A Peak Inside an Author's Mind

Today I'm so lucky to have fellow friend and author, Ashley Blade stopping by my blog  and she's promoting her newest book with Belladonna Bordeaux from Cobblestone Press. Congrats Girl! She'll also be giving away a free copy of Safe Harbor to one lucky commenter, so be sure to comment at the bottom of the post and include your email address so she can email you if you win. She's planning on drawing her winner on Feb 2nd.  Sooo....without further ado, her she is to talk about how it is to write her first sci-fi book. Take it away Ashley! 

Space, the final frontier...wait that s already been done before. Lets see, Buck Rodgers, yep done. Duck Dodgers? Yeah, even that irritating self absorbed duck has done Sci-Fi too. Hmm...there have been Aliens, Predators, there have been Space Balls and Space Pirates. Serenity and Firefly. Dr. Who is a good one. Torchwood. Mmm, Jack Hotness...I mean Jack Harkness. Ianto...even better. *Sighs wistfully, before shaking my head* So Ashley, what's the point?

Here is the point. Even though I have watched my share of Sci-fi, I've never written it before. Shocking I know. How can this be you might even ask--while biting your fist to keep the shriek of indignation from passing your lips. Well, I just couldn't wrap my brain around it. In all seriousness, although I love Sci-fi, it's intimidating as hell. You have these worlds made of beings who don't look like me or act like me. Eminem would be proud of me, I just stuck part of his lyrics in here. Did you catch it? Rewind, go back, see it now? *Grins* 

Anyway, so here I am working with Belladonna Bordeaux on this series, On Location. It's Sci-Fi. I think I died a little. She asked me to make notes add where I wanted to, question it and have fun! Oh joy. I think the first couple of times I read through the story, my hands shook, my brain ran a million miles an hour. Bella is a great friend of mine and I respect her more than I think she knows sometimes, so to be told, just do it, scared the shit out of me. Soon I settled though. I saw where I thought the story could be expounded upon and hit it hard. Of course, I watched my words and I didn't go all flutter-patted on it. I was conservative and tried to be the best writer I could be. In the end it came out great. Or well I think it's pretty great anyway.

Since then, it's only been a month peeps, I have been handed more work. Again, I repeated the process and this time I added allot less. I mean I squeezed words into it because the story, to me, was perfect the way it was. Of course I saw the things I would like to have extended just a little and that's what I did. Both stories were picked up by Cobblestone Press. AWESOMENESS!!!! Then Bella handed me this story, Mayday, contracted through Liquid Silver. I loved it from the get go. I mean it is a tech-geek paradise. Bella has a way with making alien technology realistic. I can't wait for everyone to see this story.

But we had a problem. Or well, Bella thought we did...I didn't see it. She worried. I wrote. *Laughs* It's funny how that happens. My mind goes from frantic author--it's missing something IMPORTANT to calm rational author--write it out. So I did...in the wrong POV. I died a little that day when she told me what I did. Granted, I am not great with POV, I have to constantly replay Law and Order in my brain to remember, if the person doesn't say it to the person explaining, its hearsay. If the person isn't telepathic, they can't know how someone else is feeling. It can be expressed through mannerisms but it can not be exacted upon. (Remember that peeps.) Not only that, but had I been paying attention to the ***** I would have noticed, we were back in HER POV...dumb ass. *smacks forehead* So I gave a great scene, but and this is a big 'ol but, *listens to the truck backing up the big but* it was in HIS mind. So I gave my friend more work, instead of less. *shrugs and mutters* At least she can't complain I wasn't keeping her busy....

Through it all I have had a blast. Bella has taught me some really great things. I have found that Sci-Fi is just like writing everything else, only I get to make up races and planets. In the end, a persons heart will always beat to the sound of their own drum and they will always find love. Or in some alien cultures, a mate. Love comes through actions not through words, for others. It's a great playground to dig around in...just stay out of the sandbox. You never know what creature was in there last.

Until next time peeps!

Ashley Blade

Blurb:  Kayleigh, a reporter for INTV, was supposed to be performing an in-depth investigation on the plight of the refuges from the Rhadarian conflict. The galaxy threw her a curve ball with a class five meteor shower.

The only thing that can protect her and her crew is a Dareaxian crystal.

A dying Dareauxia crystal.

Excerpt:

Chapter One

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me!

“This is insane.” Okay, Kaleigh Collins thought as she stood just inside the sliding iridium doors of her hotel room. Insane isn’t a strong enough word to describe this cluster fuck.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that the small, independent televid station she worked for was hot to have her broadcast on the intergalactic stage. Doing so while a category five meteor shower pummeled the defense shields surrounding Gamma Three colony was nothing short of sheer suicide.

We’re not even to the worst of it yet either. To think she’d landed on Gamma Three less than a week ago to do a deep, penetrating exposé on the plight of refugees from the Rhadarian Conflict, which had seemed so simple when her boss proposed the idea to her. Interview a couple of people. Get the lowdown from Gamma Three’s officials regarding the slow trickle of emergency supplies and humanitarian aid coming to the planet. Then jump on the first spacecraft and blast off for Earth.

She’d barely stepped off her interstellar transport when the first meteor storm warning siren had blared. They hadn’t stopped since.

Now she was as stuck as she could be.

“Come away from the windows,” her camera man ordered her.

She swiveled her head to spy the handsome Dareauxian sitting on the couch. A soft, breathy sigh escaped her lips. How long had she been hot for him? Too long.

What had her best friend called Krassus? That’s right. She’d said he was too tall, too good looking, and way too much of a temptation for any one woman to handle.

That he was Dareauxian only served to whet her curiosity to know what lay beneath his station-approved uniform. His specie’s reputation as Masters of the Bedroom preceded them. From the gossip circulating on the intergalactic blog sites, better known as glogs, they were said to be able to fuck like no other species.

Any position.

Any gender.

It didn’t matter to the Dareauxians.

It didn’t hurt that he wasn’t hard on her eyes. If she was truthful with herself, he was drop-dead gorgeous.

Taller than most earthlings, he had the most magnificent build of any species she’d had the misfortune of meeting. Broad-shouldered, strong-bodied—the man made her quake with unrequited desire.

If she had to name his best characteristic, it was his brilliant silver-colored eyes. She could lose herself in his steady, even-keeled stare.

There had been times when she’d stared at him and quivered to have his arms around her. Since this assignment had begun, it was almost an hourly wish.

She needed to find a safe port in this veritable storm and, for all intents and purposes, Krassus was about as close to it as she was going to get.

She smiled despite the fact they were about to get pummeled by huge chunks of space rock. Her grin disappeared as a smaller meteor tinked against the barrier. Get your head screwed on straight, she ordered herself. This isn’t fun and games time. This is serious.

Considering they’d been told by Gamma Three’s steward that the shields weren’t fully charged because of all the refugees draining the Dareauxian crystals, she nibbled on her lower lip. “Aren’t you worried about the meteor shower?” she said.

He appeared totally unaffected by the storm bearing down on them. If the smile lifting the corners of his kissable lips was any indication, he was amused by her terror.

He avoided her question with a casual air and a wave of his hand. “We don’t have to do another live feed for twenty minutes,” Krassus informed her for the fiftieth time since they’d done their last update moments earlier. “Sit down and relax.”

I don’t want to do another live feed at all. Trembling, she knew what she wanted and, for a change, it wasn’t part and parcel to her lurid daydreams of Krassus fucking her. Hell no. She wanted off the planet, preferably yesterday. I couldn’t relax if my life depended on it.

Bang!

She grabbed for the closest piece of furniture when another tremendous thud rocked across the defense shields. Catching herself on the arm of a chair, she watched colorful light slip across the normally transparent dome that protected the small colony. It crackled orange then yellow until it finally dissipated to white. The white light was supposedly absorbed by the shield generators. Maybe if God is in a giving mood.

Considering her bad luck and the disrepair of the generator, she pictured the archaic machine, which they’d surveyed the first day they’d been on the planet, overloading. The boxy thing should have given off a white-blue light. Instead, the D-crystal powering the shields had glowed with a grizzly gray color from its place inside the rusted hunk of metal. It wasn’t hard to recall her disgust of the sub-basement. The area had reeked of mold, and every once in a while she’d jumped when an open conduit crackled with excess energy.

“What has you so afraid, Kayleigh?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the idea that the shields will fail and we’ll all die of oxygen deprivation has me on edge.” She drank in a deep, steeling breath, trying to calm her heart, which felt about ready to drive out of her chest. “It couldn’t be the realization that the hotel will come crashing down around us if a big one hits that has me ready to jump out of my skin.”

“I’ll protect you.”

Really? How are you going to manage that? Turn into a Class V super-sedan and blast me off this pathetic excuse for a planet?

“Come here.” He held out his hand to her. “Come on. I don’t bite,” he added.

Pursing her lips, she imagined him holding her tight, fondling her tits, thrusting his fingers into her pussy. Jesus fricken’ Christ. I need to get over this infatuation. What she really needed to think about was how she was going to survive the next few days.

“Kayleigh, come here,” he ordered in a voice that didn’t brook an argument. “Now.”

“I just…” What? She didn’t have a clue. Run! her brain shouted. Hide! Both were phenomenal options in her opinion. The only problem was there wasn’t any place to run to and hiding—well, hell, she didn’t know the colony well enough to even have the first idea of where a proper hidey-hole might be.

Instead, she strode to where he sat.

He took the choice of standing in front of him out of her hands. Crackling sparks of desire stroked up her arm when he gripped her wrist with his glove-clad hand. He tugged on her arm, pulling her down, so she was sprawled beside him. Her skin tingled beneath her clothing. It was almost as if he was putting off tiny jolts of energy. “Hey.” She righted her position, putting about six inches between them. Squashing the urge to rub the tingles from her body, she stared at him through narrowed eyes.

“You need to relax, Kayleigh. It’s nothing more than a small storm.” He had the gall to chuckle at her. “Before you know it, you’ll be back on Earth reporting the news from the satellite station.”

For some unknown reason, he didn’t sound all that happy about her working from ITNV’s offices in New York City or doing her normal gig of man walking down the corridor on Pluto Station. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

A thousand questions rolled through her head, but she decided to trust him. She peeked at his watch. Fifteen minutes until the next live feed. A couple of soft thuds rocked the hotel, but they weren’t very strong. It was more a vibration that shook through their suite than the pulsing clunk of a much bigger meteor striking the shields. “Do you think we’ll have anything to report?” She heaved a relieved sigh when he shook his head. He laid his hand over her cold one. “It feels as though we’ve dodged a photon torpedo,” she muttered.

“The shields have been strengthened.” He turned his head to stare out the iridium doors.

“How do you know?” Quelling the urge to brush the scowl away from his brow, she leaned a little closer to him. All of her naughty little fantasies she’d enjoyed about him came rushing back.

“I just do.”

Thud. Thud. Thwack.

She jumped and wrapped her arms around his shoulders when a heavier thunk reverberated through the hotel. Her heart went into hyper-drive when his strong hands rested on her hips. Heat soaked through her clothes, and sweat broke out on his brow. “Are you all right?” She went to lay her palm to his forehead, but he stopped her by grabbing her forearm. He kissed her wrist instead.

His other palm slid over her cloth-covered ass. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.” His focus suddenly returned to her face. He clutched her butt cheek firmly. “What I’d like to do to you if I had you all to myself.”

She expected him to smile or at least give her a heads up as to where this unprofessional interaction was headed.

He didn’t.

The image of him thrusting his cock into her dark hole popped unbidden into her head. Her throat went dry. A bloom of heat settled low in her belly as he pulled her across his lap, so she straddled his hips.

His arm snaked around her waist. Her crotch came into intimate contact with the bulge of his erection tightening his pants. He bent his head and nuzzled the pulse thriving at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She could picture him with his head between her legs, licking and sucking on her clit. A burst of moisture soaked her panties.

“What…what…are you doing?” Not that she minded—at least, she didn’t mind much. She was just worried that he’d put her on a sexual tenterhook then leave her hanging. Please, God, don’t let that happen.

“Taking your mind off the storm.” He nodded to their field producer standing in the doorway. “Ja’On, would you care to join us?”

“Wait? What?” Kayleigh couldn’t have heard him right. She steered her gaze to the Tollerian. She licked her dry lips then tried to swallow around the clog of lust gathering in her throat. Kayleigh drank in the sight of the handsome man entering the room. Slightly taller than Krassus, Ja’On was as dark as Krassus was light. His exotic coloring mingled with his long, straight, raven-colored hair and broad shoulders to create a humanoid, who wasn’t just exquisite but almost as sexy as the man holding her to him.

Sparks of energy snaked up her sides as she took in Ja’On then turned her attention to Krassus. “The live feed.” Great. Now I sound like an idiot.

“I postponed the next update. The shower hasn’t even gotten started yet,” Ja’On said and strode to where she was straddling her co-worker. “Since we can’t report on the situation in the refugee camps, the director of news told us we should get some sleep. It’s not a bad idea considering we’ll probably be up all night.”

Shifting her stare from the dark-skinned Ja’On to the handsome Krassus, Kayleigh bit her lower lip to keep from shouting. Exactly what she wanted to scream, she didn’t have a clue. Her brain waffled between “Get me the hell out of here!” and “Please, fuck me!”

“I see,” she whispered instead. A bigger thud ricocheted through the hotel. It pulsed in time with the throb inching down her pussy walls. “This is nuts.” She shook her head. “Ah!” she squealed when Ja’On grabbed a fistful of her waist-length hair and tilted her head back.

“Relax, Kayleigh. You’re going to enjoy this,” Ja’On said. She stared into his obsidian eyes.

Without warning Krassus raked his teeth down the column of her neck. Tiny jolts of desire tingled up her inner thighs to tease her core. A jolt of pure lust rocked through her when Krassus jerked her against his pant-clad erection. Her hands flew to his shoulders, and her nipples turned to hard buds. “Yes.”

Krassus’s hands skimmed up her sides. His thumbs brushed the swells of her breasts. “I can smell your heat, mon amora. This pleases me.”

The interstellar communicator failed her. “What…what…did you just call me?” She could barely breathe. Her heart was going warp 10. Every nerve in her body twanged with unadulterated desire for the Dareauxian. Hell, she was so hyped she could probably take on both men and still beg them for more. She really needed to get laid. “Tell me,” she whispered, trying to swallow the moan inching up her throat.

“Later,” Krassus said. He licked a slow path across her soft skin. “Do you know how much I want you?”

Forming a cognizant thought, let alone a complete sentence, went flying out the window. She gritted her teeth. Hearing the rustle of clothing being removed, she wrapped her arms around Krassus’ neck. He nipped at her shoulder. “Please.”

“Please, what?” he whispered. “Please let you suck Ja’On’s cock, or please throw you down on the floor, so I can lick your sweet pussy?”

Both. “God.” The word tumbled from her lips. This is incredible. Hundreds of lewd scenarios played through her mind. “I want you…to fuck me while I suck Ja’On off.”

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