Radio Free Mars

Yeah, a weird title, but I do think I'm picking up signals.

Friday is the deadline for the contest. I’m looking forward to going through the entries. The contest is to celebrate the release of Mating Stone by Ellora’s Cave.

The hero of Mating Stone, Mark Ursine is a Were-Bear as is his twin brother Luke the hero of the upcoming July release, Lovers’ Stone. The Ursines present their lady loves with stones rather than engagement rings. For Mark and Sarah it’s an amethyst. So to win the 17” freshwater pearl and amethyst necklace here’s what you need to do. Write a brief answer to the following question and send it to ElyssaWrites@aol.com with “Mating Stone Contest” in the subject line. I’ll pick the best response as the winner, and two honorable mentions to receive smaller prizes. The winning entries will appear in my blog on April 13th.

In Mating Stone, Mark falls in love with Sarah. Sarah, a young human woman who has no idea that Were’s even exist beyond novels and movies. Strictly fictional. As a human woman, how do you react when Mr. Yummy tells you he’s the one with claws and may just leave fur on the sheets? So tell me: What type of Were is Mr. Wonderful and how does he break it to you?


I’m still wired up. I’m on day two and a half and the crap news is I have one more day and night to go. Let me tell you, you haven’t slept until you’ve tried to sleep with about five pounds of wires, electrodes, gauze and tape on your head without messing it up. And that doesn’t even begin to cover the joys of having a chin strap to the headgear so it doesn’t pull off at night and having to watch out for the box everything is attached to.

The cord is only about 2, 2 ½ feet long so it doesn’t give you much stretch. And the damned adhesive is starting to itch which isn’t helped by the fact that I haven’t been able to wash my hair since Monday morning. Did manage a bath last night but it was worthy of America’s Funniest Home Videos to watch me try to bath while the SO stands over me holding the circuitry out of the way. I’d say I owed my darling big time, but the chuckles at my bizarre appearance should about cover it.

I’m also pretty much stuck in the house and nature had been a real bitch because it’s been absolutely beautiful. I could be getting so much gardening done. *sigh* Usually on my spring break I go into town. Into Atlanta I mean. I’m technically OTP (Outside the Perimeter) which to someone from the ATL translates to hick or leper, and to the rest of the world it means I live outside the I285 loop around the city. We have a nice little neighborhood that unfortunately is rather harshly infested with HOA disease. (Home Owners Association) Now I have no gripe with most HOAs. They keep up common areas, make sure no one turns their yard into a flea market or graveyard for old automobiles and represent the residents on zoning issues and the like.

But I do have a gripe with our particular HOA. We no longer belong because we didn’t see eye to eye with several of the members and didn’t like the way certain neighbors went about settling differences of opinion. Threatening to cite my house because I don’t vote your way or give you my proxy only makes me pissed off and nasty. Not all of us are retired and have nothing to do all day but work on our homes. Not all of us have the money for a new coat of paint every couple of years. And some of us are such monumental klutzes that we have spent most of the last year unable to do most yard work. (All in one year: broken foot x2 and a dislocated knee- I’m talented folks. If there’s a chance I can injure myself I will.)

Anyway, it’s another lovely day in the neighborhood. The pollen is coating everything, the sun is shining, my cocker spaniel is whimpering out the back door because she’s just sure if mom would let her out she could catch that train going by and my birds are about to find out what it’s like to be born free if they don’t stop imitating the blasted house alarm. No, I wouldn’t really do that. Do not send me hate mail and animal rights information. I know Pip and Green-bird could not possibly survive on their own. Besides I live with flippin’ Marlin Perkins who names snails, insists they play and gets very upset with me when they die.

I had a point… Oh, yeah. Now I remember. The only thing I can say about being stuck like this is that it’s given me time to write and time to read. We won’t talk about the book I’m currently trying to wade through. It is for my book group and it frankly sucks. But I have gotten to read a good one recently. Before I picked up “My Writer Is Pretentious and Boring and So Am I,” I read a great Cerridwen Press book.

Blame it on the Ghost by Delia Carnell was one I picked up on impulse and I’m very glad I did. The story was well written and nicely paced. Romance writer Amberly Ross finds herself the victim of a mix up when she and horror writer Dylan Hart are both asked to house sit for a mutual friend. The friend can’t be reached to clear it up, so the only choice is to try to cohabitate without killing each other. Sparks fly in more ways than one and soon the reader is drawn into the story that pushes the two reluctant writers together with a little paranormal help. Is the beach house really haunted? And if so, is the ghost responsible for playing matchmaker?

I really enjoyed the dialogue between the two characters. When writing a book like this, it is easy to go overboard on the animosity and create a battle of wits that eventually begins to annoy the hell out of the reader. The heroine turns bitchy and hard and the hero turns into an ass. Carnell avoids this and rips open her characters to show us the gooey, hurting centers of those hard shells. I highly recommend this one.

Okay, back to writing. I have a werewolf having a rather nasty argument with his mate and I need to get back to them before Evan does something stupid. This is the follow up to Measure of Healing and he has to be the most out of control character I’ve ever dealt with. Evan has been jerking me around for a while now, suddenly insisting that I write this, or that I forgot that scene where he… Just when I’ve got the pacing down and know what happens next he throws me a curve. Wolves! Mages! All are pains in the…