Pec or chest? Bicep or Biceps? And just what the heck *is* a trapezius?

Capcom's Human Anatomical Reference for artists

Steamy romance isn't as easy to write as some folks think. You have to be part doctor, part wordsmith, part matchmaker--and still love to put your couple through hell before they get their heaven, lol. But the biggest challenge is making detailed body descriptions both easy to understand and sexy.

Here's an example.

Biting Nixie by Mary Hughes – Smoldering hot vampire alert

     In the center of the room, naked to the waist, was Julian Emerson.
     He stood like some latter-day Goliath, his fists raised over his head. Muscles bunched and strained in his arms and chest. Loose black trousers hung low on lean hips. He slid one bare foot out, legs bent. Crossed powerful wrists in front of him. Pivoted and punched both arms up in a fluid harmony of motion.
     My breath punched out as well, like I’d been hit by a truck. Julian’s body was beyond gorgeous. His abs were cut like diamonds, his chest was chiseled marble. He turned and his back…stars above. His back made me want to wrap my thighs around him and ride him like a horse.
     Twin wings of pure, hard muscle flared from his narrow waist to his immense shoulders. I could see individual muscles work as his fists spun out in a ballet of power. A thin sheen of sweat slicked his skin. I wanted to lick it off.
     He turned again and I was overwhelmed by color. Bronze skin, deep bronze nipples. Short black hairs feathered up the center of his abs and over his broad chest. Black glossy hair curled around his ears as his two-hundred-dollar haircut absorbed the sweat of his exertion. Laser-blue eyes, made even more startling by his black sweeping lashes, stared—
     Julian Emerson was staring straight at me.

So what I'm describing here is Julian (a lawyer) doing the second blackbelt form in Taekwondo (Keumgang (금강)) - second dan ("diamond", symbolizing hardness, unbreakable)).  Specifically his pectorals are chiseled marble and his latissimi dorsi (lats) are flaring, and certainly I could have named particular muscles as they contracted and released, but that wasn't the point of this passage. The point was to let the reader experience Nixie's stunned reaction to her first sight of Julian.

In Nixie and Julian's honeymoon story, Biting Christmas (free as part of Biting Holiday Honeymoons on Amazon, Nook, and others) Nixie does mention more specific muscles. She's mounting him in a hot tub.

I grabbed the tops of my husband's broad shoulders. He lifted them slightly, making his trapezius muscles two convenient handholds.

Since Nixie had identified the "tops" of her husband's shoulders, I was pretty confident the reader would know the trapezius was the neck-to-shouldertip muscle without being disrupted from the story.

The more erotic books gained traction in the marketplace, the more confident I was using anatomical terms. In Passion Bites, first published in 2015, Alexis was using pectorals by page 14. Then again, she's a doctor, so she'd know her body parts, lol.
Passion Bites by Mary Hughes – Steamy vampire kiss alert

     I stood, palms on his chest, and pressed flush to him.
     A thin layer of cotton shirt covered hot boulders beneath my palms. I’d touched well-built men, toned muscles and warm skin. I’d never felt a man like him, like scaling bare rock cliffs. A moan tore from my throat.
     His groan twined in. “You taste amazing. All hot and wet.” His head slanted, his tongue beginning to plunge. Angel wings became angel fire.
     I gasped. That driving tongue pistoned with intense male power. His heat rushed in, waking every bit of my mouth. Like biting a cinnamon red-hot, my lips, then my whole body flushed with desire, a flame spiraling through me like a coiled, lit fuse.
     Luke might look like an angel, but his kiss was hotter than sin.
     Hunger rushed through me, dark and powerful. Suddenly I was the most excited I’d been in my life. Ready to hop up on the exam table, pull out the stirrups and play doctor. My fingers curled, digging into iron-hard pectorals, and I swirled my hips against him.
     As if my hip bump was a cue, something unlocked in him. Strong arms wrapped me, pulling me into an inferno of lust. He wasn’t playing anymore. He kissed me in a flurry of lips and teeth and tongue, driving me mad with desire. I pressed into his hard body. He embraced me so tightly, we melded.
     Against my belly, a hard length grew enticingly.
     I was two seconds from suggesting we put the exam table to good use when the door clicked open.

Kotaku.com

The important thing is for the author to know exactly what body part she's picturing, then express it in such a way as to  make it clear without breaking the reader from the story.

So I was pretty chuffed when I found out comic book and video game designers are just as exacting with their art. Check out these amazing drawings from Capcom for warriors.

The reason this whole thing came up is a book up for preorder now.  Bad-Boy Billionaire's Lady is part of Billionaire Ever After, 22 all-new Billionaires ripe for love.

Landon "Rebel" Lovless has a ragged scar on one round, powerful biceps. My darling husband pointed out that's confusing, as it sounds like two muscles. That's the correct term, though, it's a single muscle with two heads. I left it in. Was the right or wrong call? Let me know in the comments below!

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Kindle | iTunes | Kobo | Kindle UK

The Importance of John Barrowman

photo credit: John Barrowman via photopin (license)

If you've seen John Barrowman on television, it's probably as Malcolm Merlyn in Arrow or maybe Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who or Torchwood. These are both gritty, serious characters, befitting Barrowman's almost ethereal 6-foot handsomeness.

But if you've read anything else about Barrowman, you know he's an entertainment powerhouse--and fun. Dressing up as Squirrel Girl for Comic Con? Come on, that takes a sense of the absurd that calls to my heart.

I recently had a trailer made for my August 23 release, Mind Mates. And when I got the proof, I was floored. I thought, "This is the most awesome trailer I've ever seen." Problem was, there was absolutely no sense of the absurd. And though Mind Mates is packed with sizzling sex and high-octane action, there's fun too.

My question to the hubby was--do I accept it as is? Or do I ask for something funny in there and possibly ruin it?

We often value serious and gritty over sparkling and fun. We often choose things based on the gritty, real pull of the conflicts in the blurb. Hubby said if there's sass or wit, that's a bonus. Smart guy.

So I accepted the trailer as is (though next time I'll remember to ask for the other vendors at the end). Here it is. What do you think? Did I make the right call?




Here's an excerpt, one which shows a bit of Gabriel's somewhat skewed sense of humor (and my sense of absurd language, lol). Was hubby right? Is the fun a bonus?

Enjoy this excerpt from Mind Mates (Pull of the Moon book 2)

Gabriel has just rescued his employee, wolf shifter Emma Singer, from a nasty fall. She's on her feet but still wrapped in his arms when Emma's alpha Bruiser stalks in.

Bzz-bzzt. A buzz like an angry hornet stung wizard prince Gabriel Light’s ears the moment the predator slunk into the store. 

Cap’n Crunch me. Gabriel had magically alarmed the door for just such an event, but why now, when he’d finally gotten a semi-innocent excuse to wrap his arms around this warm bundle of soft, sweet-smelling heaven?

Emma. It felt like he’d been dying to hold her forever. Now, with her in his arms, was the first time in months he could breathe.

But that buzzing alarm told him the approaching beast was male, a wolf shifter, and, from that level of sting, Emma’s alpha. The beast was not going to appreciate seeing her in another man’s arms.

She started trembling, no doubt in response to the alpha’s rampant fight-club stench, a musk even Gabriel could smell. He tried to ease her tension with a joke. 

“Hey, Emma. How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh?”

She skewered him with a disbelieving stare, icing his flesh. He’d blundered, she didn’t understand he was trying to comfort her, nobody gets my skewed sense of humor… Then she gulped and said, “Eight? Like, um, eight legs?”

Immediately his world brightened. “Nope. Ten tickles. Get it? Tentacles?”

She managed a tiny laugh, tinkling bells to his ears, and her body relaxed slightly under his arms. “That was such a dad joke.”

He loved that she, of all the people he knew, actually laughed at his jokes. He smiled into her eyes like a besotted fool.

Of course, that was when the he-wolf prowled into view. 

Gabriel wondered how far he could get with the wolf by protesting his intentions were honorable. Probably not far. The creature was only barely in human form. 

The wolfman was medium height but had a face like a dented shovel and a body like a trash compactor, his muscles-on-muscles popping in a stringy T-shirt that barely qualified past no-shirt-no-shoes-no-service.

Worse, with the hair sprouting everywhere, nose elongating like a snout, and lengthening canines, this alpha was dangerously pissed.

Hard to reason with a pissed-off wolf. They tended to bite first then ask questions…never.

Yet instead of releasing Emma, Gabriel’s hand dropped from her clenched jaw to open protectively on her back.

“The fuck?” the wolfman snarled.

Something inside Gabriel snarled right back.

When a powerful wizard prince comes out of hiding to save his sister, he is forced to team with a pretty shifter—one with ugly, dangerous powers of her own. As vengeful enemies close in, a forbidden attraction flaming between them, the two race to find a mysterious key.
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HG1F7G2/
Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1124016228?ean=2940153092669
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/645333
All Romance Ebooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-mindmates-2068656-140.html
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/mind-mates/id1127456235
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Mary_Hughes_Mind_Mates?id=KAFqDAAAQBAJ
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/mind-mates
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HG1F7G2/

Dealing with Spring Fever

photo credit: Spring Bride via photopin (license)

So after the coldest April and beginning of May I can remember (snow in May, people), it's now warm enough here in the Midwest US to open the windows.

Fresh air!!! (Town square. You are my wife...Goodbye city life...) Oops, sorry. Um, where was I?

Oh yes. Spring has sprung (the grass is riz, I wonder where the skeeters is?) Crap. Did it again. Soooo sorry.

photo credit: Juvenile Eastern cottontail, about half the size of our usual ones DSC_8956 Jeune lapin, environ la moitié de la taille de nos lapins habituels. via photopin (license)

Spring is here and with it, a sense of freedom. A sense of old, cold, tired, and gray things giving way to new, fresh vibrancy.

Sometimes too much vibrancy. After all, the concealing, protecting coats and boots have come off. We're left with nothing but our skin, still unused to the brighter sun and going barefoot in the grass (and prickers--ouch, ouch!).

There's more of almost everything come spring. More color, more scent, more skin...well, it's hard not to get squirrelly. Hard not to rush at everything with a bucket of wash water, not to try climbing the highest rock cliff, not to write ALL the stories.

I used to think spring fever was a disease that ate away concentration and sowed false promise of tackling impossibly long task lists. Now I'm thinking it's simply nature's morning pot of coffee.

What about you? Do you get spring fever? Is it a bad thing or good?

Seduction begins in the...

photo credit:
"Oh, you're so sweet, and those beautiful eyes,
by that tricky cook I was hypnotized"
via photopin (license)

For those of you who don't read post titles, here it is again :)

Fill in this sentence: Seduction begins in the...

And yes, I know the proper way to say it is "finish this sentence" or "complete this sentence", but that takes me back to grade school and I don't want to go there so why should I take you?

So. Did you come up with your full sentence?

Seduction begins in the--

How many of you said brain?

iZombie aside (Roxy keeps talking about it. I haven't seen any zombie shows because I think I'm a reincarnated druid and I suspect I was ritually brained so the idea of eating 'em just doesn't go for me...someone give me a rundown on iZombies?), the brain is where we get ideas. And I don't know about you, but some of my most fun times started with an idea.

Some of my most fun times started with a brewery tour too, but that's off topic.

I started thinking about this when Amy K wrote this post on right brain/left brain. Which are you? Take the quickie quiz here.

photo credit: Acro Yoga Dhanurasana via photopin (license)

We can logically plan a seduction with our left brain. Or creatively come up with a new position with the right.

And have you seen those pictures of a brain on orgasm? According to Nan Wise in this ABC News article, “Secondary to an epileptic seizure, there’s no bigger brain networking event.”

Here's a picture. (I don't recommend searching for "Brain on Orgasm" because  it comes up with a lot of pics that are less scientific than this. What?? You looked?!? See. What'd I tell you?)

So what about you? Where does seduction begin?

NEW BOX SET ALERT!!

Biting Love Nibbles (Biting Love Short Bites collection)

Sparkling, sassy, sinfully sexy. Indulge your yen for action-packed vampire romance with these short bites.

Biting Holiday Honeymoons
That special night with their master vampires is interrupted by Dracula and Santa Vamp. Biting Halloween—Elena and Bo's honeymoon in the Dells is derailed when they get run off the road by a vampire. They chase him, only to find out Dracula—the real Dracula—is on the loose. Introduces Glynn Rhys-Jenkins from Biting Oz. Biting Christmas—Nixie and Julian slide into a hot-tub honeymoon, but things turn nasty when Santa Vamp and Mrs. Claus show up. Warning: These titles contain vampires. Fighting, biting, loving vampires. And adult couples trying to have sexy times on their wedding nights. Explicit language. Slang guide included.
Oz Bites
Vampires and sex and flamingos oh my! Punk musician Nixie Emerson is now married to her master vampire and life is grand. Until the mayor “voluntells” her to assemble a pit orchestra for Oz, Wonderful Oz, a new Broadway-caliber musical. Problem—she has no budget. Add in a vampire turf war and a pregnancy that makes finding the right sexual position a challenge and running from rogue vampires impossible, and she’s getting overwhelmed. As a rebel who thrives on creative solos, she’s getting zilch for solo time. Then someone blabs there’s no pay and her musicians back out. Worse, whoever’s stealing secrets isn’t just stealing Nixie’s. Warning: Contains wild sex, explicit violence, and a frazzled punk heroine. Or is that explicit sex, wild violence, and a frazzled lawyer vampire? What the heck. There’s sex, swearing, fighting and smiles.
Murder at Chipmunk Lake
Nixie's lost her mojo! Nixie Emerson, punk rock musician and first-time mom-to-be, has a stalker. Her band Guns and Polkas has gone national after their big stage debut, but the price of fame is the stalker trying to scare her into leaving the band. Her husband, master vampire Julian, whisks Nixie away to the Wisconsin north woods—where they meet the stalker on the pier of their cabin and he again threatens Nixie. Julian punches him out and the couple walks away thinking the problem is over. But when the next evening the stalker is found dead, they find out the trouble is only starting. Warning: contains a cranky pregnant lady trying to control her swearing, a master vampire appeasing his wife with food and creative sex, murder, mayhem and several arguments over what to name the baby.
Biting Serendipity
Best April Fools joke ever—falling in love. Serendipity “Sera” Braun hoists beer steins at her tavern job, where a Viking bouncer is bedsheets waiting to get sweaty. But Thor only scowls at her. Warning: A terribly lonely vampire, a conflicted schoolmarm with a caged wild side, nosy roommates and the female version of a bromance, not to mention scorching sex, swearing with the **** filled in, a whole town full of busybodies—and the best April Fools joke ever.

These stories contain material intended for mature audiences. Reader discretion advised.

Website | Kindle | Nook | Smashwords | Kobo | iBooks | Google | ARE | Kindle UK | Nook UK

Thanks to author Sahara Kelly for suggesting Nibbles for the title. Thanks to P&N Graphics for the amazing cover.

Why don't they make...?

I was looking for a tasteful photo of chocolate.
Then this one screamed "Use Me!"
photo credit: PA067570 via photopin (license)

So one thing I was pondering about lately--why does chocolate lube not taste like chocolate? And never mind how I know this.

Why chocolate, anyway? Or strawberry, raspberry, or any of the other best-selling flavors? Is sex like a sundae and we really need that cherry flavor to complete it? Or lime flavor, because the lime goes in the coconut (milk)? (Yes, I went there.)

To me, chocolate lube tastes more like plastic. Add in perspiration and other things and frankly, I think the fave flaves are a bit bizarre.

Why don't they make lube in popcorn flavor? Wouldn't that, um, blend better? Or coffee? That would be my favorite, for when hubby's ready first thing in the morning and I'm still prying my eyes open, much less anything else ;)

(I have to admit to being slightly afraid to post this essay. Somewhere deep down I think Roxy Mews and/or Jodi Redford will take this as a challenge and my inbox will be flooded with links to popcorn-flavored lube.)

What about you? what is your dream flavor?

It's NOT Porn...It's Research

I love my job as a writer. People always assume as an erotic romance author we are sex-crazed people. Well…not to screw up everyone’s perception…but it is true. Most of us may seem to hide behind this façade of humble upbringings to hide the darker, seedy side of romance writers.

I bring this up because I was asked again in my “real life” about it. I don’t hide what I do but never talked about it. It was my life and nobody’s business. Then it was revealed that I was a writer through a Google search and I had to deal with all the standard questions and miscellaneous things said.

For me…my career started as a dick-double in the porn industry. I never had the face for movies so they would do all the close-ups with other actor’s faces. Due to a birth defect and a slight case of elephantitus, I was extremely endowed with what resembled a large cucumber between my legs. 11 inches and a bend to the left when erect made the abnormality something that porn directors would request.

My work was mainly a day-by-day thing where I would do seven or eight scenes then not work again for a week then do seven or eight the next weekend. The money was descent and I would get laid regularly. After a freak groin pull accident involving a midget, a blender and a life sized Barbie blow-up doll I decided to turn to writing.

Obviously that all was a bunch of bullshit because like most writers we all lead normal lives except the chosen few that live the insane dream of making it rich with their books.  

I like to write sexy stories. Shoot me…

I find sex to be amazing and at times really funny. The “O” faces alone can make you burst out in laughter.

I think it is a great release to write things I wish I were capable of. What man wouldn’t want to have the power over a woman they desire to bring her to new heights of ecstasy. Oh, and all those women are virgins and never been with another man and this singular time will ruin them for any man afterward because it will be so completely mind blowing.

As for porn…ummm,  it’s research. I mean some of the positions I can think of seem physically impossible until I see…”Oh ya, Barbie Buxom did that in a movie with the three football players and the goat mascot.”

In all honesty I think most romance writers write from their own love of romance. They love passion and telling stories about people and mix a little of their own wants and desires into the characters. The female characters are all a side of the writer (or in my case the male characters are a lot like me…tall, handsome and hung like a horse).

I have been blessed in meeting so many different people in my life and all the writers I call “friends” share the same thing. They have stories in their hearts to share with the readers. We all feel lust, the darker side to sex and all that but our deepest and hidden beasts are our own and a great story just adds fuel to their fires.

When asked, “Why do I write erotic romance?”

I tend to answer with a standard response, “Because I enjoy sex, love and humor and it’s the easiest way to mix the three.”

Truth is, I just like making people feel romantic and silly because that’s what makes me happy.

Want to read more from S.L. Carpenter? Check out...

Full Service

Remember When

So Into You

And don't forget to connect with S. L. on FACEBOOK and TWITTER

Recharging Batteries...or Shorting Them Out?

photo credit: michael*choi via photopin cc

Ever been caught between work deadlines on one hand, family pressures on the other, daily obligations on the other hand...wait. Three hands?? **Wandering body part alert** AOOHga!!

*covers eyes* Um, yeah, one of those pressures is some editing I have to do.

So anyway, I was looking at my calendar for the next few months. I have a March 1 novel deadline and 30,000 words to write, then edit before then. A February 22 novella deadline with 5000 words ditto. A novella which has been edited--I just have to find the time to make the changes, then polish it, format it, and distribute it. A book to read, and a contest to judge. Oh, and rehearsals for our next symphony concert start this month. Fortunately there are no bird parts for the lovely principal flute. *grins over big huffed relieved breath*

Oh yeah, and do taxes.

photo credit: sbfisher via photopin cc

My whole head is wanting to explode just from that.

But it doesn't have to. I'm going to let you all in on an Ancient Chinese Secret. Or actually, a Pretty Old Korean Secret, learned many years ago when I was studying Taekwondo.

Rest between breaths.

When you're sparring, you're going all out. One flurry of kicks turns into a pounding of punches, turns into another flurry of kicks, because if you let up, the other guy will fold you in half with a sidekick.

I totally do not know what I'm talking about from experience.

Anyway, you're under constant, and I mean constant, physical pressure. Rasping breath, pounding heart, trembling limbs pressure. Unless you get some rest, you'll lose stamina and strength, and without those you lose the match.

So you learn to rest every moment you get a chance, even if it's only a second.

Life is like that. When the going gets tough, the tough...relax. If only for a second. If only between breaths.

Here are some quick pick-me-ups.

Friend Scott on Facebook. His memes always make the day better. Ditto Roxy for her Death Wish Coffee posts and NaNo encouragements (ve haff vays uff make-ink you vrite!). Ditto Jodi for her exchanges with Selena and Sexy Thumbs.

Imgur memes. You can make your own, but then you get out of the range of "quick". Lol.

Webcomics give me a quick pickup MWF. Mine are User Friendly, Free Fall, SinFest and XKCD with an occasional dip into Cyanide and Happiness. I also follow Zits and Pearls Before Swine's Stephan Pastis on Facebook.

TV Tropes provides a bit of writerly fun.

On Facebook, George Takei and Robert Downey Jr.

Hubby and I often wind down the evening with a short humorous show on NetFlix. Favorites are Archer, Frasier, IT Crowd.

What about you? What do you do for a quick battery recharge (that won't short you out)?

Look for Masked Attraction in February, Biting Serendipity (April Fools In/For Love) in March and Heart Mates in April!

Heart Mates (Pull of the Moon, Book 1)

Witch plus wolf? They’re allergic. Except no one told their hearts.

Preorder now!




Shifters and witches? Forbidden on pain of death. Might as well stick a fork in a light socket. Yet those are the kind of sparks witch princess Sophia Blue feels when she meets wolf shifter Noah in her aunt’s bookstore.

But Sophia is stuck. Her aunt is missing and Noah, the last person to see her, is Sophia’s only hope. If not for that and her aunt’s new, cute little doggie, Sophia would run as far as she could from the sexy, hard-hewn alpha.

Noah’s stuck too. Before disappearing, the aunt hit him with a hex gone horribly wrong—he’s the doggie. By day he’s fifteen pounds of yippity-yip, and with five anti-alpha wolves nipping at his heels, that’s deadly dangerous. Only Sophia can help him, but she has lost her magic.

Then an evil mage from Sophia’s past shows up with murder on his mind, and all Noah’s instincts shout to protect the woman his misguided heart thinks is his mate.

Warning: Sinfully sexy alpha thrown together with a hot witch in a small town. Sass, sparkle, a meddling aunt, snafus, growling, fighting, and oh yeah, sex. Might want to get up to date on your shots.