on a Costa-Rica-like island. They have been shot down, landed in the sea, and Martia's elaborate gown is wet, and she will not remove it.

She is embarrassed about the corset she wears underneath her preposterous Court dress. She doesn't know that Djetth has already seen her corset and more, before his plastic surgery, when he had a wild one-night-stand with her.

Djetth has decided that their first priority should be to get a fire going.

-----

"There are a lot of things we could do without for one night." Dinner came to
mind. Sex… Djetth grunted and rose to his feet.

The most natural thing in the world would have been to hook an arm around Martia-Djulia's tightly cinched waist, and point to the campsite he'd chosen. Instead, he put his left hand on his hip and pointed with his right hand.

"You see that little stand of trees -- the ones with twisted trunks, which fork into three or four branches at about the height of my hip? Those two, there, will make good supports for the entrance to a shelter. I'll thrust a long, straight branch between their crotches as a ridgepole."

She looked doubtful, but Djetth was on good ground with his woodmanship.

"A 'crotch' is where a tree bifurcates," he explained, simply so she would think about crotches, and long, straight objects being thrust into them. "They're a good
choice because their canopies lean inland, away from what becomes the obvious spot to clear for a fire pit. Do you agree?"

He took her silence for consent.

"Right. I'll start by digging the fire pit. Do you think you could find something we can burn? There are three types of fuel needed for a fire. Tinder is the most important."

Chivalrously, he assigned the greatest importance to the easiest, lightest, most enjoyable, most feminine task.

"I can't start a fire without tinder," he added with strategic disregard for the fact that he was a Great Djinn in possession of three Rings of Imperial Authority, one of which was the laser-like Fire Stone.

"What is tinder?" she asked, sounding suspicious.

"Ahhhh," he drawled, overcome by a mischievous instinct. "Look here."

With his left hand he lifted his T-shirt, with his right forefinger and thumb he reached into his navel, confident that after eight weeks of hard exercise he had well defined abs and a very deep and attractive "inny" of a tummy button.

He withdrew lint.

"Oh, slurrid!" his squeamish Princess exclaimed, predictably, but she stared at his lower abdomen and perhaps at the bulge in his trunk briefs with flattering interest.

"This fluff--" He placed it in the palm of his left hand as reverently as a
scientist explaining an important specimen, "is created from the action of hard work. Friction attracts filaments of fabric from my cotton T-shirt, and works them into a flat, fluffy mat."

He moved his cupped hand closer to her.

"Good tinder needs to have irregular edges, plenty of airspaces." He teased his tummy button fluff into a looser wad. "It must be dry. Would you like to touch it?"
.....

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

PS
Some readers might be interested to recall that in one episode of Survivorman, Les Stroud plucked lint from his socks to use as tinder to start a fire. When I saw Les do that, I sensed that he and I shared a sense of humor, and that he would be the perfect "survival details" expert for Insufficient Mating Material.

Another tip... besides surprising things that are flammable, is that it is better to be naked and dry rather than clothed and wet.

Insufficient Mating Material

2007-02-17T10:39:00.000-05:00

Insufficient Mating Material secrets...

2007-02-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

...of making the Insufficient Mating Material book video.

Happy Superbowl Sunday, by the way. Have you seen my 50 second advertisement? Not on TV, naturally, but on MySpace and You-Tube and anywhere else that will put it up (including my home-run website... which isn't run by me!)

For the record, Edward Traxler --Myra Nour's brother-- did my video. However, I put in a lot more time and did a lot more work than I expected, so I really hope that it is as effective as a marketing tool as everyone who has them, seems to think.

I don't know. Seeing a cover cut up and moved around on a screen has never sent me to a bookstore with the speed and purpose of a heat-seeking missile.

When we started, I thought I knew what I wanted. For about $75 (not my end cost!) I wanted a Me-Too product, just to hedge my bets in case Susan Kearney, Linnea Sinclair, Mel Schroeder, Myra Nour, Ruth Kerce, Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow (I watch Mandy and Michelle, because they must be the most savvy self-promoters I've ever seen, and I mean that in the nicest possible way) are right.

Music: I wanted the Pilgrim's Chorus from Wagner's Tannhauser. I'd once seen a feeble --but choral-- version on a Royalty Free site. Failing that, yeah, Billy Idol's White Wedding or Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath would do nicely, but that idea was quickly squashed. One cannot buy Royalty Free 30 second clips of Rock Star's music. Alas!

And, to get anything except the orchestral Overture from Tannhauser, the sites I visited required Membership and a commitment to buy more than 30 seconds of good stuff.

Ed gave me links to six sites that sell legal-to-use music, and told me to find what I wanted. Imagine... well, I am picky and I have expensive tastes. If I couldn't have someone famous, I wanted a lot of people, so I hunted for a good, bombastic choir. I'd hoped for massed, warrior-like men in extasy, but settled for kick-butt females going Aaaaaaaahhhhh.

I'd seen Lightboxes in an earlier reconnoitre, but hadn't figured out how to use the site. I learned. I thought I wanted beach and sea and an aurora borealis to play up the cover art, which I assumed we'd be cutting up.

Unfortunately, my From-Here-To-Eternity cover models are in an isoceles triangle configuration, so there was no way to make them roll over (and over again) in the surf.

Using the index and search functions, I wasted a lot of time looking at seascapes, hoping to find ejaculating clams.... or something that could suggest that.

Also, I went through a lot of little campfires (most had unsuitable men in
baseball caps silhouetted against the flames). My romantic aliens do not wear baseball caps or Chicago Bears helmets. Eventually, I decided that it was witty, funny, and appropriate to show a really big fire. If you've read Insufficient Mating Material, you'll understand why.

Then Ed sent me to a NASA site, and I spent a day or two looking at
starfields and comets and planets.

Next, he sent me to the airforce to check out jetfighters, and then to....look at fonts and colors.

And meanwhile I was trawling MySpace trying to find a cheap, naked man.

I found one enjoying a shower (which would have been really good, given one of the archetypically dirty tricks Tarrant-Arragon plays on his sister) but .... it wasn't to be.

Thank Evan I remembered what a good sport Evan Scott is! He said I could use one of his photographs. Oh, but the trouble we had removing Evan's hair, and putting a piratical headsquare on his head. The early efforts looked like a hard, orange hat. No one wears a construction site helmet and nothing else in the sea.

There was another shot we considered... Evan was waist deep in the sea, proudly holding up a manly bathing-costume. We turned the swim suit into a big fish, as if he'd just tickled a sea-going trout and caught it.

However, the fish was a distraction, and would take too many words to explain, even if there IS a school of thought that says you can use fish skin as a condom. SURVIVORMAN (who was my survival techniques consultant for the book) opines that you can't, but that rabbit guts are an option.

Back to Evan's inconvenient hair. You can imagine me googling Pirates of the Caribbean for good-looking headwear. Unfortunately, most of that looked good because of the explosion of dreadlocks and beaded beard underneath the scarf.

And, Djetth should have had a goatee, but Ed draws goatees like a subway grafitti artist putting facial hair on the Mona Lisa (it must be his only weakness), so I googled Men In Goatees. (That was an interesting search!) I also found Max Von Sydow's Ming from Flash Gordon, and Andre Agussi and Brad Pit and chin curtains. Chin Curtains!!

In the end, I decided that Djetth did not need a goatee for the purposes of this trailer.

Then, finally, the video is done, and Ed puts up a really good resolution, and I discover that the hero in the sea has what looks like monster love bites around his visible nipple.

No one seems to mind, though.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
"Insufficient Mating Material is a strong, intelligently written book..."
~Marcy Arbitman, reviewer for JERR

Insufficient Mating Material is in stores

2007-02-03T14:16:00.000-05:00

Possibly the "horny-berries" would not be the cover icon that I would have chosen, but You Tube doesn't give me a choice,
and they do relate to a survival element in the book Insufficient Mating Material, which is in bookstores at the moment.

Ed Traxler put this fabulous show together for me.

best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Insufficient Mating Material plus priapic iguana

2007-01-28T09:59:00.000-05:00

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL comes to bookstores everywhere on Tuesday (January 30th), and I do want to promote it, and my HIDDEN IMAGE contest, so I ought to take advantage.

However... the iguana-with-an-erection story is topical, and it's good to be topical, even if one is an author of futuristic romances.

I just cannot leave a good double penis story alone. (I was sorely tempted to omit a noun from that last sentence for the sake of sensationalism.)

Did you see the Reuters article about the iguana named Mozart who has sported an erection for almost a week? Concerned vets have decided to put a stop to the unruly erection by amputating.

"The good news for Mozart and his mates is that
male iguanas have two penises.

Mozart, sitting on the shoulders of his keeper as camera crews
focused on his red, swollen erection, seemed unperturbed..."

Is red and swollen a problem?
I confess my ignorance. I have no idea what color a healthy, happy iguana's penis ought to be.

I really hope the vets aren't being hasty.

Who is this erection bothering most? Reportedly, the male iguana doesn't seem concerned.

As for what use I can make of news like this... well, here's how one speculative romance writer speculates.

I ask myself:
What do I know about double penises?

I know that Barbara Karmazin wrote a wonderful book, The Huntress, and the hero had one.

I've seen partially-insertable sex toys with an appendage apparently designed for simultaneous external stimulation.

I know that one fabulous theory about dragons is that they squirted fire by having two nozzles at the front of their mouths --like doubling up a snake's snorkel-- that sprayed different liquids. The liquids became combustible when combined.

I know that there are super glues, drain cleaners, and other household products --I think there is a beauty product, too-- that comes in a double barrelled container, so the substances only combine when squirted onto or into whatever they are designed to be squirted onto or into.

Now I start speculating:

I wonder why an iguana has two penises.
One to use and one to rest?
A spare?
One for fun and one to get the job done?
Do they work like the cannons in Star Wars? Like pistons? One recoils while the other fires?

What if the iguana has super-glue semen? (In that there's different stuff in each barrel, and it's only effective if both barrels are discharged.)

And finally, after I've amused myself sufficiently, I ask myself:

Will my editor buy a LoveSpell Romance hero with this level of complicated, high-tech equipment.

As Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry used to say, "A man has to know his limitations."

So does a writer.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

PS. In conjunction with the launch of INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL, I am running a HIDDEN IMAGE contest from January 31st until February 28th 2007.

One entrant will win a $500 bookstore buying-spree. Details, entry form, rules can be found at www.rowenacherry.com/hiddenimage/

Thusness (and the importance of a jolly good ending)

2007-01-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

This post has nothing to do with survival... as it happens.
It's about technique, and one writer's way of working.

I don't see "Thusness" being talked about very much. One of my English professors at Homerton College, Cambridge, taught me the expression and the concept, and I've never forgotten it.

At the time, I believe we were studying Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Epic poetry. Medieval Fantasy SpecRom opera with never-ending quests for the Holy Grail, swords, sorcery, treachery, maidens being surprised in their bathtubs by horny rotters. Inspiring stuff, really! That's what I remember. But it could have been Browning, or Coleridge.

Maybe someone will want to tell me that the Arthurian legends aren't SpecRom. I might answer that it all depends who is retelling them, and how.

The bottom line with "Thusness" --as I internalized it-- is that all the interwoven story threads are tied up so neatly by the end of the story that the reader is left with a feeling of great satisfaction and justice. Not only is everything explained (that needs to be explained), but there is harmony, balance, and maybe that forehead-slap of enlightenment.

"Thusness" makes a story memorable and thought-provoking (in a pleasurable way) after the last word has been read, and the book has been put away... or returned to the library. The ending is "right" and has a quality of inevitability. Of course, in a romance, it is generally accepted that, inevitably, the hero and the heroine will live happily ever after together.

That's not quite what I mean by "inevitability."

Perhaps "thusness" is like the old definition of obscenity. "...I know it when I see it."

If that is the case, how does a writer achieve "Thusness"? Some of us are plotters, outliners, linear writers. Others are pantsers, channellers. Some do both. Some put a book together like a jigsaw (I do). Some plan it like dinner... you know, it has a beginning (starter), a middle (main course), and an ending (the pudding).

"Pudding" might not be entirely felicitous. Some end with a Bombe Surprise, or cheesecake, others with a swiggable yoghurt or quick coffee. It's all good, but probably it's most satisfying if it is a balanced meal.

I try for thusness. If I have three prologues (of course, they cannot be called that), I need three epilogues. This might mean that a lot has to be cut from the middle to meet the publisher's page limit (about 400 double spaced pages at 250 wpp).

Once the ending is written --and not all authors know the details of how their heroes' stories will end when they begin-- well, then you have the linear warp, but not the weft (weaving imagery). Then, knowing how your story ends, you go back to the beginning and weave in the almost-invisible details at regular intervals.

Perhaps your editor wants the villain to be badder. (Given that badder is good English). For "Thusness" as I see it, it isn't enough to put super bad thoughts into his point of view one scene before he gets his come-uppance, though that would be the quickest and easy edit... and on a deadline, quick and easy is very tempting! In my opinion, the first time the reader sees this villain he has to be doing something bad, although it could be stealth wickedness. We may not recognize his evil for what it is, after all, he hasn't been caught.

And so it goes. A hint is woven in, and it has to be repeated, not necessarily every seventy pages, but that's a reasonable rough guide. The Imperial March was a pretty cool tune. They say the devil gets all the best tunes. It took a while before we realized that it meant that the bad guy was up to no good. Same with the Jaws horn riff. (If horns can riff).

Because Jolly Good Endings and striving for "Thusness" is important to me, I was thrilled with a recent review by "Bookmaedin" posted at http://www.ibookdb.net/review/58607

Excerpt
"This book also has one of the best ending sequences. Everyone in the story pulls together against a common enemy. Ms. Cherry has created a seriously evil villain. What goes around comes around, and it definitely came back on this villainous specimen.

Trust me, INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is a book you don’t want to miss. Be sure to check out the back-story in Rowena Cherry’s previous book, Forced Mate.

~Review by bookmaedin for iBookDB Review: Insufficient Mating Material"

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL will be in bookstores on January 30th.

Save the Weird!

2007-01-20T17:49:00.000-05:00

First, let me say, thank goodness for YouTube or I might never get to watch Craig Ferguson. (Clip is 2:42 minutes.)

This isn't just comedy.

The Zoological Society of London really has started a program called EDGE of Existence that is focusing on research and conservation efforts revolving around the world’s most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered.

And...

There really is a Human Zoo @ Adelaide Zoo operating in January 2007. Description from their Web site: Every week 6 humans will live in the Adelaide Zoo with scientist Dr Carla Litchfield. The human with the most sms votes at the end of the week has a chance to become the SUPER HUMAN (you can vote for your favourite human any time during January). Most voted human at the end of the month will win the title of SUPER HUMAN and win an amazing overseas holiday to Honolulu. Money raised from the Human Zoo concept will go to conservation projects.

And now for why finding these two subjects discussed on this video on YouTube caught my eye...

Strange coincidence alert!

Last night I had a dream I was "on exhibit". Not in a zoo! I'd agreed to be part of an Internet-based reality show where I was surviving on a deserted island for an entire year. It was all very The Blue Lagoon complete with a very handsome Christopher Atkins blond (ooh-la-la) and me looking like Brooke. Every week the contestants blogged about their experiences (via satellite), and there was video posted too. It was a fun dream, and I thought it was eerie that I woke up, turned on the Internet, and found this video that talks about human beings putting themselves on exhibit in an effort to win a vacation on a tropical island.

And as for as saving weird animals...

My interest in zoology and conservation shows up in my writing. I've been working on a freebie short story for my Web site where the hero and heroine are wildlife biologists. They meet on a planet called the IGZ (Intra-Galactic Zoo), which is set up for conservation of all animals (but I write mostly about the weird ones). In my futuristic worlds, the IGZ is dedicated to the idea that human beings will always be interested in ensuring other species survive.

The IGA first shows up in Starlit Destiny, in this scene:

Dena knew she had no right to stop him from finishing the ivaraa he had been sent on, even if he didn’t believe. According to the traditions of her people, the zhel he found would be his--theirs. “You were called to this place,” Dena said, knowing Darian had no idea of the significance of the act. “There is zhel nearby that is...” Ours? Or was it? He said that Krys was dead. If he wasn’t Krys...

It seemed impossible that she was about to find her alykzhel with this man. Darian didn’t understand her people’s traditions. The same emotional tug that grew within her as she reached their destination was obviously not touching him in the slightest. He displayed only lust. “You have as much right to it as I, or it would not have been revealed to you.”

“Now, that I can deal with.” Darian pushed a button. “Lyn, you might want to take a look at this.”

When Lyn walked into the cabin and was speechless for a good minute as he surveyed the sunken city before them. Then he uttered two words. “Jurate’s palace.”

“We don’t have time to sit and admire the view,” Darian said, turning to her. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“What?”

“We’ve got to get our gem.”

Dena realized he planned to go without her. “Lyn cannot. I have to go with you.”

“We don’t have a wetsuit that will fit you.”

“I have to go. The zhel will not reveal itself to Lyn.”

“It’s everywhere.”

“Will you two stop?” Lyn’s eyes moved quickly from Darian to the view before them and then to Dena. “Dena you aren’t getting into the water without scuba gear.”

“But--”

“I’m on your side,” Lyn insisted. “Considering our situation, I should stay onboard in case we have to leave in a hurry. We’ll have to make my suit fit you.”

Dena soon found herself pushed and prodded by both men as they bound her into Lyn’s black wetsuit. The suit sagged on her frame horribly. “You look like an anorexic hippopotamus,” Lyn said.

Darian stripped down to his shorts, right in the middle of the room. Dena’s heart started pounding so loudly she was sure the men could hear. She watched as he pulled on the wetsuit. “Is that what a hippopotamus looks like all fleshed out?”

Darian snarled at her.

“What did I say?”

The corners of Lyn’s mouth turned up in amusement. “You gave him quite a compliment.”

“I did not.” That was obvious.

“You’re right. You didn’t. I saw a live hippo once at the IGZ.” Lyn described what the huge aquatic beasts from Old Earth looked like she giggled.

“What is high cheesy?”

“Huh? Oh, no!” Lyn explained the acronym for Intra-Galactic Zoo, and how the entire planet had been terraformed from a barren world to preserve life from across the known galaxy. “The Tomerian Federation holds dear the ideal of preservation. Without the IGZ, many life forms would now be extinct.”

“Why not preserve the original planets?”

“That isn’t always possible,” Darian said.

“It would be if star pirates would stay where they belong.”

“Lyask was peopled by colonists.”

“But--”

Lyn held up his hand to stop her from speaking. “Through all human history there have been wars fought over land ownership, and there always will be. The fact remains that the Old Earth is incapable of sustaining all the human life that now exists in the galaxy. We should be thankful that some valued freedom or we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

The man’s words gave Dena a lot to think about. It was true her people weren’t originally from Lyask. She also realized that Lyn and Darian weren’t defending the soldiers who wanted to harm her planet. “I don’t know why I’m arguing with you. We can’t change the past.”

“She’s right, so if you two are done making zookaburras of yourselves--”

“We’re just talking,” Lyn said.

“And it’s taking so long the three of us will end up extinct life forms.”

~ Annalee Blysse

Insufficient Mating Material

2007-01-12T16:38:00.000-05:00

Insufficient Mating Material
Rowena Cherry

Prince Djetthro-Jason is offered a choice: hide his true identity and Mate with Princess Martia-Djulia or die. He agrees to Mate with Martia-Djulia because he knows his true love Djinni-vera is lost to him. Unfortunately Prince Djetthro-Jason, also known as Djetth, can never tell Martia-Djulia that he is the man she knew as Commander Jason. Martia-Djulia must believe that Jason is dead.

On the day of their Mating ceremony Martia-Djulia is distraught to learn that Jason is dead and her brother has put an imposter in his place. When Martia-Djulia publicly rejects Prince Djetthro-Jason her brother comes up with a plan to put the two together.

While flying over an island on An’Koor, Djetth and Martia-Djulia are shot down and stranded. With only each other for company they will have to learn to trust and depend on one another. But how is Djetth supposed to Mate with a woman who won’t take her clothes off even when her life depends on it?

When someone send assassins to the island, their situation becomes all the more serious. Can they make it out alive? And will they be able to figure out who wants them dead?

INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif by Rowena Cherry is a fantastic futuristic romance full of mystery and page-turning suspense. Throughout the story I kept wondering: Would Djetth be able to seduce Martia-Djulia? Would Martia-Djulia figure out that Djetth and Jason were one and the same? Who wanted them dead? And most importantly, would Martia-Djulia find the love she so richly deserved?

Djetth is such an excellent example of an alpha male, and Martia-Djulia is a resourceful woman who’s not as flighty as she lets on. Together they compliment one another so well you can’t help but love them.

This book also has one of the best ending sequences. Everyone in the story pulls together against a common enemy. Ms. Cherry has created a seriously evil villain. What goes around comes around, and it definitely came back on this villainous specimen.

Trust me, Insufficient Mating Material is a book you don’t want to miss. Be sure to check out the back-story in Rowena Cherry’s previous book, Forced Mate.~Heather

Review by bookmaedin
Heather began reading as a small child with the story "Little Bear." She found Romance when she was 13 and hasn't looked back since. She's a Romance Expert for her local chain bookstore and reviewer for Romance Junkies. Check out her reviews here: http://www.romancejunkiesreviews.com/artman/publish/

Adequate Insufficiency

2007-01-07T13:15:00.000-05:00

One of my grandmothers used to have a kind way of calling a halt to my childish dramatic, poetic, or vocal performances.

"I think that you have delighted us sufficiently..." she would say.

Another grandmother used similar phraseology to announce that we had eaten enough of her expensive Sunday roast.

"We have had an adequate sufficiency..."

None of my grandmothers (I remember three) would have got beyond the first page of my next alien romance, Insufficient Mating Material. The hero is naked and worried about his inappropriate erection. He's on the operating table, about to have identity-changing surgery, and he's got a glow-in-the-dark tattoo that he does not want the surgeons to notice.

(Cats sometimes purr when they are in pain, so I don't see why aliens shouldn't react to distress in ways that defy human experience.)

Having warned off influential grandmothers... I should also warn others. Insufficient Mating Material is not about shortcomings in the wedding tackle department. It's a chess term. Go ahead and google it!

Originally there was a chess scene in the book, but it had to be cut because the book was too long. In theory, I like the hero to learn something mind-changing about the heroine during an intellectual pastime (or the heroine about the hero).

In this case, the hero reveals something important to the heroine while he's tie-dying her clothing. She's very fashion conscious, and wearing a plain white T-shirt isn't stylish enough for her...even if they are marooned on a desert island.

The reason my subject line is an oxymoron is because "Adequate Insufficiency" fits my mood: I've got enough, but it's not good enough. So much to do, so little time... and I am thoroughly disorganized.

Take my panic last night. I put out a bi-monthly newsletter, maybe you know. If not, check out www.rowenacherry.com/newsletter

The November/December issue may still be up, in which case the turkey joke (if you can find it) is a bit old. I should have put it up on the first of the month, but my webmaster might have been caught in a weather condition over the holidays.

Around that time, I discovered that although I had two interviews with cover models "in the proverbial bag", my delicate and tasteful ISP had stripped the hunks... or else they are now pursuing careers in which public semi-nudity is frowned upon. A high resolution close up of knitting isn't quite the titillation my readers have come to expect of my newsletters.

A third cover model was able to let me have wonderful photos, but we're playing phone tag to get his interview answers written.

My New Year's Eve resolutions were to take my coffee black, drink only champagne (at times when alcohol might be appropriate), and to finish the first draft of my next book before Insufficient Mating Material hits bookstores on January 30th 2007. So far, less than seven days into the month, two resolutions are broken already and too many helping hands keep shoving things that I thought I could postpone until February onto my professional, metaphorical front burner.

Off to burn something else, now!
Have a good week.

Rowena Cherry

Time and survival

2006-12-31T11:27:00.000-05:00

Timing-wise, I really lucked out this year, if having (alien romance) blogging rights to Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve counts as luck. My wrist watch also stopped for Christmas, which is an inconvenience.

When I was a virgin (there's superstition for you), I used to stop watches regularly. I had to wear them pinned to my breast, like a matron (in the medical sense). Now, it's probably a matter of battery life!

Happy New Year!

I don't consider myself an astronomical heavyweight, intellectually speaking.

My natural, romantic bent is to consider Pink Floyd rather than Cepheid Variables,
a man's reaction to the passing of his life (Time) rather than the fact that a light year is a measure of distance (nearly six trillion miles). The coolness and romance of the idea of The Dark Side of the Moon rather than the possibility of habitable worlds (moons) in tidal lock around a Gas Giant.

Not so long ago, I was seated at a dinner party next to a member of the Pink Floyd, and --naturally-- I asked about the thinking behind The Dark Side of the Moon, which is why I feel free to mention coolness and romance.

Time is rather interesting as part of world building. How would a civilization tell time if they spent generations aboard a space ark? What method would remain relevant? I chose the female reproductive cycle when writing Forced Mate... No doubt it had something to do with my inconvenient effect on wearable timepieces when I was younger.

Looking back, I'm immensely amused by the spoilsports who all said that we all celebrated Y2K on the wrong date (wrong year). I must have spent at least twelve hours watching televised celebrations from around the world: rock stars and sopranos atop magnificent buildings, paper lanterns rising into the sky like miniature hot air balloons, ballet on beaches, fireworks along major rivers...

Obvious as it is to say, tonight, different nations --and different states-- will mark the arrival of 2007 at different times. I'm especially aware of this for a really silly reason. Not because my mother lives in England and will be celebrating five or six hours earlier than I will, but because my publisher's forums are on Central time and I'm on Eastern, and I'm determined to log in at midnight, and help break an attendance record. (forums@dorchesterpub.com, midnight Central).

Greenwich Mean Time is very useful, but we don't all set our clocks by that. Not everyone follows the same calendar. Take the Chinese New Year.

Suppose there were an Antichthon

Would that world measure time in the same way that we do? Would Antichthon have a moon? How likely is that?

Too complicated for me, this morning, is the idea that someone leaving Earth, traveling into outer space, and returning years later would experience the passage of time differently, and may return as a time traveller (not the same age as the friends and colleagues who remained on Earth). It is an issue I must look into before I get much further with my next book, though.

The Sparrow was interesting on time. I know Star Trek measured time in Star Dates, but I don't know how that was calculated. I never noticed time being measured in Star Wars...

Happy New Year.

Rowena Cherry

The Cosmic Plan

2006-12-24T15:48:00.000-05:00

A 24 minute video talking about topics like... seeing UFOs, contact with extra-terrestrials, how extra-terrestrials have colonized Earth, and that human beings are a genetic experiment. I had fun finding this video today on YouTube because I used similiar ideas in Lord of the Night in Relic. Actually, in my story, it is the extra-terrestrials that are the "genetic experiment".

“We live in a Universe that is alive with stars. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has four hundred billions stars (or suns)... The Earth is like a tiny grain of sand on a huge celestial beach, and this isn’t the only beach. Why would there only be life on Earth?”

~ Annalee Blysse.

50 ways to help your author friends

2006-12-17T10:27:00.000-05:00

50 ways to help an author
(without buying her book)

Originally I had a longer and more accurate title, but I can’t get the song “Fifty ways to leave your lover out of my head”. I’d love feedback, or additional suggestions. The idea is to share all the things that authors can do to help each other, and that authors’ friends and family could do, might like to do, but may never think of doing. For the sake of argument, all authors for the purpose of this blog will be considered female. (No sexism intended).

Help the search engines find her:

1. Google your friend.
2. Ask Jeeves about her.
3. Dogpile her.
4. A9 search her. (That’s the Amazon search engine)
5. Does Yahoo have a search feature?

Even if you know where to find your friend, her blog, and her books, “hits” help. The more visitors the search engine spiders find, the more priority the author's website gets.

6. Visit her website… not just the home page.
7. Visit her blogs.
8. Find her Amazon Connect page
http://www.amazon.com/gp/arms/directory/A/2/105-8737680-2353243#directory

This link is to the alphabetical directory by author’s last name. Click on the name (which is blue, underlined and therefore a live link) and you will go to the author’s Amazon page. From there you can:

9. Invite her as an Amazon Friend
10. Add to your list of Interesting People
11. E-mail the page (about her… to your other friends)
12. Add her posts to your plog

As you explore her Amazon Connect page, you will find:

On the left, under her picture, links to any reviews she has written.
13. Click on them. Read her reviews. If you like them, click on Helpful.
14. If you see an opportunity to comment on her review, do so if you have something nice to say.

If authors write reviews, their books are advertised free in the attribution line, and their links to their page and their books are seen by people who are interested in the products that your friend reviewed.
There’s a link to her own web site.
15. Click on that… just to bump up the site and give it traffic. Then go back to Amazon.

If the author has blogged (written a note about what she is doing/thinking/ or given an insight into her books), there is a blue link to Comment.

16. Comment! Vote that you liked her post (it’s encouraging feedback)

If the author clicked “product” as she wrote her blog, there will be a live link on her blog to one of her books.

17. Click on the cover. Give her book page traffic. Or scroll on down and see her bibliography, who your author friend’s friends are, what reviews she has written, what search suggestions she has made, what “tags” she has created for each of her books, and what tags her readers have added. See her Reminders.

18. If you live near to the author, and she has a reminder on the calendar for a booksigning near you, click on Remind Me Too. Support at a booksigning is always wonderful.

19. While checking out her friends, maybe click on the image of other authors whose books you like. Amazon often pairs up two books by different authors and suggests “Buy Both”.

When you are on a book page, without buying that book, click on links to:

20. Put it on your wish list. It’s extra, free advertising.
21. Tell a friend

Scroll down the book page to Tag this product. (or make a search suggestion)
22. Add a tag. (Loved it! Can’t wait to read it! Soooo romantic! Etc)

23. Join in the Customer discussions. Ask a question. Start a discussion. The search engines pick up on the discussions, and quote interesting responses.

If you have read her book:
24. Write a customer review. It doesn’t have to be long or scholarly. Be as generous with the star rating as you can. Try to be specific about what you liked best about the story or one of the characters. Don’t give away the ending.

25. Ditto all of the above for Barnes and Noble, E-Bay, Borders, Chapters Indigo, Waterstone’s, Amazon uk, Amazon ca, or any other bookstore chain that allows customer reviews, comments, discussions etc. Or, simply search for her name, titles, reviews.

26. If you have a MySpace page (and if you don’t, but really want to help, get one… it’s free) invite your author friends to be your friends there.
27. Write a bulletin about your friend or her book.
28. Add a comment on their profile page’s comments section. Your comment is their opportunity to say something about their book without the appearance of soliciting.
29. Review their book on your MySpace blog.

30. If her publisher has a forum, join it and ask her questions. For instance, Dorchester publishing (home of Leisure and LoveSpell authors) has
http://forums.dorchesterpub.com/

Again, your comment will be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, and it will give your friend a reason to post something interesting and quotable about her book without seeming to be self-promoting.

31. If you see a good review—on any bookselling site that allows customers and visitors to comment on reviews-- click Helpful if it is a helpful review.

Votes help both the reviewer and the author (especially the reviewer’s rankings ).

32. If you see a bad review, click Not Helpful.
33. If you see a personal attack disguised as a “review” click Report This, and tell the author. If enough people click to report ugly remarks, bad reviews come down in 50-60% of the time

If you see your favorite author’s books in a supermarket or bookstore:

34. Facing her books (if there is room, turn one so the cover shows)
35. Tell store personnel how much you like that book, or that the author is local.

36. If you don’t see her books, especially when they ought to be there, ask about them.

37. If you have a blog, publicize your friend’s upcoming signings/author talks/workshops on your blog. Mention her website URL.
38 Link to your author friend’s website or blog on yours
39. Offer a quote if asked--or volunteer if you’re not asked.
40. Do a review for her, asked or not. It doesn’t matter if some people think that you are friends. More often than not, you became friends because you like and respect each other’s talent, or sense of humor, or something you bring to your writing. People do respect recommendations

41. If you belong to readers’ group sites, or book chat sites, or special interest sites, post what you are reading. Plugs never hurt. These are also picked up on RSS feeds and the search engines.
42. Link to other writers. It drives everyone up in the search engine.

43. Ask your library to order your friend's book.

44. Join your favorite author’s yahoo group, let her know where you’ve seen her book in stores, or where you’ve seen discussions of her book, or reviews of her book.

45. Drop in on her online chat to say how you enjoyed her book. Supportive friends at chats are cool because chats can be chaotic, and typing answers takes time.

46. Put her book as a 'must read' on your own Web site, or in your own newsletter.

47. Send e-mails to your entire address list recommending the book.

48. Be her 'friend' on You Tube.

49. Offer to take a bunch of her bookmarks to conventions, or conferences, and make sure they are put in goodie bags, or on promo tables. Or simply visit her table at a convention, and sign up for her newsletter, or pick up her bookmark and tell someone else how good the book is.

50 Offer to slip her bookmarks into your own correspondence when you pay bills, taxes, etc.

51. Instead of quoting Goethe in your sig file, try quoting a line from your friend’s blurb in the week of her launch.

With thanks to the following for their help and suggestions

Kathleen Bacus, www.kathybacus.com

Diana Groe, www.dianagroe.com

Joyce Henderson,
www.joycehendersonauthor.com

Diane Wylie, author of "Secrets and Sacrifices" www.dianewylie.com

Jacquie Rogers, http://www.jacquierogers.com, http://www.myspace.com/jacquierogers.

Deborah Anne MacGillivray, author of The Legend of Falgannon Isle, www.deborahmacgillivray.co.uk Dorchester Love Spell, Kensington's Zebra Historicals

Charlotte Maclay, author of Make No Promises,
www.CharlotteMaclay.com

Rowena Cherry www.rowenacherry.com, author of Insufficient Mating Material, available 1/30/2007.

Rowena Cherry.

They Ski in Dubai?

2006-12-15T18:34:00.000-05:00

Where the Hell is Matt? (one of those viral videos) is such a cool video...

Am I having too much fun on YouTube?

Yes!

Part of the reason I love to write and read futuristic romance is the same reason people can ski in Dubai. I love to imagine/dream about what could be possible.

Before I saw this video on YouTube, I hadn't heard about the indoor ski hill in Dubai. It's is fun to see what a little imagination (and a whole lot of money) is creating here on Earth off the pages of my favorite books.

~ Annalee Blysse

Aids Awareness - Light to Unite Campaign

2006-12-09T13:23:00.000-05:00

I thought this was cool!

Bristol-Myers Squibb is donating a dollar to AIDS every time someone
goes to their website and moves the match to the candle and lights it.

It only takes a second and is for an excellent cause. Be sure to pass
this message on.

https://www.lighttounite.org/

Scavenger Hunt WINNER LIST

2006-12-03T19:23:00.000-05:00

http://www.michellepillow.com/rj_nov_scavenger_hunt.htm

WINNER LIST! Congrats to all the winners and thank you all for playing!

Winners will be notified by email by the authors. Please give them a few days because of the holiday madness!

Thanks,

Michelle M Pillow

www.michellepillow.com

Looking too closely

2006-12-03T15:36:00.000-05:00

The public lending library wants its books and videos back, so I am under a bit of a time crunch, but I have a follow up thought from last time's blog about The Empire Strikes Back.

This is just my opinion. As I've said, I'm researching what I consider cinema history's best sword fights to try and figure out what the most "sexy" fencing moves are, who made them, and how I'd put the action into words.

I mean, "He thrust in tierce, and he parried in quarte" (if that's possible anyway) isn't going to communicate to the average reader what is going on, is it?

So, I was watching TESB, frame by frame, and in my opinion... I might be mistaken ... the champion fencer Bob Anderson was inside Darth Vader's mask for the really, really cool duel scene in the Han Solo carbonfreezing room (which is not a revelation, Richard Cohen wrote about that), but someone else wielded the light saber for the scene on the inspection platform.

In the first scene, Darth Vader appeared to hold his light saber in one hand, in the other he used both. In the first, there was a great deal of wrist action, and the saber moved in smooth, efficient arcs. In the second, it was like Darth Vader was splitting tree trunks for firewood.

I hope this doesn't ruin anyone's enjoyment! It's a marvellous movie.

best wishes,

Rowena

Empire of Dreams

2006-11-26T09:17:00.000-05:00

Stayed up late last night, I did.

Empire Of Dreams was absolutely fascinating, to me, and to those with whom I watched it. I'm sure each one of us took something different away from it.

The insight that I appreciate most (at this moment) was the fact that the actor inside Darth Vader's helmet was pronouncing --and acting-- from one script, and Luke was reacting to another.

Now that really was the ultimate in saying one thing and meaning another... or of not being on the same page! I suppose it wasn't really much different from script management for Who Shot JR...? But it seemed deeper to this viewer.

I knew that Darth Vader's voice had been dubbed in later, but how cool it was to hear the difference in soundtrack when the original actor spoke. What a difference the "right" voice makes! Or the right howls. Wasn't it fascinating that Chewbacca originally had lines? Talking of Chewbacca, I greatly enjoyed the revelation that some of the movie makers were worried about the Wookie's lack of underwear. I'd noticed that uncivilized omission only the night before.

On Thursday night I tried to watch The Empire Strikes Back. I have it out from the library too, but it's a VCR and in almost unwatchably bad condition. Imagine my joy when it was on TV on Friday night. I was very pleased to see swordmaster Bob Anderson's name in the credits as a stunt double. (Recently I blogged about the account I'd read in By The Sword of why a genuine swordsman, not an actor, had to perform Darth Vader's fight with Luke.)

The music was something else I'd never really thought about--apart from the "declarative" Imperial theme for whenever Darth Vader stalked across the screen, like the wolf theme in Peter And The Wolf, only much more wicked.

How fascinating that the composer had recently finished the score for Jaws, where the
antagonist got the catchy, sinister theme music! What a twist for those of us accustomed to the Bond theme... the Here Comes The Hero refrain. When the movie music is really, really good, I don't notice it much, apart from the theme tunes. It's amusing what a difference a good orchestra makes to an aerial dogfight, isn't it?

I've watched a lot of The Making Of... documentaries, but I don't think I've grasped how much goes into making a great movie quite as vividly as I did last night, watching Empire Of Dreams.

What did you like best?

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Tacoma vs. Loch Ness Monster

2006-11-12T11:08:00.000-05:00

The weekend is here again for me. Sunday starts my weekend and I got up late. I ate breakfast in front of the television and saw the new Toyota Tacoma vs. Loch Ness Monster commercial for the first time.

It made me smile. I’m enjoying their Tacoma-survives-the-extraordinary ad campaign. The concepts include those ideas that entertain me.

Remember their older meteor strike commercial? (Here is the video on youtube if you want a refresher.)

My mid-2007 release in an anthology with Triskelion Publishing involves a “meteor strike”. One day several years ago I saw a meteor fall into the Sierras and I got to writing that story, in which the meteor is a spaceship crashing. Of course, I had to have that space ship made out of meteor strike-proof-metal because it needed to function after the crash. I promise I wrote that before Toyota’s commercial.

My someday-to-be-finished follow-up to Starlit Destiny has a sea monster that looks an awful lot like the average rendition of Nessie in my mind. It actually has a controlled crash onto this monster-filled planet too, because that ship had to survive as well. That crash involved fancy flying though. And, the sea monster chews on the Jurate. I kid you not. I also promise that I wrote that before Toyota's commercial.

Can you tell that I’d have a whole lot of fun working for Toyota’s advertising department/company?

Then again, as far as selling me a truck, these commercials aren't working. I drive a Ford (and not because of Toby Keith). This morning I got this image in my head of Tahoe Tessie – resident beastie in Lake Tahoe trying to eat my truck. I decided a truck would taste something awful no matter the make.

Of course, they might not hire me if they knew the biggest laugh I got all year was last month during the World Series when I first saw that Nextel commercial with the actor from The Office. The one where he says that their mobiles are meteor-proof and the yes-man lawyer in the background shakes his head.

Then again, maybe they wouldn't hire me because, here is how I'd promo my books to any Toyota engineers worried about truth in advertising...

My books won't really give you any ideas on how to meteor-proof a vehicle, but buy them anyway.

~ Annalee Blysse

Survival is the mark of an expert duellist

2006-11-12T08:50:00.000-05:00

That's tenuous. I don't have anything "survival" related to report, but dangerous manly ways of passing the time and proving one's virility are always interesting.

Aren't they?

As part of my ongoing research I joined a fencing class, but found it very hard on my thighs and knees. One cannot be fast if one is stiff, so a lot of warming up has to be done. Apparently, there were other preparations one made before fighting a duel, too.

Fasting, for instance. As there was always a danger that cold steel might penetrate the gut, duellists who knew what they were doing reduced the risk of infection by having empty stomachs, empty bladders... and so forth.

I've never seen that mentioned in a Regency Romance.

Best wishes,

Rowena
http://www.rowenacherry.com

Online Scavenger Hunt ~ Chance to win over 60 prizes!

2006-11-04T12:31:00.000-05:00

I've put together an online scavenger hunt hosted by Romance Junkies. Click the link below for a chance to win over 60 prizes from just as many wonderful authors!

Click here to Play!

Calling all scavengers/scavenger hunters

2006-11-04T08:25:00.000-05:00

http://www.romancejunkies.com/RJNovScavengerHunt.html

Aliens with swords

2006-10-15T18:05:00.000-04:00

Have I told you how much fun I have with researching my alien romances?
Possibly the high point of my week this week was a visit to a sword master's lair. My quest was to get inside the head of my next hero: Prince Djarrhett.

'Rhett is a swordsman, which seems rather anachronistic in a high tech, albeit feudal, world, so the Sword Master and I had a wide ranging chat lasting nearly two hours, which covered the real-life Sword Master's opinions of the fight scenes in the Bond movie Die Another Day, and The Phantom Menace. (He feels that the light sabres are cool, but is concerned about the balance of the hilt, given that light can't weigh much, which is why Darth Maul is his favorite!!) We also discussed the logistics of weapons aboard space ships. Swords come in various lengths, and the big ones --like rapiers-- could be rather antisocial.

I so love this analytical thinking!
You can bet that if an opportunity presents itself, a lot of Sword Master Todd's opinions will filter through into 'Rhett's point of view.

"Have you ever cut someone?" I asked, never hoping for an affirmative answer. Fencing is supposed to be safe, right?

"Yes."

"What does cutting someone feel like?"

I couldn't believe my luck! After all, if I'm going to write a swordfighting duel from the point of view of my hero, he is going to have to sink some portion of his weapon into someone else's flesh.

The answer presents some literary challenges, but I can handle that, secure in the knowledge that if any Sword Masters read my next book, they will not hurl it at a wall--or trash can-- because my hero feels unrealistic sensations.

I think I must have asked more than twenty questions. I will share one more:

"Is your image of yourself different when you have a sword in your hand?"

(Oh, I did ask what he'd fight in, if he did not have to worry about protection. Would you believe, Underarmor? )

"I feel younger, stronger and faster with a weapon in my hand."
I really liked that answer, because I can make use of a double entendre. Now, I have four books to read, including The Secret History of The Sword. I had no idea there was a secret history. I cannot wait to find out what it is!

Until next week.

Rowena.

Worldbuilding--How a horse's rear size dictates how we blast into space

2006-10-01T00:13:00.000-04:00

In FORCED MATE, the way my aliens tell time (officially) is a throw back to their low tech ancient days.
"The old names stuck," the alien Xirxex explains to an incredulous human.

It's not so implausible. A correspondent sent me this incredible sequence of events, which turns out not to be true, www.snopes.com.
---------------------
Did you ever wonder why the US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads. The English built them like that because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which
used that wheel spacing. And, they used that particular odd wheel spacing because, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So the gauge of American rails was determined by the width of the ruts in English roads? Who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an
Imperial Roman war chariot. Why was a war chariot that width? Because the Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses!

The story doesn't stop there!

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.

The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as
two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's bottom.

NASA, tell me it isn't so!

Best wishes,
Rowena

FIND and REPLACE... a rabbit's testicles

2006-09-18T11:20:00.000-04:00

In case you are boggling, I am author Rowena Cherry, and I write science fiction romance, survival romance, and I have just finished edits on my next novel INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL.

Last Thursday (eleven days ago) was my deadline for finishing revisions on INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL.
I made it.

Over the weekend, I discovered that although we had deleted a passage about skinning a large alien creature resembling a rabbit, but bigger, we had not removed a later reference to the skinning.

To be specific, the deleted skinning conversation between the hero and heroine went into detail about handling genitalia and other sources of potential contamination of the meat.

Once that was gone, the heroine's subsequent thoughts about touching a rabbit's testicles did not make sense.

On the following Monday, I spoke with my editor and she assured me that she had taken care of the rabbit's nuts. I shall have to wait four weeks for the galleys to see if she took them out acceptably. If not, I can request a change at that point.

I'd also like you to know that INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is already up for pre-orders at Amazon. Another cool new feature is that readers or potential readers can add TAGs to say how much they are looking forward to the next book (or whatever).

http://tinyurl.com/ftqwy

THE OUT-TAKE

“Now, look here, and learn.” He brandished a wicked looking knife. “You don’t have to concern yourself with how to skin and gut large animals. With smallish ones like this, it’s easier to skin when its cooled.”

He used his knife as a pointer.

“The first thing to do, which I’ve done, is cut its throat. Next, place your animal belly up. That way, you can see what you’ve got.”

A very healthy, ridiculously well-developed male animal.

“Starting ‘north’ of the penis —if there is one—“

In this case, there is a very prominent one.

“If there is, remember that there’s usually a bone in it. Make an incision just big enough to slip two fingers in.”

“Why?”

“You use your fingers to press the internal organs down, away from the skin. You do not want to nick the bladder or entrails. That really spoils the meat, so you’d have to wash it, and we don’t have water to spare.

“Cut up the body as far as about the breastbone.” He stroked the body with the point of his knife. “Then go down to the far end, cut neatly around the anus, and also cut a good circle,” he tickled the area in question with his knife, “around the genitals, taking care not to cut the urinary tract.”

“Why?” she breathed, disgusted.

“Unless you want to eat its testicles, it’s simpler to pull the whole lot off with the entrails. Think about it. When we come back from wood-gathering, you can have a go. You’re not going to be sick, are you?”

Martia-Djulia shook her head. At some point during his revolting demonstration, her hand had crept up to her mouth.
Djetth stood. He had removed his flight suit, his chest and shoulders glistened, though it was too cool and too early for him to be sweaty, she would have thought.

“I’ll go on ahead, and check on the beach well. Catch up when you’ve used the facilities. I don’t suppose you fancy a morning dip, do you?”

You must be mad! She stared at him pityingly.

“You’re quite right.” He grinned. “It’s not as warm first thing in the morning when the tide’s out. The water will be pleasant once the tide comes up over hot sand. I’ll teach you to swim at high tide. Of course, one finds the best shellfish at low tide.”

*

Grinning, Djetth loped down to the water’s edge to wash the blood off his hands. One way or another, sooner or later, if Martia-Djulia were pregnant, she’d have to let him know.

Meanwhile, he intended to keep her too busy to think. Maybe she’d forget about wanting to shave him. Already, she knew that Prince Djetthro-Jason was a degree of cousin. If she found out how much like Tarrant-Arragon he naturally looked, well, Djetth could imagine that she'd dream up plenty of new reasons to object to his sexual pursuit of her.

CAVEAT

SURVIVORMAN, Les Stroud advised me that this skinning method isn't quite right for rabbits. These are alien rabbits, and bigger... they also begin their literary life as more like porcupines. Now, it is a moot point how to skin prey animals for meat and fur. It's out.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Tide conveniently removes alien corpses

2006-09-17T08:54:00.000-04:00

Now that the Sex and surf scene in INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL is written, I can reveal what went on behind the scenes.

In an earlier post I blogged about my complete and utter shock and dismay when I saw this cover art, lovely as it is.

What was my problem?

For a start, there was only one point in the book when the heroine's hair was that length, and it was a hundred pages from the end. Moreover, she was always very fashion conscious. Getting sand between her toes was an issue.

Secondly, at that one juncture, the beach ought to have been littered with unsightly and inconvenient corpses. I couldn't use magic to clean them up because I'm writing science fiction romance (also survival romance).

Thirdly, there is the question of how far to take realism. If the sea is cold, I can't see anyone not being preoccupied with the coldness, no matter what else is up!

Someone will tell me that I ought to make the sea warmer, but warming the sea changes the world... the climate, the vegetation, the animals and insects. If I made the sea comfortable for copulating in, it would probably be full of bacteria and algae. It might stink. If I were to counter that by adding a lot of salt, I'd end up with the Dead Sea, and then the hero and heroine would be terribly thirsty... or mad.

Not least, there was the fact that the proverbial world still had to be saved in the following hundred double spaced pages. This roll in the ripples could not be the happy ending of the romance. While sex in the surf had to advance the story (and avoid being gratuitous), it could not be completely satisfying for both of them.

Well, given cold water and sand, the probability that the tide would either be coming in or going out, and the likelihood that there would be crabs in the shallows, making seaside sex less than completely satisfactory was not a problem.

Luckily for me, I had two months to mull over various ways around the difficulties because I didn't wait for my editor to tell me whether or not she wanted the cover scene written.

How many times did I write this scene? At least five.
Was it worth it? I think so.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry

Villains...

2006-09-10T10:17:00.000-04:00

You have to survive villains, but it's stretching a point to say that they are related to survival romances... unless the theme is historical/political survival, in which case I have to think of Catherine Parr and Henry VIII.

My survival romances are futuristic.

My most powerful villain is the god-Emperor Djohn-Kronos, who dominates MATING NET (at least for me). I gradually fell in love with him, and one day I will have to write him a happy ending, although he can never get married. That's the problem with publishing a wide ranging Family Tree. He is a Henry VIII type, only not fat, not gouty, not afflicted with any medieval diseases.

I've just spent ten terribly long days and nights doing the edits for INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL, and much of the trouble was caused by the villain.

He wasn't quite nasty enough, and one of his reasons for being the way he is, was too interesting for my editor (unless I added more details). Since I don't like to explain all bad behavior on insanity or an uncomplicated delight in evil-doing, I had to add lines.

All well and good, you might think, but IMHO a villain can't just crank up the nastiness out of the blue. Either his
nastiness has to be apparent all the way through, or else his nasty habits have to build like storm clouds
gathering throughout the course of the book.

That takes time for me, especially since there are knock-on consequences. Pages and ink cost money, and there is a certain size that a mass market paperback needs to be ... or you can't fit 48 in a box? Or they topple off the bookshelves if placed face out? I don't know. I don't argue. However, if my villain needs an ugly habit (like scratching himself in public?) and doing it once might be excused by the reader, so he has to do it often, then less necessary lines devoted to birds, flowers, eviscerating fish have to be cut.

I'd already cut at least 150 pages from the manuscript, so removing more was no easy matter.

The copy editor has it now. IMM should be released in February 2007.

Best wishes,
Rowena

2006-08-27T11:01:00.000-04:00

Men with knives... will they always be necessary?

I'm not thinking about alien assassins, aliens with table manners, or futuristic barbaric warriors. I'm thinking surgery.

Assuming for a moment that wars are not fought by champions playing chess, or out-singing each other, or displaying their terrifyingly impressive tails (or other body parts). Someone is going to get hurt.

I do "buy" heroines who can "do" pyschic healing.

In fact, the 2006 Romantic Times Conference, Pyschic Sunday was a real mind-opener. Two psychic healers --one hands-on, the other hands-off-- helped an unfortunate person with a visibly swollen face and abcessed tooth, and also on a number of others.

The psychic healing was very responsible, the point was made that all methods are complementary and the sufferers were also told to see a conventional doctor. However, whatever they did seemed to work.

I like medicine based on plants and other natural substances, too.

I have trouble suspending disbelief when a mortally injured party is put into a futuristic light box (like a seed propagator? like a tanning bed?) and they recover "just like that" --to quote the memorable, Fez-wearing magician, Tommy Cooper.

Maybe I accept it for some ailments. Immersion in the sea is supposed to be restorative. It certainly does great things for my feet... unless I step on a weaver fish, of course, or get stung by a jellyfish. So, I can believe that being bathed in some sort of light might be as good for me as being bathed in some sort of liquid.

Should I infer that the light box is akin to teleportation as medicine. I should re-read The Physics of Star Trek (which is on my keeper shelf). Beam Me Up, Scotty, is fine. Beam Me Well?

Sometimes, just taking my rotating head electric fan apart and putting it back together again the way it was does work for a time, but it wouldn't if something was broken or rusted.

Lasers, I suppose, could replace knives. My problem is, when I think of lasers, I think of a couple of James Bond films... Goldfinger, Die Another Day... and I shudder at the thought of laser eye surgery. I know I shouldn't.

Do I think that a machine with a laser could replace a man --or a woman-- with a surgical knife? Yes, but I don't want to write about it, any more than I --personally-- want to write about an android with a libido.

Terminator with a tool? Great for action adventure, and I daresay he would have been very competent in the Operating Room. But for a fictional frisson, give me a masked man with a very sharp knife, every time.

Sex in strange places

2006-08-20T16:46:00.000-04:00

“Rowena, do you like writing sex scenes?” I was asked recently.

It’s the sort of question that makes me want to straddle a fence.

Well, I do. And I don’t... and I'd rather talk about love scenes.

Whether you see it or not, Sex usually happens in a romance, even in a survival romance, although it is a little more of a challenge if the physical surroundings are not traditionally romantic.

On the other hand, one can write a first rate romance without a graphic description of what might happen once the tent flap is closed behind two relatively normal people.

I do like to write the sort of love scene (or sex scene) where something goes dramatically wrong -- I have a rotten sense of humor— or at least not according to the hero’s expectations.

I usually pick on the hero, for reasons that are probably perfectly obvious.

He’s more likely to be … less philosophical … not to mention sore, if he can’t get find something he can use as a condom that won't gross out the heroine, or if the alien plant juice he uses as a lubricant contains a dye that won’t come off... or what if it turns out to be an adhesive?

Ouch! No, that is too extreme.

What—apart from its effect on character, and its potential to annoy the protagonists and shift the plot into a higher gear—is the point of a love scene?

Comic relief?

Oh, yeah. But in my opinion, lovemaking that is good for both of them isn’t proof of a happy ever after, and it isn’t the high point on which I like to end my books. They still have to survive, or escape.

Rowena

New author on "Survivor Planet"

2006-08-13T17:26:00.000-04:00

I remember when I first heard about the show "Survivor" many years ago and I thought it really was a show about marooned people living by their wits. The first episode hooked me even though it wasn't what I expected. Mind you, I still enjoy the show as a social experiment working as entertainment, but it isn't about "making do".

I needed to write another Gaian book. An editor who was passing on my first Gaian book suggested that if the story took place during the war that might be more interesting. I thought about the movie, Enemy Mine, where two space pilots are stranded on a hostile planet and have to "make do" to survive.

Suppose they weren't alien and human, but two humans of the opposite sex from opposite sides, and they couldn't just live together. Sounded like fun. So I wrote it and it was fun. A lot of fun. Even the magazine Romantic Times gave it a 4.5 star Top Pick! Which made me very happy.

Cheers,
Janet Miller
http://www.janetmillerromance.com

Afterthought

2006-08-06T11:52:00.000-04:00

Browser problems prevented me from inserting this

Survival tip--when it's good to be in hot water

2006-08-06T10:38:00.000-04:00

Maybe I'm peculiar, but when I read a book, I expect to come across the scene on the cover, and I feel vaguely cheated if it is not there.

I'm not so bothered if the cover is an artistic grouping of artifacts, although... if there's a bejewelled dagger and a peacock feather, I suppose that I do expect them to be used to good effect in the novel.

Please do not misunderstand me. I'm not criticizing anyone's cover or art department. I am simply sharing my inner thoughts about covers in general, and my gut reaction to the gorgeous cover of my next book... and the hazards of hasty research.

The colors are fabulous, and the artwork is sexy. I couldn't ask for a better looking cover (unless I was absolutely out of my mind). It's just a little more "romancy" than I had in mind.
An author friend who is a bit of an expert on cover psychology says that I should tell readers, especially male readers, to ignore the cover. But should I?

My gut instinct is that if the scene is on the cover but not in the book, then I have to --somehow-- write the scene and beg my editor to fit it in. Is that extreme? Do readers understand that cover art is done after the book is submitted, and that what is depicted is a marketing decision?

If only they'd given me a bare-chested hunk staring out to sea (face not visible, so his features could not be wrong) or up to his waist in the ocean... I should have suggested that! I'm not blaming the Art Department at all. I was warned that I could not have a hunk in underpants out of respect for buyers' fine sensibilities.

Anyway, how many cover models would want INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL displayed boldly across their groins?

Verisimilitude is important, and there are times when you just cannot ask your more exhibitionist friends to commit an illegal act and tell you how it felt.

Illegal? Well I think you can be pinched for doing the deed on a public beach.

In case any members of the law enforcement community are reading this with professional interest, I must disclose at this point that the sea was too cold for my husband.

Suffice it to say that my scrupulous --and ingenious-- attempts at research took longer than expected. Either the tide was wrong (too far in or out), or the waves were too mighty, or too placid, or the sand was too gritty, or the light was wrong....

On the last day of my time by the sea, when my bags were packed and it really wasn't convenient to get my costume wet again, my dear husband and our child decided that despite the low tide, and a stiff onshore breeze, it might be fun to experience the surge of surf.

My mother went to get towels from the car, and we splashed into the North Sea (English Channel) to join dozens of screaming bathers and people surfing on one sort of board or another.
August. Low tide, but only a seven foot drop, not like the nine foot range one gets at the full moon or with the spring tides. For a month I'd watched the shallows at low tide for signs of sinister movement. That day... I forgot.

I did get to refresh my memory of whether there is any difference between the feel of sun-warmed masculine, muscled skin in cold seawater (as opposed to in a fresh water bath, shower, or chlorinated swimming pool) but it's not useable.

Not worth the risk. If anyone in my immediate family had to step on a weaver fish, I'm glad it was me. I have very high arches, and go barefoot a lot. Thanks to that, only one spine got me, and it broke off before it could deliver much of the excruciating neurotoxin.

Knowing what had stung me, I flicked off the spine, got out of the water, got home as quickly as possible (luckily it was not far), and immersed my throbbing foot in the washing up bowl filled with water as hot as I could bear. And epsom salts. And more water.

That's what you do to draw out the poison, if you are unfortunate enough to step on a weaver fish or lesser weaver fish. They are spined, venomous little predators (they eat prawns, I believe) who like to bury themselves all but the spines in sand when the water is warm.

Keeping the water as hot as possible until the pain was gone meant regular top ups. My dear husband was especially enthusiastic about this, and had no compunction about tipping very hot water onto my toes (the arch area was what needed it). I noticed an odd thing. Near boiling water feels almost cold for the first second or two as it is added to hot water. Then the brain resets, and registers that the water is very hot.

I didn't even limp the next day, as I lugged (schlepped) my little family's three heavy suitcases from Guernsey, to Gatwick, to Detroit. I was lucky.

I'm glad to have my feet under my desk again.

Rowena

Survival and sex in the wild

2006-07-09T09:33:00.000-04:00

My authorial "thing" is to gaze at the underbelly of an alien character's lovelife and poke fun at it. And, you might not have guessed it, but of all the sciences in science fiction, Biology is my favorite.

OK. "Survival-of-the-species romance" isn't the same thing as "Survival Romance". If it were, most alien romance authors could be said to write survival romances. It seems to be a plot staple of alien abduction romances that the hero --for whatever reason-- has no choice but to abduct healthy human females of reproductive age in order to save his world/civilization/species.

The downside is scientific credibility. Unless The Great Originator could do better than us, and did (but with the same basic ingredients), extra-terrestrials ought not to be able to breed productively with us.

There are plausible ways around the problem.

Survival of the species is interesting, on Earth, in the wild, too. (I seem to be unfashionable in that I like to capitalize the proper name by which we call our planet, to differentiate it from the soil beneath our feet.)

Do you know the ins and outs of a crab's sex life? I do. For most of the year, a female crab's body armor gives new meaning to the word "impregnable". But there is the moult. A mature male crab who is eager to mate, has to wait. And wait he does, very patiently, very protectively, close by the female as she enters her vulnerable time when her outgrown shell comes off.

He crouches over her, and protects her from natural predators who would like to eat a soft shelled crab -- I don't know much about the delicacy called soft shell crabs. Are we eating pregnant females?-- and his reward is that he is in a position to father her offspring.

She pumps water into the space between her body and what will be her new shell, so that her shell hardens a little on the large side, giving her room to grow.

These musings are a bit off topic, and not much to do with how one's novel's hero and heroine survive if they are stranded on a deserted island, set adrift in a small boat, shot down onto an alien planet, left for dead in an icy/arid/forested wilderness.

However, I am looking forward to my imminent summer holiday on an island overseas. While not harming the wildlife I observe, I do enjoy studying tidepools or shorepools, and considering the ecosystems in them as a microcosm of possible alien life.

Have a wonderful summer.

Rowena Cherry
newsletter: www.rowenacherry.com/newsletter

The swings and roundabouts of a lion's sex life

2006-06-26T09:28:00.000-04:00

It's been a weekend of Must-See TV for me.

My favorite scene, perhaps of all the Harry Potter movies so far,
is the demonstration duel in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets
where Gilderoy is so busy posing that he gets zapped by Severus Snape.

Why do I like that scene?
I find it immensely gratifying when a poser gets their come-uppance!
Don't we all?

One of the most enduring themes in literature is hubris:
the dramatic downfall of someone who gets too big for their boots.

If you can't zap someone obnoxious, or watch them being zapped,
it's fun to imagine telling them they are about to be zapped.

"Your High-and-Mightiness, you are in deep shit!" one of my characters
says with great glee --and lives-- in my next survival romance,
Insufficient Mating Material. In real life, most of us wouldn't dare
say that sort of thing to a boss, or to a world leader....
hence the cathartic charm of reading, or watching TV and movies.

Another program that stands out in my mind is Nigel Marvin's
documentary about the swings and roundabouts of a lion's sex life.

Actually that is my very loose, personal interpretation of what I liked
best about his high minded and scientific program.

The up-side of being a lion with a big, dark mane is that the lionesses like you
(and you have fewer parasites).

The down-side is that you have a lower sperm count.

I haven't figured out how I can work that quirk of nature into one of my
alien djinn romances, but --trust me-- I probably will.

I wish you all an interesting week.

Rowena

Marooned on an alien planet with the ultimate fashionista who won't take off her wet clothes to save her life...

2006-06-22T14:30:00.000-04:00

Survival Romance

2006-06-20T11:48:00.000-04:00

I love a challenge. I won't say that I invariably take a dare,
but if someone tells me something can't be done...
I like to prove them wrong.

The impossible equation in Isaac Asimov's THE GODS THEMSELVES
was one of the premises that made that book so very
memorable for me.

Anyway, one beautiful spring Saturday in 2004,
I was sitting at a booksigning beside Kathleen Nance.
The booksigning was at a Library, and almost no members of
the public came. So Kathleen and I started talking about writing
and our then-current projects.

I was having trouble deciding whether my alien couple ought to
be marooned on Earth (for the fun of having an alien heroine
experience Earth) or on a planet in outer space that had been
mentioned in FORCED MATE.

Kathleen cautioned me how very hard it was to write about a
couple who were stranded on a desert/deserted/even jungle island.
This was before LOST (which I never did get around to seeing.)

That was a challenge. If it weren't a cliche--not to mention a gender switch--
I'd say it was a red flag to a bull.

Once I started research on Tracking, Wilderness survival, extreme camping
etc, I found plenty of physical and emotional challenges to keep my
hero and heroine busy, interesting, and at each others' throats.

(Not quite literally. My aliens aren't alien vampires.)

Best wishes,
Rowena

:-)

Rowena Cherry
author of alien djinn romances
chess themed romances

Now... a survival themed romance
INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL!