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Surya Is Published!

September 6, 2018 by scarletdarkwood

I can’t believe I published a Sci-Fi-Fantasy book! That is not my genre. That is not my genre. That is not my genre. So why would I have gone and done it? In junior high and high school, I used to read Sci-Fi. Star Trek was the starter for me. I had two hard-bound versions of the books that had all the episodes you saw on TV. In high school, there was Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. Those books were enjoyable, and I spent many hours reading.

Somewhere along the way between maturing and settling into the mature age, I stopped that genre and switched to Chic Lit. Nothing would satisfy me more than writing Chic Lit, but I don’t have the light, humorous side to me at all. Reading it, however, is a joy. But I haven’t answered the reason why Surya now exists.

The honest answer is that I fell so in love with the cover that I purchased it. After much thought and soul-searching, I really wrote the story I had always been longing to write, just as much as Chic Lit. A story about Atlantis. Some people don’t believe this continent existed. I do. How can you not believe it existed when there are so many underwater findings in the Atlantic Ocean, where a sunken city has been located?

But this story could not be just about Atlantis as a whole. Why? Because Atlantis didn’t end as a whole. What happened to it was a series of destructions, known as the first, second, and third/final destruction. Before the first destruction, Atlantis was one big land mass. After the first cataclysm occurred, Atlantis broke up into several islands. After the second destruction, many of the islands sank, leaving the largest remaining islands, Poseidia and Aryan, and three smaller ones Atalya, Og, and Eyre. There may have been a few more, but they are not named.

What was once a continent that contained a utopian lifestyle slowly degraded into one of greed and corruption, much of what we are seeing in our own time today. A life where beings walked with gods soon became a life where human connection with spirit dissipated, leaving a godless mass. Don’t get me wrong, there were many good people, but the whole of everything had slipped terribly.

With that continent came a use of the highest technology, some of which we haven’t even re-discovered yet. The use of crystals. Their use in daily life permeated Atlantis. We still have not found out how to used it again. People who were connected to spirit could do things that seemed like magic today. To them, it was a way of life.

When I wrote Surya, I struggled with the start of the book. I really doubted myself and questioned if I had not made a mistake thinking I could write something like whatever it was I was going to write. Maybe I would just have to gaze at the gorgeous cover I bought and enjoy it for an art form. However, I had some good betas and my spouse who helped set me in the right direction. Once I shed the cloak of the genre itself and worried about what it needed to sound like because of the genre, I took off with the story. The plot line became easier to write. It was easier to inject conflict and action. I found myself researching things I never would have dreamed of.

I’ve never studded information on extra terrestrials and how the human race was created to start with. I didn’t study or read about war, but I had to just a little to create my characters. The ideas started to flow, and in the end, I came out with a great book that I’m proud of!

I hope you’ll grab a copy and read about Surya, his journey, and what he hoped to accomplish. More than anything, I hope I can take you a little on a journey of what supposedly happened before Atlantis sank.

You can purchase your copy at:

Amazon: http://ow.ly/paHd30lInZV

B&N: http://ow.ly/D7DR30lIGsb

Kobo: http://ow.ly/fqwz30lIGuQ

Filed Under: General Writing Tagged With: Atlantis, extra terrestrials, Fantasy, Left Hand of Darkness, Scarlet Darkwood, Sci-Fi, Star Trek, Sunken Continent, Surya

Paradise Girl, A Dystopian Novel

April 22, 2018 by scarletdarkwood

There are a times I post about other authors on my blog, or post interviews. I like dark subjects. I adore rich writing and vibrant every, along with plucky dialogue, even more. Phill Featherstone has released a new book for those who love dark reads, like I do. Hope you’ll enjoy what the author has to say on inspiration for the story and more!

Readers often ask me where I got the idea for my novel Paradise Girl. The answer is, it came from a bug. Or, to be more precise, a virus.
Nobody knows how many viruses exist, but scientists agree that they outnumber all other living things put together (actually there’s some debate about whether viruses can actually be considered alive, but for now we’ll assume they can).

Only a tiny number of them affect humans, and most of those that do are easily dealt with by the body’s immune system. However, there are a few that the immune system can’t cope with, and these can cause serious illness and, in extreme cases, death. An example is ebola, which is spread through the transfer of body fluids. It’s also transmitted by fruit bats, which can carry the virus without being affected by it.

A few years ago a volcano in Iceland erupted, throwing smoke and ash several kilometres into the sky. A result of this was the grounding of commercial aircraft for several days. I live in a remote farmhouse high on the Pennine hills in the north of England. Usually the only signs of human life outside my home are the vapour trails of planes as they approach or depart from Manchester, or travers the country to and from other places. At the time of the Icelandic eruption, they stopped. The skies were empty, a beautiful, clear blue.

For that short time I could have been the only person alive. This started me thinking: suppose that really was the case, where might everyone else have gone? What might have happened to them? Destroyed by radiation? Abducted by aliens? Wiped out by a plague? Ebola was in the news at the time, and so the latter seemed the most likely.

I began to work on the idea. Somebody in such a situation would be subject to unbearable pressures. They would be desperately lonely and terribly afraid, alternating between relief at surviving and the daunting prospect of a future without hope. It would add poignancy if the central character was young, maybe still in their teens with their life before them. Think about an almost endless series of days stretching ahead, with nothing to relieve them or distinguish between them. What dark places might a mind go when faced with that? What terrible dreams might occur?

They would try to cope by writing a diary, which would describe what they saw, heard and thought, and through which they could reflect on their predicament. It seemed to me that this would work best if such a character was female. Kerryl Shaw introduced herself, and I began to write her story. You can read it in Paradise Girl.

Find the Paradise Girl here

Filed Under: General Writing Tagged With: British writing, dark themes, dystopian, literary fiction, Paradise Girl, Phill Featherstone

Death By Design Is Published!

February 11, 2018 by scarletdarkwood

Death By Design


My first crime/suspense novel has been published, and I must admit that it’s my favorite so far. Someone described it as twisted, dark, and beautiful. There’s a lot of diversity in this book, but I didn’t write diversity or attempt it because I wanted to tick off “diversity” on a bucket list of things to include in a book–just to say I did it.

I wrote some of the ethnicities from personal experience, like purchasing beads from Asian vendors, who are may favorites. I had a Russian neighbor before he moved, and he was a nice man. My store is real. While I have no employees, we do have African-American customers. I used to work with a man who was an ex-FBI agent.

There is one particular element in this book that is also true. I had a customer come in my store several years ago and tell me the same thing one of the characters did in the book. Yes, read it to find out. Her story set up the foundation for this book, once I decided that I was going this route. (My original plan was to have the main character draw “tattoo” designs on people with poisoned ink, but decided on the final way I chose instead).

There are disturbing scenes in this book. Though there is sex–it’s fast and quick. Like several other books I’ve written, this is not an erotica book, more an erotic romance. The MC eventually has a boyfriend, but the sex isn’t really described all that much when I present it as the entry for a chapter.

When you’re half way through the story, you ask yourself how much more can there possibly be to hold the interest level. Trust me, it’s there. And the ending is an unusual surprise for such a dark read. There’s enough to keep you turning pages. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Purchase Book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: General Writing Tagged With: crime, Death By Design, diversity, mystery, suspense

My Take On Robert Gottlieb’s Mansplaining Romance

October 5, 2017 by scarletdarkwood


I heard all the brouhaha about Robert Gottlieb’s “mansplaining” the romance genre. On September 26, 2017 Gottlieb outlined his true thoughts on the genre in an article published by the New York Times, “A Roundup of the Season’s Romance Novels.”

Gottlieb wasted no time in firing off his assessment of some of the most popular books by the leading best-selling authors. He broke them down, reducing each one to a common anatomy, “He,” “She,” “They.” Using this standard, he ripped apart each novel with a tongue-in-cheek review, pointing out the common devices, elements, worn out plot lines, and character tropes.

At the end, he tried balancing his scathing attacks by pointing out the likes of Barbara Cartland, Danielle Steele, and Nora Roberts, and how they set limits on sex elements in their stories, or how the women characters managed to score both the man of their dreams and a career, paying homage to the sentiment that the modern woman can have it all. Those approaches are what made Cartland, Steele, and Roberts different and why they seemed to hold a more esteemed place in his estimation.

Gottlieb ended by showing how the modern romance genre now encompasses so many elements and character types that it’s no wonder anything and everything has been written in the genre. And no matter how wild, unorthodox, or ludicrous, each approach seemed to garner an adoring fan base. In the final showdown, he posed a rhetorical question.

Do mens’ preferences in the tropes of their preferred genres (Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller) outshine or show more sophisticated thinking than women based on the virtue of their genre choice? Just because men love James Bond characters with the lust for action, danger, and women, does this make women and their choice to read romance witless creatures reading equally bland, witless books? It sure seemed so. He pretty much illustrated this sentiment with select quotes from many of these books, along with his commentary.

In the end, Gottlieb tried to redeem himself by stating that regardless of genre or preferences by gender, a certain silliness pervaded many genres, insinuating that perhaps one really wasn’t more advanced or better than another.

I must admit, as I read Gottlieb’s article, I kind of giggle-snorted my way through. But not because I thought he was being crass or disrespectful. I did it because I really found myself agreeing with his analyses in many ways. Everything he mentioned, to me, rang with a certain truth. Like it or not, many of those genres do encompass their formulaic story lines or tropes. Many readers felt that Gottlieb was nothing more than akin to a troll on Amazon. Some readers felt he had slighted their intelligence. I personally think Gottlieb was expressing his own typical male reaction to the genre. I wonder if many men don’t feel the same way he did, if they’d read those books or others like them.

My husband doesn’t care for romance books. My mother would find many romance books today trashy and without merit. Need I add unintelligent reading? Yes, she thinks that–and she’s female. (Note: she can’t stand my books!)

But back to that trope thing. I’ve found that humans like the tropes, the expected. They don’t like different, though they’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that they do like different, and are often in search of the next favorite author. Personally, I think they’re looking for the next favorite author who writes the tropes and the same stuff the reader likes to reach much of the time, anyway. But that’s just my nasty, unsolicited opinion.

The other argument, how many story lines and twists can be thought up? At some point, those run out. The infinite possibilities may not actually be there. We just think we have the infinite.

I don’t like the tropes, the expected, and in my books, I try to steer clear of much of that when I can. Sometimes I think I succeed. Maybe I don’t. Maybe that’s why my books are liked by a different (probably much smaller) audience. I would like to make money at my books, writing those tropes and predictable story lines, but I just can’t do it. I truly like to write the story I have for a particular book, and it comes out the way it does because that’s the way I want to present it.

Though I write romance at times, I don’t read much of it, if any. Or I read it via Chic Lit (one of my favorite genres). My choice in books are varied, so different than even from what my mom reads. But that’s what makes the reading world nice. So many choices, predictable or not. For those who write romance, and are “guilty” of the style Gottlieb seems to scorn, keep doing what you do. Regardless of what he thinks, or my agreement with him on many levels, you have a fan base who adores you and will keep buying your books. You can’t get any better than that!

If you wish to read Gottlieb’s article, you can read it here

And for those of you who would like to take jabs at me for even considering Gottlieb’s comments relevant, feel free to comment below.

Filed Under: General Writing Tagged With: A Roundup Of The Season's Romance Novels, mansplaining, New York Times, Robert Gottlieb, romance genre

Seven Ways To Improve Your Story’s Sex Life

March 17, 2017 by scarletdarkwood

7 Ways To Improve Your Story’s Sex Life

It’s the best of times. It’s the worst of times. It’s not a tale of two cities, but the tale of the erotica genre and how certain best-selling books brought it to the forefront, while at the same time, spurring outlets like Amazon to ban books, slapping the “Adult” filter on certain works, relegating them to a book dungeon where they’d never see the light of day via traditional searches. Other book outlets simply pulled titles from the virtual shelves in a knee-jerk reaction to claims that many of their books may have violated terms of services regarding content.

Thus, the reason I say the Fifty Shades books didn’t open up erotica reading as much as the claims touted. It was my hope that the exposure of readers to sensual scenes, “in your face” prose would have stopped censoring and book-banning once and for all. In my mind I saw more people reading this category, and book stores (what’s left of them) featuring shelves of books from the classic, Victorian style to the modern themes, which feature same-sex unions and dark subjects.

Instead, authors were forced to scrutinize their book covers so the images weren’t too sexy, and to scrub their plotlines free from forced seduction, rape for titillation, and incest. While many authors  experienced their incomes being sliced to shreds, others turned on their creative juices and took a walk on the daring or comical side of erotica, creating monster porn, dino-porn, and stories featuring zombies. The readers lapped it all up, and several writers walked away laughing all the way to the bank.

Erotica is that mysterious genre, that dark area where angels fear to tread, and a glorious demon grins with blazing, lustful eyes, knowing that we’re all sexual creatures, and that sex is truly the seat of creation in more ways than just the physical. The demon isn’t evil at all, but simply labeled as such by people uncomfortable with sex, ones who cover their eyes, vowing they don’t read “that nasty stuff,” ones who see sex in a narrow, compartmentalized manner.

When people think of erotica, they’re aware of the graphic sex featuring hot scenes where the physical act is not left to imagination, but flung wildly in your face. The whole purpose is to titillate or arouse. That’s the nature of the genre. In those scenes, the reader is allowed into the head of the character and permitted to know every thought and sense every feeling, from the slightest throb to a full-blown orgasm. The reader is taken on an intimate journey they may never consider in real life. With erotic novels, the reader can explore and experience all kinds of sex in a safe manner, no risk, no harm. That’s the beauty of literary erotica, with its thought-provoking characters and settings that accommodate any heat level an author wants to create.

But  as a writer, what if you really don’t care for full-blown erotica, where the sex usually drives the story, but you would still like to add some spice and zip to your scenes?

Here are some simple tips to spruce up your work and improve your story’s sex life:

  1. Determine your heat level, how hot you want to go with the scenes and the language. Level one is tame. No consummation, no graphic language. You won’t really allude to sex at all. You’ll find this in Christian work, for example. The writer may note how a character likes another when they’re brushing their hair by the fire, or the way a character carries himself/herself with confidence when they’re feeling a surge of emotion or stand up for a cause. It’s the subtle things most of us know on an inner level, but may not take the time to think about. Level two, however, involves consummation of a relationship, and the higher the level, the more intense and explicit the sex and language, reaching full-blown proportions at level five.
  2. Decide if your characters having sex serves a purpose to the story. Is the sex a declaration of love, a mere one-night-stand, a means for black-male, a trap to get revenge? Decide what you want to achieve by placing a sex scene or several scenes in your story. Sometimes characters want to explore that part of themselves in more detail, while others may want some pure lusty fun and nothing more. A good thriller or suspense novel may include characters using sex for more sinister purposes.
  3. Choose your words wisely. Do you know that some people who take a more cerebral approach to erotica believe that sex in and of itself has nothing to do with an erotic piece. They believe that erotica addresses and focuses on desire, and that a successful erotic piece may actually contain no physical sex whatsoever. The desire addresses an inner need or hunger or compulsion to explore, feel, or have an experience. The heavy breathing, throwing off of the clothes, and going at it hard and heavy don’t make it in these types of books. They choose words to describe what is seen by a character, such as the texture of skin, the color of a woman’s lips, curvature of a man’s chest or a woman’s buttocks or breasts. They delve deep into the mind and push a character’s boundaries, insisting that characters take a risk, bare their souls, and make themselves vulnerable. It’s the loosening of the spirit where shame takes a back seat and doesn’t show its face. Sometimes it’s the opposite, simply overcoming shame and guilt. It’s moving past inhibitions and sensing true freedom. Words capture all these emotions and dig deep into the guts of the human psyche.
  4. Explore the vernacular used in erotica, learning different ways to describe anatomical parts. It’s strange writing erotic scenes at first, and when I first wrote erotica, I gave way to flowery prose reminiscent of the classic Victorian erotica stories. As I got more advice from experienced writers in the genre and became desensitized to the act of writing about the human body and the sensations of sex, I used the common words one will find in sex scenes. Many writers feel that certain terms contain the rawness that goes with erotic writing, and that it’s much simpler and easier to get your point across in stories. Depending on what you’re writing, you may want softer words for stories where the goal may be to lightly entice or to create a scene that may be more realistic to a certain age range. For example, YA literature brushes the beginnings of emotion, how a guy feels when he holds a girl’s hand for the first time, or how a kiss may lead a body to feel certain sensations, all without going into detail, but definitely creating a scene the reader relates to and remembers when he/she was that age.
  5. Get creative with your settings. You don’t have to have your characters do everything in bed. What about out in the woods behind a tree, or in a car, or a quickie behind the file cabinets in the storage room of an office? Make a list of all the crazy places where people can get it on.
  6. Create consequences for the sex act. Will love be won? Will the lover skip out on the other in the dead of night? Will a character use the intimate experience to get something else they want? Will the character evolve into a more powerful, confident person? Is the sexual experience a healing one? What is the purpose when all is said and done? The character usually comes away from an encounter changed somewhat—or perhaps a little more of him/her dies. You decide.
  7. Don’t be afraid to create a twist or push yourself to the extremes. Create stories that go against the grain. Try writing the most disgusting scene using the most provocative prose so a reader actually slips into the scene and finds themselves utterly fascinated. What about people whose bodies don’t fit the handsome/pretty, buffed/stacked requirements that society had decided everyone must meet to perfection? Does someone with a disability not feel sexual desire, not want to be loved and held like anyone else? What about someone who is blind and can’t see, but can only feel? What about someone who’s deaf and can’t hear the dirty, turn-on words that drive other people thrashing beneath the covers? How would a lover explain to a deaf person that they want to engage in sex with them? Of course, there are the same sex stories, which have an appeal to a certain audience as well. Someone once told me that lesbians, gays, and transgender people have such a narrow choice when it comes to enjoying the type of entertainment they crave, stories that move them in their own way and that are unique to their preferences and the way they think. More work would be greatly appreciated by this group.

Writing about sex is not the easy way out. The notion that authors who can’t write, write about sex is a totally ludicrous one. Writing about sex, first of all, requires a certain comfort level using the “bad” words. Writing about sex takes forethought, skill, and practice, knowing clearly where you intend to go with the story, and how you want to portray the scene, and how much you want to pick the characters’ brains. It takes great skill and courage to flesh out the emotions, sometimes having to engage in a little self-reflection to enrich the scene or the prose. Just remember that in spiritual teachings, the sex energy is the seat of creation, and anything you pursue or create with great passion and desire can come to fruition.

About the author:

Scarlet Darkwood is an indie author. Writing in several genres allows her to unleash her imagination in different directions, creating stories for different audiences. Always preferring avant garde themes, her stories will take the reader on an unusual adventure, exploring the darker parts of the human psyche.

Visit Scarlet Darkwood:

Blog: www.scarletdarkwood.com

Amazon Page: http://amzn.to/1MiBaFt

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scarletdarkwoodauthor

Filed Under: General Writing

House Tales (Books 1-4) Released!

August 28, 2016 by scarletdarkwood

House Tales (Books 1-4) In ONE Collection!
Bio Scarlet Darkwood

I’ve been toying with this for quite a while, and finally took the plunge: I’ve placed books 1-4 of the House Tales under one roof. There is now a companion book to Pleasure House. Just to note, Pleasure House will always be sold separately. This companion book, House Tales, contains the books, Dance Of Desire, Master Of The House, Mistress Of The House, and Taming Bad, all under one decadent, steamy roof. I not only have this book in ebook, but in print as well.

The beauty of the House Tales is that a reader can continue enjoying the adventures of the patients/admits who come to The House or who have left The House, and continue using their skills for capturing the heart of one they love. There are romantic elements, but these stories are not the tropes a reader finds everywhere these days. Just like Pleasure House, House Tales books still contain the high-level kink inspired by the very first book to kick off the collection.

I’m extremely excited about this book, and hope readers don’t stop at just Pleasure House. There are so many other stories to read that intersect with the world of The House. The books will still be available in their individual ebook formats, and I still have a few copies of the print versions of the books left, but once they are sold, you’ll only be able to get the individual stories via ebook. But remember, you can’t read just one! So get the whole enchilada instead.

Filed Under: General Writing Tagged With: Dance of Desire, House Tales, Master Of The House, Mistress Of The House, Pleasure House, Taming Bad

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