My Secret Saturday Signups

An idea has been bouncing around my head. There are Saturday Spankings, and Six-Sentence Saturdays and Sunday Sneak Peeks … what about something sparkling new?

Ah, how about sharing a secret? It can be a glimpse into a new work, or a special tidbit about yourself as an author or blogger. Got a picture to add as a visual? Even better.

Let’s kick off this sharing endeavor on Saturday, Nov. 23 – just to give us a little time to get it started. If you want to take part, add your name to the links … and please post by midnight PST (yes, I’m a West Coaster, and that’s not a secret).

Feel free to grab the Shhh! graphic for your page, and make sure to either add the script for the links or link back to the main post on the day of.

Can’t wait to see what you have to share. I’ve got my first post all ready!

** This hop is open to published, unpublished and bloggers!

Louisa Bacio

http://www.Facebook.com/LousiaBacio

http://www.Twitter.com/LouisaBacio

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Shakespearotica

While I write erotic romance, I’m a pure English geek at heart. With a master’s degree in English, and one in journalism, when I saw Salome Wilde’s call for submissions for a queer, erotic Shakespeare anthology … Well, I couldn’t control myself.

My first movie date with hubby was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” You know, the one with Calista Flockhart and Kevin Kline. Since then, I’ve seen it on stage, in the children’s theater and at a Long Beach outdoor viewing. Oh, and I’ve taught Shakespeare in college.

Of course, I had to take on my favorite. This time, that interloper Puck doesn’t discriminate between the sexes. Here’s a teaser into “All Pucked Up: A Midsummer Night’s Romp.”

A mist hangs over the treetops of a lush forest, clinging to the gnarled trunks and slipping between the outstretched branches. Golden dust sparkles in the dimming light, bringing a new type of illumination as the day ends and the creatures of the night awake. Bright, dancing figures pirouette from limb to limb, flashing lavender, canary yellow, and dazzling turquoise. The unknowing eye may think they are tricks of the light. A blink, and everything settles back to what it should be. But if one keeps one’s eyes open, it’s amazing what can be seen in the land of dreams.

Voices crash through the silence. Arguing with passion, two figures step into sight: Lysander, a slender man, all in white, and Hermia, a petite woman, her blonde hair disheveled.

“I’m tired. I can’t go on any further.” She drops her basket onto the soft grass, and plants herself on a nearby stump. “You’re a slave driver, and I tell you I’m done.”

“Hermia, please. We must keep going if we’re going to make it. If we stop for too long, your father is bound to send the Duke’s men after us.”

“Then let him, for being caught may be better than going on. I’m not cut out for such excursions.” Her bosom heaves with each breath, and on the last word, she throws her arm over her forehead and covers her eyes. After a moment of silence, she peeks to ensure Lysander’s attention.

“Fair Hermia, let me lay out this soft blanket for you to rest your weary body. Your comfort means the world to me.”

A flutter of periwinkle blankets the sky as the material cascades downward. Above, in the treetops, curious eyes watch. The woman reclines, moaning and whimpering as she tries to find a comfortable resting position. After catching the hint, Lysander removes his tunic, exposing an alabaster belly and hairless chest, and rolls it into a makeshift pillow.

“Here, my lady, lay your head upon my clothing.”

With a blissful sigh, she shuts her eyes, and Lysander lies next to her. From this vantage point, he can see down her shirt, smallish breasts exposed for his viewing pleasure. His pantaloons rise as thoughts of a lady inhabit his mind, though not the one beside him.

Close by in the forest roam two others: Helena, with determined, dark eyes, stumbles in pursuit of Demetrius.

“Hermia, where are you? Her-mi-a?” the lad calls out.

Want more? I promise, the anthology will titillate.

Shakespearotica: Queering the Bard

Salome Wilde's first edited collection of erotica and erotic romance offers 10 titillating tales spanning the LGBTQ spectrum based on some of Shakespeare's most well-known plays and most memorable characters. Authors, including seasoned pros and fresh faces, take readers on lustful adventures in Shakespeare's era, our own, and far beyond.  Whether through comedy or drama, by queering a favorite play or depicting wicked backstage antics in contemporary productions, there's something for every Bard-loving reader, and even those new to his intricate, intimate delights.

Here’s the lineup:

"By Any Other Name" by Anna Black

"The Buttboy of Nicomedes: A Masque in Eight Scenes" by Wes Hartley

"For Love or Duty" by Penelope Addams

"The Ills We Do" by Salome Wilde

"All Pucked Up: A Midsummer Night’s Romp" by Louisa Bacio

"A Well-Placed Pinch" by Jean Roberta

"Much Ado About a Kiss" by Caitlin Ricci

"A Tight to Remember" by Rob Rosen

"Smoke Signals" by Laila Black

"As We Like It: A Romance" by Tilly Hunter

Available Nov. 8 via Storm Moon Press and other eRetailers.

Louisa Bacio

http://www.Facebook.com/LouisaBacio

http://www.Twitter.com/LouisaBacio

Disappointed in … B&N

The past few weeks, I’ve been hanging out at a Barnes & Noble Café while my daughter takes an art class. With a half hour drive each way, it’s time better served working than returning home.

The people watching is amazing, and I’m starting to understand the whole hang-in-a-coffee-shop-and-write thing. I can get work done in a busy environment – one that doesn’t include my barking dogs and laundry calling out to be folded.

One problem, though, is all the cute goodies. Put me in a bookstore, and I can spend money. Lavender notebooks? Count me in! Oooh, does someone have a birthday coming up that I need a card for? And have you seen their collectible/toy section? Yes, I’m a fan of buying an unknown item in the box and getting a surprise.

This last week, I thought I’d buy a book from the Staff Recommends section. Up near the new releases and hardback, I remember B&N having some recommended reads, which often were new authors. A new book/author has been known to kickstart my own writing.  

I fantasized about the blog post I’d do: The first hardback purchased … well, in I don’t know how long. (Aside from the ones from my OCC/RWA chaptermates at meetings). Hopefully, it would be fabulous and inspiring.

Unfortunately, I was severely disappointed. Sure, there was a new Danielle Steele, and while I read the grand dame of romance for years, along with my grandmother, it’s been almost as long since I’ve picked one up. Oh, then there was this little-known book Catching Fire, because the movie will be releasing soon, and I can’t forget Charlaine Harris’s last Sookie book (already read it).

Where was the recommended section? Finally I found a small table off the queue. Two books sat there. Two! You know what they were?

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher, and F in Exams: The Best Test Paper Blunders by Richard Benson. Ummm, no thanks. Not interested in either one of those.

You know what I left with? Ribbon candy for stocking stuffers, a Domo stuffed toy for my daughter, and a Haunted Disneyland book (unofficial of course). No new fiction. With all the problems B&N and other bookstores have been suffering, I felt guilty.

What happened to the recommended reads? It should be an easy sell. Were the books not selling? Or, heaven forbid, the employees no longer reading?

We’ll see if the selections pick up in the coming month. So tell me, have a recommendation? What are you reading? (Of course, for those not participating in NaNoWriMo.)

Until next time,

Louisa Bacio

http://www.Facebook.com/LouisaBacio

http://www.Twitter.com/LouisaBacio

And a year passes …

It’s been a year since I received the phone call that stopped my heart. On the Day of the Dead, I had no idea how much life would change from then until now.

I write romance, erotic romance, and each story ends with an uplifting of the soul: joy and passion fulfilled. What happens after in that Happily Ever After? It’s not all flowers and champagne and chocolate, and messy sheets.

Sometimes, it’s work. Sometimes, it’s tough. And sometimes, you hold on with everything you have, afraid to breathe, for fear of losing everything.

As a writer, one mentor Jo-Ann Mapson told me that if I live through it, then I get to write about it. In my non-fiction, I’ve done exactly that: challenges of daily life, infertility, the loss of a pregnancy. It’s all fodder, and in some ways I feel like sharing my stories helps others.

In romance, it’s heightened emotions. Some pull from daily life, others are fantasies. When my first book Sex University: Physical Education published and a co-worker said he had to stop reading at the first page because he couldn’t get past ME writing it, it made me hesitate. And then I wrote book two, The Vampire, The Witch & The Werewolf: A New Orleans Threesome, and I thought, “If he thinks I go to bed with a vampire and werewolf every night … well, more power to me!”

Reality is so much harsher.

Last night, my husband slept on the floor of our 6-year-old daughter’s room. Rather than reaching out to me in his anger and sorrow, he tends to turn inward. And I have to remind myself that it’s not me. Really, it’s not.

It’s the situation. One year ago, today, he went to his mother’s house to fix something and he found her in her bed, dead.

She wasn’t well. In the almost 14 years we’ve been married, she had multiple strokes, heart surgery and was on dialysis. In the six months beforehand, she fell five times, and still refused to move into assisted living. At the same time, she wasn’t ill.

She’d spent Halloween night at our house, slept on the pullout couch with my oldest daughter, and they took her home on Nov. 1. No one expected her to die the following day.

A year later of riding the wild slingshot of emotions, and life hasn’t settled down and taken it easy on us since then.

Personally, my creative side has suffered. Those who know will chuckle. In the past six weeks, I’ve had four stories release, and another one is set for next week. (All those were already “in the works.”) I’m behind schedule on a novel, and it’s difficult to focus.

When I’m done with the daily work and family activities, and I’m ready to sit down and write and something happens … which sends the husband to sleep on the floor … it’s impossible for me to write, especially about love.

But love is what I have right now. It’s the glue holding our family together, and making me remember the upside to the down. Love forces me to take a deep breath, and strap in. Because right now is tough, but it hasn’t always been this way, and it won’t always be.  

And someday, I’ll gather these emotions together and infuse them within a story that maybe might help someone else.  Because, that is what I do, I live through it.

*Group hug* Watching three women squeal right now and do a cute group hug. If you stuck with me, and read this blog, I’m sending one out to you. 

Louisa Bacio

http://www.Facebook.com/LouisaBacio

http://www.Twitter.com/LouisaBacio