When I was in the spotlight at Whipped Cream’s blog last week, I talked about the soundtrack to the books I wrote. The fact of the matter is, those songs were earworms.  They drove me nuts the whole time I was writing. On the other hand, they also helped me over the rough spots when I struggled to find the words.

One of the commenters at Whipped Cream said I should put that soundtrack on my website. Me being me, I thought that a great idea! So I went hunting for a way to put the soundtrack on the Lex Valentine site. Since the demise of Imeem, I’d sort of been at a loss. Blip.fm confuzzles me. Last.fm is missing a lot of the odd stuff I listen to. I ended up at Playlist.com. And yanno, it worked! Well, mostly anyway. LOL Two songs are missing from the list but I put them on there individually using Rhapsody.

If you look at the soundtrack, it’s a pretty diverse list. And I bet if you look at the list, you’ll wince when you think of some of those songs as an earworm. And your wincing would be right. It was horribly painful to have the Backstreet Boys stuck in my head for weeks. Although, I have to admit, Helpless When She Smiles doesn’t sound like the old Backstreet Boys stuff. Sounds a lot more mature. For you rockers, you’ll see some fresh new stuff too like the Godsmack song and Breaking Benjamin. Both are worthy earworms.

So how do I finally get a new earworm without having to switch manuscripts? Usually, I play something else. Something just as earworm-worthy. It works until I wake up with yet another song stuck in my head. Oy.

This Monday I need to see something a little fanciful for my Marcus offering.

This suits the sci fi mood I’ve been in lately.   Don’t be surprised if I turn out a sci fi story in the next six months. LOL Have a great Monday!

When people ask me what my favorite Christmas song is, I usually offer up the old carols. The songs I sang in accapella choir. The Boar’s Head Carol, the Coventry Carol, the Holly & the Ivy, Carol of the Bells… you know the stuff. The very old non-commercial stuff. I could tell you all about the Coventry Carol and Lady Godiva and some other stuff, but MEH. No one cares anymore. Everyone likes modern music. Madonna doing Santa Baby. That Mariah Carey song. Aaron Neville.

Don’t get me wrong. I like some of ‘em too. Bing Crosby and David Bowie doing the Little Drummer Boy. But the truth of the matter is that in some ways I am a child of the 80’s still. The band that rose to such huge prominence and to this day retains as much respect for their politics as their music holds a place in my heart with their Christmas song.

Last year, I cried for hours. I just wanted Rott. I was so lonely without him. I was worried about him too up in the Sierras in the cold. I wanted things to be like they used to be. Of course, stupid me was thinking back several years instead of just one or two years. Our first Christmas together in Huntington Beach.  The year we were homeless and he brought a tree to the motel on Christmas Eve. I missed just holding him and having him hold me. Last year felt so much like my first Christmas without my parents that I got a little drunk. Couldn’t take the pain.

This year he’s home and all the joy and love that I thought would be there isn’t. It’s been replaced by wariness, caution, fear, trust issues, and a host of the most painful emotions I’ve ever experienced. I’m beset with loss and the man is right there. Things may not be hopeless but at the moment my limboland is painful and painfully barren. I’m not alone like last year, but the loss of so many of my hopes has left me feeling raw and even more lonely than I was last year.

I laughed at myself a few days ago about getting what you wish for. All I could wish for last year was to have him home with me where I knew he was safe and where I could show him that I loved him. This year… I know he’s safe at least. And when he smiles, I can see it. And I know that all this churning emotion at least tells me that I am still alive inside this shell.

And even if we can’t yet cross the chasm between us, and may never be able to, I have those places I can go to in my heart where I can still feel the heat of those memories we made together.  In my mind, Christmas will always be about that night we struggled to decorate a tree that filled a little room and how we laid together in the dark, holding hands, listening to midnight mass on the TV as the lights blinked on that dried out tree.

Sometimes, the best Christmas’s are the ones in your heart.

Shifting Winds

heroine: Elysia Granville, actress Naomi Watts

Hot Water

heroine: Eden Antaeus, actress Sofia Vergara

Ride the Lightning

heroine: Emily Carrington, actress Natasha Henstridge

And there  you have it! A look at sorta how the heroes and heroines of the Tales series appear to me. None of the photos do justice to the image in my head really. Immortals are all so much more perfect than humans and have that preternatural attractiveness that a human could never have. Meh. It’s one of the reasons I like my world so much. Even a woman like Emily who has more elegance than beauty comes of as extraordinarily gorgeous because of her dragon-ness.

Hope you all have a great Tuesday! Happy Holidays!

Last night was a special Jester Show featuring Dave2 of Blogography. They talked about a lot of interesting stuff from iPhone apps and politics to touching up supermodels and cruise ships.  Iron-Fist (Vahid) called in as did Snackiepoo (Hilly) and me. My very short convo with them at the end of the show was about Throbbing Vampire Cock, my favorite Davetoon of all time.

If you didn’t get a chance to listen in to the show live, check out the podcast above. Fans of Ride the Lightning will get to hear the real Vahid and Dave speak! Yes, they both sound incredibly sexy as does Jester who has the best laugh in the world.  Jester Shows are never to be missed. They are so much fun!

Have a great Tuesday!

So I finished the video and uploaded it wondering if I’d chosen right. The next morning I found myself unconsciously humming the song as I thought about the next scene I needed to write. Funny how things work out. It was the perfect song after all! It worked out like a plan within a plan although sorta random at the same time.

I’ll get back to Ride the Lightning in a minute cause I have a cute story to tell about it. But first I need to let you all know that Fire Season was nominated for a Rainbow Award. At the moment, they are taking votes from the public so that they can narrow down the nominees to a set of finalists that a panel of judges will chose a winner from. If you read and liked Fire Season, I very much appreciate your vote. I’d tell those of you who just want to support me to vote, but that feels sorta unethical for me say.

Anyway, the voting isn’t all that easy either unless you’re used to Live Journal polls. Here’s how you can vote for Fire Season in the Rainbow Awards:

Click this link to be taken to the poll. http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=1471994

Once there, you must sign in with either a Live Journal, Google ID or Open ID in the upper right corner. After you’ve signed in, on the left hand side click Fill Out Poll and you will get the voting page. Each category has multiple groups. You may vote for only ONE book in each group.

If you do not have any of those IDs to log in with you can leave a comment at this link with the name of the book you are voting for. Scroll to the bottom of the category and click on Leave A Comment.  http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/822605.html

I’m also guest blogging over at Naughty n’ Nice where I talk about being a Flash in the Pan! LOL You won’t want to miss me being all self-critical. *wink* I have lots of stuff coming in the next two weeks from interviews to blog posts to video features and contests. One of the things you can check out daily for one of my videos or books is The Romance Studio’s 13 Days of Halloween.

So, Ride the Lightning. First thing I have to say is that if it goes to print I’m sending autographed copies to Dave and Vahid. Vahid, of course, is my black dragon hero. Although, he’s a little tarnished at first. Dave, on the other hand, is blazingly hero-ish as the heroine’s best friend. Vahid Delrey is an arrogant black dragon who doesn’t really want Emily as his mate. She’s cold and haughty and not at all what he thinks will suit him. It’s not until he finds her in a BDSM club, hanging from her wrists, beaten bloody by an inexperienced Dom that he discovers her secrets and begins to feel chivalrous. So Vahid has issues. *sigh* (Yes, I know the story is sorta plans within plannish too.)

Dave Forrester, on the other hand, is a Magia (a wizard) who has been Emily’s best friend for years. As the owner of Far From Heaven (a BDSM club) he watches over Emily and tries to keep her from going too far off the deep end.

The funny thing about using bits of real people in a book is that I get it, but new readers don’t. Carol, a sweetheart of a woman on my Tales Yahoo group, didn’t realize that there was a REAL Vahid. So I showed her a photo from my Flickr account. Oh dear. She positively DROOLED over the real Vahid. Not that he’s not droolworthy. It’s just that she had a “Oh, oh, oh! OMG He’s REAL!” moment and it amused me. LOL Vahid already knew he was gonna star in this book but I hope Dave doesn’t get pissed that my character looks like him and has a thing for Liz Hurley… Wonder if he knows anything about whips?

Okay, time for a Marcus and then I need to haul myself off to work!

Ahh, so beautifully pensive. If you like Marcus click on this one and download it. It’s a large file. I’m off now, so have a great Monday!