Anya Bast

I sold a novella called The Deal to Harlequin Spice!! It is a super hot contemporary story about a woman who plays a series of blackjack games for sexual stakes.

It will be in an anthology called What Happens in Vegas…. along with stories from EC’s own Lauren Dane, Jodi Lynn Copeland and Kit Tunstall! It will be released in Spring of 2008.

Whee!

I promise I’ll make an honest-to-goddess update tomorrow. I have lots of things to say, just no time to say them.

Congrats to Lauren Dane for her two releases today — Taking Chase (from Samhain) and Thrice United (from Ellora’s Cave.

Happy Reading Everyone!

Holiday Party on the Silver Purr Loop:

We’re throwing a Holiday party on Friday, December 8th, 9am to 5pm eastern, on my Silver Purr loop!! There will be lots of yummy excerpts and prizes, great conversation and lots of fun!

If you’re not a member, you can sign up here.

Upcoming Chats:

Join me at Writerspace on December 17th at 8 PM EST at Writerspace to chat about Gettting Slayed, my novella in the upcoming Ellora’s Cavemen: Dreams of the Oasis IV anthology.

The Maverick Authors will be doing our next chat on November 21 at 8:30 pm eastern. Come and join us in the chatroom at our website. We’ll be giving away prizes as usual and having a great time chatting.

I’m back from ten days in Europe!!! It’s so good to be home. Crawling into my warm, soft bed last night surrounded by my purring kitties after a very, very long journey was better than sex. I’m sick (of course). I have a sore throat, fever and a sinus infection from a combo of cold weather, not enough sleep and a delicious yet not very healthy diet.

Kids, do not attempt 12 hours total in an airplane with a sinus infection. It is a.) very, very, very, very uncomfortable and b.) dangerous because of the pressure changes. I’m just glad I’m home.

Here are some pictures from our day in Gay Paris!!!

We got up at O dark hundred took the Talys (High-speed train) from Brussles to Paris. We arrived at the Gare du Nord where we hopped onto the metro that let us out on the Rue de Rivoli, which is a street near the Louve with a lot of shops and stuff. When we reached the Rue de Rivioli we spied a brassier on a corner and ducked in for a petit dejeuner aka breakfast. That’s my husband and I enjoying hot chocolate, croissant and some cereal.

L (our friend who came with us) and my husband enjoying same.

After that we walked down the Rue de Rivoli to the Louve, walked around a bit sightseeing, then caught a bus that goes around to all the major sights of Paris. You can get on and off as you choose, so it was a good deal for us since we only had one day here. We went to Notre Dame and then to……

The Eiffel Tower from the museum plaza across the street, taken from the top of the bus and with a tad of L’s hair.

Me and my husband at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

L got this shot of us kissing at the base.

Taken from the second tier of the Eiffel Tower. It was very hazy that day (and cold!!!) so we didn’t go all way to the top. You couldn’t see anything from up there because of the crappy conditions.

After that we hopped back on the bus and went to the Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elysees and the Arc du Triomphe. The traffic circles around the Place de la Concorde and Arc du Triomphe are enough to give a person a heart attack, by the way.

Then we hopped out somewhere near L’Opera and got some lunch in a very smoky cafe. The smoke over there is incredible. We’re so spoiled with the no smoking laws here in the US. I felt like I was smoking a pack a day. I’d forgotten about that little bit of nastiness.

My husband and L at lunch in Paris

My lunch — a Croque Monsieur and a salad.

Then we abandoned the bus for the Metro and headed to my favorite place — Monmartye. Here is a shot of L and my husband in front of the Basilique de Sacre Coeur.

We sat in a little outdoor cafe and had wine, mine was mulled and deliciously warmed, while L….

… had her portrait done by one of the many artists in the square.

God, we were tourists from Hell. It was great.

Then we hopped the Talys again…..

…missing la Greve (a strike) by the train workers by mere hours. Since we were so close to strike time, the train was slower (on purpose, so the workers could make their point) and they kept flicking the lights off.

We got back to Brussles at almost midnight totally exhausted from over 13 hours on foot in Paris, but my mother-in-law (who picked us up from the train station) insisted on buying us a beer at a pub in the Grand Place.

“Please, the beer is wonderful, but we want to sleeeeeep!!”

Did you know I have a newsletter? I do! It’s called The Sultry Pen. Did you know that I’m writing a free story for my newsletter subscribers? I am! The fourth part of my free story Tranquility will go into the next edition of The Sultry Pen!! You can catch up on the story (complete with original typos!) in the last edition, posted in the archives for subscribers.

And just when you thought I couldn’t possibly use any more exclamation points…. I even give away prizes every month in random drawings. They’re GOOD prizes too, like $20 GCs to Amazon.com, free books, and chocolate! November’s prize is a Border’s gift card.

Here’s a link to join.

Please note that the excerpts and the free story are hot, so no one under 18 may join. Thanks for your understanding.

Yay!!! The background is fixed. Pretty, isn’t it?

We recently had someone over at our house who, upon running into Kitty, our outdoor stray (honestly, he’s not much of a stray. He’s pretty spoiled and well taken care of) commented on the “unluckiness” of having him hang around…and maneuvered so he could not cross her path.

Here is a picture of Kitty:

I was offended for all of blackcatdom.

This is the second time I’ve heard this strange superstition openly expressed. The first time we were at a resort in Mexico where there were several stray cats. One of them (scenting we had “sucker” written all over us) followed us back to our room, where we invited him in and ordered him room service (a hot dog).

Anyway, one of these cats was black. A drunk woman saw the black cat and raised hell, yelling about bad luck and why doesn’t the resort round up all the black cats and drown them.

:-/

There have been few times in my life I’ve wanted to punch someone, but this was definitely one of those times.

An animal shelter volunteer once told me that they can’t adopt black cats out. That if you go into the cat room on any given day, the overwhelmingly majority of cats are black. Mostly, I don’t get it. Why don’t people like black cats? Why do people persist in these silly superstitions in the year 2006?

Personally, I adore black cats. We have three. Kitty, Wiggle and Kokopop. They are sleek and beautiful. They have attitude. They can blend into the shadows for superior stalking ability.

Basically, black cats rule.

So do me a favor and be nice to a black cat this Halloween. Out of all the different colored cats in the world, they have it the worst.

If you visited my blog in the last couple days you may have seen a funky background (pretty, but not oriented properly to my blog) and it was probably hard to read. Luckily a very helpful person alerted me to this problem.

Seems the background that was being hosted remotely was changed. My fault. I should have been hosting the background myself. Duh. Anyway, this background is a temporary fix. A bit bright and hard on the eyes, isn’t it? I’ll have it adjusted as soon as I can.

Dreams….

I’ve been having very vivid dreams lately. I tend to go through cycles of vivid dreams that I remember in the morning and cycles of non-dreaming (or at least I don’t remember them).

Vivid dreaming has been something I’ve done since childhood. I still remember some dreams I had as a child. When I reached young adulthood, I began to lucid dream.

A lucid dream is when your sense of self “wakes up” during the dream. You realize you’re dreaming and you may be able, if you have the ability, to alter the dream itself. Lucid dreaming is an unmistakable occurrence. You KNOW when you’ve had one. It’s like being in reality — you can touch, smell, feel, ect — except the world is surreal. The couch is on the ceiling or Cookie Monster is in your living room. (Both have happen to me)

In lucid dreams I have crawled on the carpet (and experienced the scratch of it under my knees and hands) chasing darting shadows that felt smooth and silky between my fingers. I have caught snowflakes on my tongue and flown over a patchwork quilt of the countryside. In dreams anything is possible.

I’m fascinated by dreaming and lucid dreaming and probably have every book ever written on the subject. If you’re interested, I highly recommend the works of Robert Moss. He’s done a lot of research on dreaming cultures of indigenous peoples, shamanic dreaming and the like. Fascinating stuff.

I haven’t had a lucid dream in a long time. Since I don’t have the time or energy to induce lucid dreams, mostly they only happen spontaneously these days. I am, like I said, dreaming vividly though.

Sometimes, like last night, I’ll dream about a place and then I’ll revisit that place over and over. These aren’t recurring dreams because the cast of characters and the situation are different. The symbols are different. The place, however, is the same. I dream sometimes of roads that twist through forests. Narrow in places, they flood easily and quickly. That where I was last night, trapped on the end of a quickly flooding road and a thunderstorm rising in the distance.

Ominous, huh? I still haven’t figured out what it means, but I do think it means something to me. Pulled from our subconscious, I believe each dream we have is a message from us to us.

There is value in remembering and interpreting our dreams. If you can’t remember your dreams, there are ways to enhance your ability to recall. If you do a Google search, you can come up with many web sites packed with info on ways to do this. Most effective is simply staying quiet for a couple minutes after you wake. Don’t move. Don’t turn over. Don’t do anything but allow the flood of memories to enter your mind. Keeping a dream diary is very effective too.

What’s your take on dreaming?

The ever-lovely Patrice Michelle was kind enough to alert me to this great post on Dear Author for WATER CRYSTAL. They are TOUGH over there, so I am very content that this book was enjoyed. 🙂 🙂

Check it out!

Either that or it’s very bad allergies.

For the last two weeks I suffered some kind of back injury. I thought it might be sciatica but, in hindsight, I THINK it came from toting my computer into Best Buy to be fixed while wearing high heels. Don’t try that at home, kiddos. I’m just sayin’.

But the back is (mostly) healed. Now I have a cold. I’ll take a cold over a hurt back, though.

There is a good thing that came out of it. I learned about ergonomics. It’s an important thing for us folks who spend a lot of time at computers.

Now I’m sniffing and sneezing and researching demons amongst discarded Kleenex. *rubs hand together with glee* I love me some demon research. Heee!! *Achoo*

Romantic Times Book Review magazine gave four stars to Seduced in Twilight in their November issue.

“Bast’s enticing story focuses on male warrior partners who discover that their “third” is a female, and that she will be bonded to them for plenty of time in the future. While the story contains contains deliciously sexy menage moments, there are no male-on-male scenes. The attention focuses on Olivia’s relationships with Mason and Will as individuals.

Yee ha!