The World of Cyn
Vol 2: Issue 9
With the advent of summer comes vacations! I hope many of you have had the opportunity to travel. My family journeyed to Taos, NM and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We visited galleries, shops where there were many handmade crafts and drove the Enchanted Loop. We stopped at the home and burial grounds of DH Lawrence, The National Viet Nam Memorial, Pot Creek, the home of Kit Carson, and even a Native American drum factory.
Once home I jumped into fundraising with my daughter. Her choir will be traveling to NYC next spring to sing in nursing homes and orphanages. We worked a Colorado Outlaws game. The Outlaws are the second lacrosse team to grace professional sports in Colorado. If you’ve never seen a lacrosse game, it is a unique sport to behold.
News
Loose Id has released my novel, This Time Forever, the seventh installment of The Collector series. For those of you not aware of the series, the collector is an archeologist intent on gathering nine artifacts. These artifacts are rumored to hold the power of love and bring people together. Who knows what the nine pieces will do once they are in proximity with one another!
In This Time Forever, Skylar Creighton has been diagnosed with cancer and seemingly has nothing and no one to live for. That is until an injured, homeless man comes into her bookstore with an odd shaped stone and shoves it into her hands, turning Skylar’s world upside down.
Aspen Mountain Press is nearly a year old! Come celebrate with AMP on the AMP Community loop located at www.AMP_Community@yahoogroups.com. There will be prizes every day in July but only customers and members of the Community loop are eligible.
Triskelion Publishing has announced the closing of their business effective July 2nd. At this time their web site store is closed and their yahoo loops are gone. They have stated they will be filing bankruptcy which imperils all the royalties due their authors. In the past three months many of the authors have had their literary rights returned to them. Please contact the authors directly concerning their books and where they might end up being placed.
Interview with
Ashlyn Chase
LS: How long have you been writing and when did you have your first release? Where and when?
AC: First, thanks for the Interview, Lucynda! This should be fun. LOL.
I began writing seriously in 2001, but didn’t know what the heck I was doing until I joined RWA in 2002. LOL. Liquid Silver Books published my first book 2 years later. I owe that to many helpful writers that went before me and generously offered their help and advice.
LS: Do you have a writing routine? What is it?
AC: I get up at an ungodly hour. Have coffee and watch the news with my husband, then he goes to work and I check my email. No matter what, I try to be BICHOK by 9 AM. What’s BICHOK mean? Butt in chair; Hands on Keyboard! LOL. I didn’t make that up. I write until I run out of steam and check email again. The after noon is spent doing housework, errands or reading.
LS:Do you have a “day” job? or are you able to write full time?
AC: I’m able to write full-time. Thank goodness! That was one dream come true after working as a nurse for twenty long years!
LS: Who inspired you and how?
My cousin has been writing and editing for TV for about thirty years. He did mostly Soap Operas and won an Emmy for Days of our Lives. I think what inspired me most was his dedication. I remember visiting him in his tiny, cockroach infested apartment in Manhattan when he was struggling. He makes a good living now and continues to encourage me.
LS: Where is home? Have you lived your entire life in one place?
I live in beautiful New Hampshire. I’ve moved many times but mostly in and around Boston. I lived in Colorado for two years and my daughter was born there. I took her back there when she was twelve so she could see her birthplace. We had a great time. Traipsed all over the state, had a snowball fight in July. It’s a beautiful place to visit.
LS: What genre do you write in? Is there one you’d like to try? What is it?
I write erotic comedy. Right now I’m enjoying the heck out of that. It’s not always easy to be funny and sexy though, so I suppose I might like to try some young adult fiction. My critique partner does both and I love reading all of her stuff.
LS: What was the most memorable, positive experience of your life?
Wow! Talk about tough questions! My daughter’s babyhood? The day I married her wonderful stepfather? The day I divorced the loser? LOL. FYI. You can’t expect me to be serious when faced with a tough situation. It’s how I cope.
LS: What was the toughest thing you had to go through and how did you manage?
Well, that has to be the first divorce. I was a battered wife with an infant he never wanted. I literally had to “escape and hide” from him. The therapy I went through for the eight months after that proved was intense but immensely helpful. I coped by writing. I wrote a whole book of bad poetry. I’d take it to my shrink every week and we’d about it.
LS: Wonder Witch is a special book to you. Can you tell my readers about how this book came to be and what it has done for you and your “sisters?”
You know the story well (since you’re one of the stars. LOL) so I’ll tell the rest of the world about us now. I was challenged to write a story about my character in the League of Amazing Writers. We all have our “Super hero” alter egos right on the front page. Well, there’s no sisterhood like the sisterhood of erotic romance writers and all the members of the League wound up in my book as characters! Oh, and what I made some of them do! LOL. I’m SO lucky they all have great senses of humor! Be on the lookout for books in retaliation, folks! Magda already told me that she’s going to make my character Wonder Witch (Witchy for short) do some very naughty things in a future book of hers!
LS: Some “one or the other” questions:
Coke or Pepsi products
Either. I can’t tell the difference once there’s rum in it.
Eric Bana or Orlando Bloom
I’ll take either of them too.
CSI or Bones
Absolutly CSI! I want them all! *Ash licks drool off her face.
Movies or Theater
MOVIES! My husband and I are ridiculous movie buffs. We have a theatre room in our basement. I’ve even written a few screenplays.
Rocky Horror Picture Show or Reservoir Dogs
Rocky Horror! I went to the live shows back in Boston on Exeter Street when I lived around the corner! Such fun!!!
Andy Garcia or Val Kilmer
I hear that Val is a pain in the ass, and I love Latino men, so ANDY!
Spain or France
I may love Latino men but I can’t talk to them. I do, on the other hand, speak French, so France it is.
Leonardo deCaprio or Mark Wahlberg
I may be considered crazy, but totally Mark. We’re both from Boston and he is one of the few actors who gets the accent right in movies. (See The Departed.) LOL. I love a homeboy.
Florida or California
Florida! I don’t like it when the ground shakes under me. Being from the East Coast I’m used to Hurricanes. Not the same intensity by the time they make it up here, but I like how Floridians deal with them. Ever heard of a Hurricane party? Three days in somebody’s storm proof house with a well-stocked bar!
The Eagles or The Beach Boys
Hard to say. Can I pick Bon Jovi?
About Wonder Witch
Here’s the skinny on Wonder Witch. Keep in mind the book is narrated by the only impartial member of the League. The cat! Imagine thirteen attractive crime-fighting women with super powers—and PMS! They aren’t Charlie’s Angels!
~*~*~*~*~
“Just so I have this straight, you want us to find and stop whoever kidnapped eight muscular men and do it unarmed.” She looked at the sky and let out a deep breath in a whoosh. “Um… Let me think about it.”
Didn’t I tell you they can’t resist a pretty face? Toss in a muscular body and it’s like kryptonite. She’s probably just wondering how to break it to the others. Between Joell and all her superheroine buddies, the latest challenge has been how to find time to do what they really love—writing their ultra hot erotic romance books. Their original mission? To save the world from boredom, one book at a time. You’d think that would be enough, but no. Not for these superwomen. They became crime fighters. It’s one thing to talk about world peace. It’s another to actually do something about it! I can’t help but be proud of the important part I play.
I jumped onto Joell’s lap and hoped she’d realize I had to go with her. She’d need me more than ever if she had no other weapons. She simply scratched me under the chin and… Ah, that feels so good, I forget what I was going to say.
I have no idea how Boss Dog found them but they haven’t had a moment to themselves since. Fine for him. He lives anonymously in Hawaii somewhere, screening clients, telling other people what to do and collecting the money to pay salaries and credit card expense accounts. If the women didn’t hate boring business and accounting details, they’d never put up with it. Apparently, he told them he’d take care of all the mundane hassles so that they had the freedom to write their sexy novels, fight crime and look terrific while doing it.
I bumped her phone hand with my head, trying to get her to hang up. C’mon, Joell. You can still say absolutely not and stick to your guns. It’s not too late to refuse.
She heaved a giant sigh. “Go ahead, Boss Dog. Tell me what you know so far and I’ll inform the others.”
Damn. I should have given her hand a good hard bite.
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URL FOR EXCERPT AND BUY PAGE OF WONDER WITCH: 6/15/07
Lucynda’s Excerpt
The Collector 7: This Time Forever
Dr. Redmond counseled hospice, as did the oncologist. No, not yet. Skylar would decide how and where she died. Some damn cancer eating away at her would not take those final decisions from her. She balled her hands into fists. What else was there to do except prepare to die?
Well, damn it, she’d die her own way. She pulled the cord on the “open” sign and the light winked out. No point in staying late.
Fall would be in its full glory in a few days. The color change was amazing in October. She’d close up shop and head to Central City. Her most favorite place in the entire world was a cemetery just outside the former ghost town. Aspens grew in abandon, shading headstones worn smooth by wind and weather. Fifty years had passed since the last person had been buried there. Long enough to give the place a graceful serenity. She chortled at the irony.
She’d drive up Clear Creek Canyon, park her car in one of the casino lots, hike the mountain, and end her sojourn at the cemetery to make her final peace with the world. Yes, if one had to die, doing so quietly in an environment one loved was the way to go.
Skylar pulled open the file drawer of her office desk. And just in case the end came more quickly than the doctors predicted and she couldn’t handle the pain…she rummaged through the drawer’s contents and sighed when her fingers touched cool metal. The heavy gun would take away the suffering.
Next to the desk sat a worn backpack. She’d taken the bag on her travels to Europe a decade ago. Skylar lifted it lovingly and placed the pack on the desktop. Threads caught in the zipper, a tear from a pen, even a frequently reattached strap weren’t enough to make her throw this part of her history away. Now the well-traveled knapsack would accompany her on the last, great journey of her life.
She shoved the gun into the bag, along with a bottle of Patrón Reposado tequila she’d intended for the tenth anniversary of the shop. Carefully, she packed her lined windbreaker around the bottle and then added aspirin, the oxycodone the oncologist had prescribed, and her favorite first-edition book, Crossing Oceans, Crossing Swords: The True Adventures of Captain Rand Edward Jamison. The swashbuckler, through his journal, had stolen her imagination as well as her heart long ago.
Damn! Everything was so frickin’ final. The tears she’d held back crested her lids and spilled as fast and hard as a sudden summer thunderstorm. “Goddamnit!” she sobbed. “This isn’t supposed to be how my life ends.”
Her nose dripped. At least she wasn’t bawling her eyes out among the stacks. She reached across the desk to grab a Kleenex when the sound of the bell on the shop door jingled merrily through the store. “I’m closing,” she choked out.
“Miss Skylar, help!”
She pushed away from the desk, alarm spreading through her, and hurried to her office door. “William? What’s wrong?”
The homeless veteran never asked for her help, although she’d given aid to him frequently.
“He cut me.”
At his words, Skylar glanced to where his hands were clutched together over his stomach. A red stain spread from beneath his fingers, the blood seeping through his dirty blue shirt onto the floor, the trail reaching back toward the front door.
Rushing to him, she supported his sagging body. They staggered into her office, Skylar bearing the lion’s share of his weight. With a free hand she spun the chair behind the desk and sat him in it. She picked up her cordless phone and punched 9-1-1. “My God, William, who did this to you?”
“The man with the sword. Hid in his umbrella.” William gasped the words as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Hang on, William.”
“Nine-one-one operator.”
“Operator, send an ambulance to Sky’s Mile High Books, and hurry. My friend has been injured.” She gulped, trying to get her breath. “He’s been attacked and is bleeding a lot.”
Once more the bells on the shop door rattled, the light and cheerful sound at odds with the rasp of William’s breathing.
“I followed your bloody trail in here, you homeless bastard,” a deep, menacing voice called. “You’re nothing but street scum and trouble.”
The owner of the ominous voice sounded as if he meant business. Skylar dropped the phone onto the desk. Maybe if she got William to the storage room, she could get him out the delivery door. Hiding was impossible, not with the way William’s blood was dripping. “William?” she whispered, terror gripping her. “What set this guy off?”
“He wants my stone.” With a bloody hand, William pulled an oddly shaped piece of polished pale green stone from the inside of his shirt. His breath came in shallow puffs. “But it ain’t his.”
The weak, barely audible sound of William’s voice frightened Skylar more. Blood saturated his shirt and pooled in the stitching of her chair at his hips, soaking his threadbare jeans. There was so much blood. It spilled onto her black slacks and the long purple-and-black plaid flannel shirt she wore over them. God, please let the ambulance get here in time. “A piece of green rock?”
“Yes, I want that piece of green rock.” William’s attacker stood in her office doorway. She froze as if in quicksand, wallowing in fear.
Good Lord, he was tall. His head, covered with long blond hair, nearly reached the sill, and his eyes were cloaked by a pair of Ray-Bans. A black duster covered his body and accentuated broad shoulders. The open coat revealed a powerful torso encased in a body-hugging tee-shirt, and his wide, aggressive stance echoed the danger she’d heard in his voice. He tapped an umbrella point against the wooden floor.
“No,” William weakly whispered.
In the last thirty seconds, William’s color had paled significantly. Skylar placed a hand on his forehead, only to touch clammy skin. Without help he’d definitely die.
“Now, boy,” his assailant grumbled, removing his sunglasses to narrow the stare of his brown eyes on the green shard in William’s hands. “I can make this quick, or I can make your death linger for days.”
The sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath hissed through the room. Dear God! The blade had come from the man’s umbrella, just as William had warned. Well, the evil Mr. Steed was not going to hurt William anymore, not while she had breath left in her cancer-ridden body. She fumbled for the backpack and grasped the shoulder strap to pull it toward her.
The tall man took two strides and, across the desk, pointed the blade at Skylar. The tip touched the hollow between her breasts. “Don’t get any ideas.”
She gulped and froze, afraid to move a millimeter. Without the gun, how could she save William? Where was help? With a sword pointed at her chest, a man at her side like Captain Rand Jamison would be handy. But the heroes of literature didn’t exist in today’s reality, no matter how hard she might wish.
“Whatever you do, don’t let him have it,” William commanded with an unexpected burst of energy. He shoved the stone into her hand.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Available now at Loose Id
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This Issue’s Recipe
SALSA BEAN DIP
Yield: 14 servings (2 tablespoons each)
Source: “The Diabetes Snack, Munch, Nibble, Nosh Book”
INGREDIENTS
- 3/4 cup mild or medium thick and chunky salsa
- 1 (19 ounce) can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon dark brown chili powder (or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
DIRECTIONS
Place the salsa in a sieve over a large bowl.
Tap the sieve occasionally to help the salsa
drain until the chunky part remains in the sieve,
about 3 to 4 minutes. Discard the liquid.
In the bowl, mash the beans slightly with a fork.
Add the chunky portion of the salsa, lemon juice,
chili powder, and cumin. Stir until combined.
Transfer to a serving bowl.
Serve at once or cover and refrigerate for several hours.
Serve with baked corn chips. Leftover dip will keep
in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.
Nutritional Information Per Serving (2 tablespoons):
Calories: 36, Fat: 0 g, Cholesterol: 0 mg, Sodium: 74 mg,
Carbohydrate: 7 g, Dietary Fiber: 2 g, Sugars: 0 g, Protein: 2 g Diabetic Exchanges: 1/2 Starch
Bonus Recipe
Granny Smith Apple Tart
Yield: 1 tart (8 servings)
Source: The New Family Cookbook for People with Diabetes
INGREDIENTS
- 1 refrigerated fill-and-bake pie crust (7 to 7-1/2 ounces)
- 3 large Granny Smith apples (about 1-1/2 pounds total), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sour half-and-half, or 1/4 cup nonfat sour cream
- 1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca
- 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Put the pie crust into a 9-inch-diameter tart pan with a removable bottom; press the crust against the fluted edge and trim off any pastry that extends over the top. Roll the trimmed dough into a ball; flatten to 1/4 inch and cut 2 or 3 shapes with a cookie cutter. Prick the tart shell in several places with the tines of a fork.
Put the sliced apples in a large bowl;
drizzle them with lemon juice and toss to mix.
In a small bowl, blend the brown sugar, sour
half-and-half, tapioca, and cinnamon.
Fold the brown sugar mixture into the apples until all
the fruit is coated. Spoon the apples into the tart shell; arrange the dough shapes on top of the apples. Sprinkle granulated sugar over the top.
Bake for 35 minutes, or until the apples are tender.
Cut in 8 equal slices. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Nutritional Information Per Serving (1 slice):
Calories: 200, Fat: 8 g, Cholesterol: 8 mg, Sodium: 146 mg,
Carbohydrate: 34 g, Dietary Fiber: 2 g, Sugars: 20 g, Protein: 1 g Diabetic Exchanges: 2 Other Carbohydrate, 1 Fat
This month’s winner of Watchtower: Water is: Jayne710
Be sure to join Aspen Mountain Press as they celebrate the anniversary of their opening!
“You always fear what you don’t understand.”
Carmine Falcone, Batman Begins