My Harvest Festival

First off I need to say whoops, I meant to blog about my garden harvest pre-snow. Today is the second winter wonderland spell we've had this season. Gorgeous fluffy white snow out there. I was thinking how busy fall has been, but then I thought the same for summer and spring, heck last winter, too.  Life is awesome, busy, beautiful and awesome. 

Rewind to Harvest

But let's rewind to harvesting time! I have a couple raised garden beds that I started by trying the square foot gardening method and have transitioned to a free-for-all. I know,  free-for-all fits my "pantser" writing style. And it absolutely delights me having plants come up from last year that have self seeded! I have trouble pulling them. I also get all twitchy when I go to cull so that the ones left may thrive. Pulling plants feels like stripping books in a bookstore. Ouch. But I digress, back to my garden. The potatoes actually grew!! This was my first year trying them and YUM!

Form and Function
We put in a new deck a few weeks ago and are planning where additional garden beds will be going next season. We like form and function (i.e. edible plants). I'm so going to have more potatoes next year. And a pumpkin patch! And carrots, and beets, and zucchini, and squashes, and a mix of leafy greens, and tomatoes, and loads of fragrant herbs, and oh my gardening is fun!

Still Learning
I'm still learning. And realizing gardens need more lovin' than winking and water. Weeding is good, and plant food, etc. But it brings me joy, and delicious organic, heirloom bounty. It brings me closer to my food supply and I get to witness earth energy.

Happy Learning, Happy Growing

Beets and carrots from my garden.

Potatoes from my garden this year.

A Wee Hockey Story to Celebrate the NHL Season Opener

Today is the NHL season opener. So I thought it appropriate to write a wee hockey story that my husband still laughs at. Stay with me ladies/readers, it involves Scott Stevens.

My husband is a hockey fan and grew up just outside of Toronto. Yup, you guessed it, he is a Leafs fan (and at this very second watching the Toronto/Montreal game). I know, we live in Calgary now and we both dig the Flames, but he'll always watch the Leafs. It's like it was early childhood programming or something.

Anyway, after we married I immigrated to Canada and wanted to be supportive, check this whole hockey thing out that he loves so much. I remember he had the pre-game crap, I mean stuff, on and I sat down to watch it with him. He then had to leave for a bit. I kept the channel where it was to watch, pay attention and figure this whole hockey thing out. I played sports, I can get this.
Get your hockey geek on. ;)

Toronto was playing New Jersey that night and they interviewed a dude names Scott Stevens. Okay, for anyone who doesn't know what colour this guy's eyes are, please do a Google Images search right now. Stevens played for Jersey and in his interview, among other things, he promised not to hit anybody. Then he smiled.

And I have loved hockey ever since.

My husband got back home and I told him about the interview and that he might have mentioned hockey players looked like that. He still laughs about it. When I told this story to a male hockey-loving fan, he had a completely different reaction, "Sarah, you just ruined hockey for me."

Sorry! But those eyes are so blue, that facial hair so grrr, that grin so cute. . . Yeah, that didn't make it better when I told him that.

Anyway, Stevens retired shortly after. Bummer.

So, I'd like to say thank you Mr. Scott Stevens for introducing a beautiful side of hockey to me. ;)

Happy NHL Season Opener.

What is Your Writing Inspiration?

A well of inspiration.
Grotto Canyon, Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada

Love and Nature

At the ARWA For the Love of Romance panel at When Words Collide a woman in the audience asked us what our writing inspiration was. It was a wonderful straight forward question and one that made me take a mental pause. 

What inspires me to write?

What inspires me is twinned with why I write. As I sat at that panel table, microphone in front of me, the audience looking expectant to hear our answers, I felt what inspires me rush in; love and nature. 

I felt with great clarity the (for me) blaring parallel of Love and Nature. The two create the same storm of feelings, rush of passion, swell of emotions, excited senses. The Natural World is a potent well of energy and feeling, just like Love.

In a few seconds, that question brought my whole writing career into focus. Writing is a way I can share Love and Nature with the world. 

Grotto Canyon, Kananaskis Country
Alberta, Canada

Feeling that Energy Feels Good

I walked in a canyon last weekend and the sound and feel of the wind enveloped me in an absolute heady energy that made me stop in my tracks. I just wanted to savor it, let myself experience the sensation. The smell of the sun-warmed trees delighted me every time I caught their fragrance. Each place I looked was as magical as the next. 

Love is like that, too. Just being near your beloved, feeling his/her energy, savoring that energy, that feeling, makes you feel good. For me, being in love and being loved parallels the experience of nature. I feel more in both.

How I Hug the World

I like to share Love and Nature with the world. For those who have met me, I'm a hugger. Writing about Love and Nature is a way I can wrap the reader in an embrace of words and feeling. A hug from me to the world.

The next time someone asks you what inspires you, think about. You might have a cool "feeling storm" right there in front of them as you try to keep a straight face and answer within a normal amount of time, meanwhile inside you are absolutely delighted 

and ah-ha moments are pinging throughout you. 

It's pretty cool. 

Thank You to the woman who asked the question. 

It is a great question.

What Inspires You?

Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

CBC Calgary's the Homestretch Interview Today!

Outside CBC studio in Calgary.

Happy Monday indeed! Today was an awesome day, I was interviewed by Chris dela Torre on CBC Calgary's radio program the Homestretch at 4:22pm! Do you know how excited I am about this?! CBC is one of my "happy places!"

I am team-teaching a pre-festival workshop at When Words Collide on how to write sexual tension with Lorraine Paton. Lorraine and I are members of the Alberta Romance Writers' Association, who is the affiliate writing group for the pre-festival workshop. The workshop is $10 and no conference pass is required! Although, When Words Collide is a fantastic fiction festival/conference and a steal at $65 for the three days! Join us August 9-11 at the Carriage House Inn in Calgary.

I was excited...and maybe a tad nervous for the interview, but I had a great time! Seriously, the team at CBC Calgary is fantastic! Thank you all for making me feel so at home and comfortable! You guys are awesome!

For more information on how to write sexual tension, join us at the workshop!

You can listen to the interview here:
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Local+Shows/Alberta/The+Homestretch/ID/2398743581/?page=2,

and sign up for the workshop here: http://www.whenwordscollide.org/affiliates.php.

Happy Reading, Happy Writing!

A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words

I just got back from an epic adventure on the north end of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We played in Telegraph Cove and then on to Quatsino where we had our base camp for our fishing adventures with Blackstone Fishing. I'll write all about it - both my real adventures in this blog and the landscape-inspired character that just today I added as a secondary character in Kiss Me in the Rain (due out the end of this year) that will of course have his own story TBD.

For now, here is a picture of the beach in front of where we stayed in Quatsino, BC.

Quatsino, north Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Happy Writing, Happy Reading, Happy Adventures!

How To Write Sexual Tension Workshop in Calgary, Canada

One of my all-time hottest and most-popular blog posts was when I wrote the entry Writing Sexual Tension, Heightening Your Readers' Satisfaction from the workshop I gave for ARWA (Alberta Romance Wroters' Association) in 2012.

A year and a half later I am team-teaching the workshop with Lorraine Paton for the wonderfully low  price of $10 as a pre-festival affiliate (ARWA) workshop at When Words Collide, a festival for readers and writers in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The workshop is Friday, August 9, 2013, from 9 a.m. - noon, at the Carriage House Inn. For more information and to pre-register click here.

The workshop is open to everyone who registers, you do not have to be registered for the conference to register for the workshop!

Here is that post that inspired this years WWC ARWA workshop.
From Sarah Kades blog:

SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2012

Writing Sexual Tension, Heightening Your Readers' Satisfaction

I gave a workshop for ARWA on writing sexual tension. Enjoy and Happy Writing!

Sexual Tension, Heightening Your Readers’ Satisfaction

by Sarah Kades

I love writing sexual tension. It’s fun, it’s dynamic, and you get to create a storm of feeling within your characters. Your characters dance around each other and their feelings for each other and wrestle with darn near everything under the sun trying to ignore the burning heat that is threatening to scorch them if they don't give in to the passion exploding through their system.

But they can’t give in. Not yet. Something is stopping them from grabbing that other person and rocking their core. And not just any something. Nope. It has to be a big enough deal to stop this rocking attraction. And sexual tension isn’t soft and fuzzy. Soft and fuzzy has a place, mind you, but it is not when the stakes and the passion are so high somethings got to give and your characters have no idea what they are going to do because they can’t act on the attraction (insert plot element here where acting on it would be the dumbest thing in the world, internal or external conflict) and they can’t not act on the attraction (because the attraction and passion are so real, so intense, so burning that not acting on it is the most unnatural and dumbest thing in the world).

Sexual tension has very little (sometimes nothing) to do with the actual act of sex. Sexual tension is passion unsatisfied. It is emotion and conflict, both internal and external, with anticipation and frustration thrown in the mix. 

It is that passion, that attraction that makes your characters’ life impossible because they cannot stop feeling their beloved (or be-lusted) everywhere. It’s distracting and oh-so-fun to write your characters going through it. It is up to you how you put it in there.

Sexual tension scenes grip your reader. I want my reader to feel what my characters are feeling, feel the sexual tension, feel the sexual frustration, feel the heat that is the no holds bar, intense, crazy attraction that can exist between two people.

The core of writing believable, charged sexual tension, is to feel it. Feel that fire and translate it to your reader. Have you ever met someone and were rocked to your absolute core? Have you ever felt completely consumed by passion? Have you been floored that you could feel that much? 

Write it. Make your characters feel that. 

And if you haven’t experienced, no worries. As writers we create. Create that feeling, that passion, with so much clarity that your readers are caught up in the maelstrom of emotions and conflict, both internal and external, the anticipation and frustration, that they are squirming in their seats desperate for release, too.

We write sexual tension by overstimulating our characters’ senses with each other. We have (at least) five senses to work with. Go play and have fun working your characters into a frenzy over each other. Remember, sensuality trumps sexuality in the sexual tension game, so work with your characters’ senses!

Love (or lust) amplifies everything, it takes ordinary situations and experiences and blitzes the system with feeling. Everything is more intense because there is an underlying feeling that is inexplicable, and impacts everything, it amplifieseverything. Sexual tension is part of that. Write it.

A few things to note:

Direct the sexual tension where you want it to go, not where you don’t. Don’t ‘conflict’ your characters into a corner they cannot get out of. Or a corner where your reader looses interest.

Throw your readers enough bones. Teasing your readers and characters is one thing, but they need something to tide them through. Sexual tension ebbs and flows. Heightening satisfaction includes the sensual dance of push and pull. Keep your reader actively engaged in this drama by keeping it rolling. Too much pushing with no pull will disengage your reader. Keep them engaged and wanting more.

Check otherwise “non-sexy” scenes and see if there is opportunity to heighten your hero and heroine’s awareness of each other. Sexual tension builds. Utilize the opportunities for it to build in your story.

Condom are sexy. Romance novels now include responsible, safe sex. Have fun writing condoms into your sizzling scenes.

Exquisitely craft your sexual tension scenes. Your characters, and your readers, will thank you. Happy Writing!

For more information, check out:

Juliet Burns, Sexual Tension – You want his WHAT to go WHERE? ©

 HYPERLINK "http://www.julietburns.com/tension.html" http://www.julietburns.com/tension.html

Connie Flynn, Creating Sensual Tension 

 HYPERLINK "http://www.theromanceclub.com/writers/articles/art0023.htm"http://www.theromanceclub.com/writers/articles/art0023.htm

Marg Riseley , The Exquisite Heat of Sexual Tension

 HYPERLINK "http://www.likesbooks.com/tension.html" http://www.likesbooks.com/tension.html

Beautiful British Columbia

I was in northern British Columbia for my other job, the non-fiction writing one, and had the pleasure of not only seeing stunning scenery and meeting great people, but also getting back up in a helicopter. Giddy-Up. (Calgary Stampede pun completely intentional. ;) Happy Stampede everyone!!)

Landscapes move me, just like many of the characters I write. What can I say, I dig sharing the natural world with people. . . and getting up in a helicopter. ;)

Sarah Kades' view from helicopter.

Happy Reading, Happy Exploring!