Good morning ladies and gents! Day Two has arrived and with it comes the scrapping of the whole 12 Steps to a Better Sex Life theme. It just wasn’t working for me so I’m afraid you’re just stuck with pure Chloe for a while… Buck up, folks. I have to deal with her 24/7. *grins*
A few days ago I wrote about the trials and tribulations wrought by Peak and Thrust’s infamous Chapter One. To summarize: writing it was a little piece of hell. However, the end result actually came out pretty sparkly and juicy (something a smut/romance writer is always proud of). I’m happy with it and I can only hope you’re happy with it too. So without further adieu here is your tease of the day!
Chapter One: A Sloe Gin Fizz and a Nice Juicy Steak…
“Laird Fox sat at the bar nursing a Sloe Gin Fizz, a ham sandwich and a hard-on.” (page 2)
And that, one and all, is the introduction to Laird, the mountain guide of our little Alaskan tale.
Speaking of Alaskan tales… doesn’t every romance author have to write at least one? I mean, Alaska is just this big old wilderness teeming with storylines, dangers, romantic rendezvouses and good ol’ fashioned adventure. It’s literally ripe for the picking. Besides, what better opportunity is there for a man to show off his manliness than in the closest thing America’s got left of a frontier? Think modern day cowboy without the funny hat and spurs.
To be honest, that was the reason I was a little leery of writing a novel based mostly in Alaska. It seems to have been done to death… and done to death brilliantly by so many better authors than myself that I was a little scared of sticking my toes into such a thriving pool. I enjoy my toes, having them nipped off by ho-hum sales I’d like to avoid.
Yes, color me a chicken.
But also color me a sucker because in the end I just couldn’t resist Laird Fox.
Once a character gets sown in my head, it’s really hard to let him go unborn. That was the case with Laird, my surfer boy in flannel (yes, that’s how I picture him in my head; blame the medication.) His story is one of love/hate, everything in his life falls into one category or the other. It was fun fleshing out a man so black and white into a whole array of fascinating and fearless colors. I try to make my characters as real, as heart-hungry and broken, as quirky as life truly is. I hope I was able to capture Laird in that light.
So will Chloe Stowe’s foray into the Alaskan wilderness be a success or a flop? Will her toes be nibbled off and carried away on the tides of “Been there, done that better than you, little girl”? Or will she and her extremities survive to write romantic smut another day? It will be a waiting game of epic proportions, one where sanity and self-worth teeter on the line between success and institutionalization…
Hmm, a back cover blurb for authors? Could be the wave of the future, folks… Just remember you heard here on Day Two of “Peak and Thrust’s 12 Day Sneak Peek Event” first.
Until tomorrow…
Chloe Stowe
Good morning world! Welcome to our first day of priming your pumps for the release of Peak and Thrust on Monday, November 28! Yes, the big date has been at least penciled in on stone, so we’ll aim our sites on being all ripe and ready for Joey Ballios and Laird Fox on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Are we all excited?
*pause under the weight of complete and total silence… I’m not even hearing crickets here, folks*
Well, yeah, that’s kind of why we’re here. We’ll get those crickets warmed up and singing off their little toes in no time.
It’s sort of apropos really, starting off with the whole world is deathly quiet thing, I mean. That deafening silence of no response, no feedback, no hoots and hollers, no whines and moans from an eager audience, that’s what I, like any author, feel like when I sit down to write those crucial first lines of a novel.
A blank slate.
Scary.
We’re talking freaking out scary, the kind where that flight or fight response kicks in and all your nerve endings get all prickly and nauseous and you start re-thinking your purpose in life and if you’re really worthy of being considered a life form above a slug and even those mute little crickets outside your window are starting to look at you funny…
Ok. That may be just me.
But you get the picture.
Scary.
So how do you start? It’s the Dickens versus King Dilemma.
Do you roll like Dickens and weave and sow words and characters and settings into a world so tight and so real that the reader loses themselves completely within it after the first ten or twenty pages?
Or do you go for the shock value, mold your efforts after Stephen King and throw the reader into the deep end of the story before they have time to even grab one last breath?
For me, when writing a romance that will be vying with all those millions of other romances out there, I go for the Wham Bam Theory.
Right out of the box, I try to hit the reader in the face. Slap a storyline or an emotion on them so fast that they have no choice but to turn to page two.
Then, after a few pages, when they’re hooked but still squiggling on the line, I try to reel them in with a little Dickens. Make them want to stay beyond just having to stay to find out what happens next.
At least that’s plan.
Does it work or not? That’s up to you, the fishes that give life and reason, the beautiful creatures that give slugs like me the courage to string a little line into the literary waters and hope for the best, little lines like these…
Prologue: Detroit
Gunfire erupted from the darkened house.
An unmarked police car sat in the driveway, its blue lights whirling madly in the hot Detroit night
There were no screams, no shouts of fright or anger.
There were no mad rushes, no frantic footsteps fleeing the scene.
And there was only silence on the police radio.
Stillness strangled the night.
If this peek at the Prologue of Peak and Thrust works for you, entices you to come back tomorrow and get a peek at Chapter One, I lay its success entirely at the feet of the Wham Bam Theory… since without that first initial “Wham!” there would be never be the proverbial sweet “Bam! and Thank you, Ma’am!”
I do hope to see you tomorrow, even though I realize now that I have compared you to bugs and big mouth bass… Hmm, I guess there really is a reason why my social life is stunted.
Until tomorrow, tell your friends, family and all your best fishes to come on by and help us warm up a few cricket toes.
Sincerely,
Chloe Stowe, the slug in today’s little drama
Welcome one and all to the 12 day preview of Peak and Thrust! Over the next week and a half, we will explore how my eighth novel can bring you a more satisfying roll in the hay. Yes, by following these 12 steps you and your lover can experience more zing in the sack, more va-va-va-boom in that oft-shared shower, more “ooh” in your “ooh-la-la”…
Or this could all be some clever marketing scheme to “peak” (notice smart tie in, please) your interest in my upcoming release? Hmmm. Well, the truth of my motives I leave to you my dear friends. I can promise you that if you do follow along you will be entertained, enlightened and quite possibly emboldened in your day to day life.
How you might ask?
With every step will come not only a preview of the name of one of Peak and Thrust’s chapters but also a teasing little excerpt to tickle your romantic bone… or your smut bone, whichever you bring to the party.
Along the way, my wry sense of humor will make frequent appearances as I give you all a behind the scenes “peek” at the writing of P&T.
More importantly, however, (at least I hope) are the tiny insights I’ll give you into life with a chronic mental illness.
Whenever you pick up a Chloe Stowe original, you get a little piece of me with it. It may not always be pretty and shiny, but I do hope it is always enlightening. Shining my little penlight into the often over-looked shadows of mental illness may be my reason for being here on this planet. I hope it is and I hope you will all share a little of your light with those still lost in their mind’s dark.
Then, of course, there’s the sex… or the step to better sex, I should say. (Sorry but the budget didn’t really allow for passing out condoms to all comers, so there will be no author sanctioned penetration here. However, please feel free to bring your own though to share with the rest of the group. The more condoms the merrier, I always say.)
Anyhow, there will be fun. There will be teasers. There will be uncut gems of hope. All I ask for in return is your patience with my sometimes royally screwed up mind. It may be a bumpy ride folks, but when we’ve got hot guys hungry for some loving bumping along with us then it’s all good, right?
Tomorrow Step One will arrive in your social media outlets and with it a look at the Prologue for my eighth original novel. Until then and to thoroughly whet your appetite for more I give you today the world premiere of the official (at least until my publisher changes it) back-cover blurb for Peak and Thrust…
“Happily ever after’s” rarely came to men like these…
Joey Ballios was a cop. For ten years his life had been little more than long foot chases through the cold Detroit snow, piles of paperwork on perps who would never be caught, and forty hour shifts that were as thankless as they were heroic.
Laird Fox climbed mountains. His whole life had been dedicated to scaling the unreachable and bringing the unattainable into the novice’s reach. He was a mountain guide in Alaska, a man who spent his days taking strangers to the top of the world, fulfilling their dreams while ignoring his own.
The two men’s lives should never have touched, their worlds never have crossed.
But when three gunshots ring out in a sweltering summer night, some lives are cursed while others are saved…
Joey’s partner is dead, shot in a darkened house that bears a dangerous secret. Running from that night, Joey escapes to Alaska.
There he finds Laird, a man who offers him sweet, scorching sex, a fresh take on life and a heart as scarred and as neglected as Joey’s own.
For five weeks they live for and love each other. But when the long held secrets of the past won’t let Joey go, both men’s futures are put on the line.
Will they surrender to a litany of lies? Or will they rise above them and rescue each other?
Sometimes Fate is more than just a whisper in the hot Detroit wind, more than just a wish on a distant Alaskan star.
Sometimes Fate arrives on tragedy’s tail, a post-script that begins with “Once upon a time.”
I hope to see you all tomorrow for Step One. Please bring your friends and your condoms!
Until next time…
Thank you all for reading!
Chloe Stowe
Years have passed it seems since I began writing my 8th novel, a deceptively innocent (for romantic smut, that is) piece by the title Peak and Thrust. Seasons have come and gone, institutions have crumbled and fallen (Penn State, anyone?), my poodle now has age spots, I now have age spots. For a 50K novel that the calendar vows to me only took two months to complete, P&T (as I have affectionately dubbed it) sure has been a scrappy-assed, long-in-the-tooth bear to write.
Yes, a scrappy-assed, long-in-the-tooth bear.
Are you feeling the love, here?
Surprisingly, you should be. For all the wrangling with its often ungainly legs, for all the brain food this little fella ate up leaving it’s mama high and dry on anything approximating intellect, for all the fur this precious one has shed in my life, I have grown incredibly fond of this little terror.
Ain’t love strange?
(If you don’t think so, give my books a read sometime.)
Anyhow back to the Ursa Major of this tale… You would think after writing seven books in the romance genre that writing an eighth would have words like “lickity-split” and “greased lightning” attached to it…. Yeah, I’m a naïve little bugger, aren’t I?
Live and learn, huh?
P&T started out such a happy, normal child. The outline was concise though appropriately detailed and nicely colorful. Laird and Joey were strapping young gentlemen eager for a little action and a lot of love. The men came ready to play and, heck, did I have a humdinger of a story for them.
The Prologue came out without a single labor pain. Slick as a whistle. Should have suspected something right there.
Chapter One… ah, sweet old Chapter One… with it came the teeth, the claws, the carnivorous spit. This little newborn cubby didn’t want anything to do with its mama.
Soon, it’s mama returned the feeling.
Yesterday, I turned in the completed manuscript to my publisher. Yesterday, I finished Chapter One.
I admit I let it fester. I let the toothy little beast linger unattended in the shadows. I let it spit venom at all the other little chapters.
Then yesterday as the big deadline clock in the sky prepared to strike, I gave the little fella one last go… (cue the big triumphant music here, folks)… and we bonded. Finally. It was a horribly sappy moment that you authors out there probably understand (at least, I hope somebody out there understands but we won’t really worry about that until my competency hearing, ok?).
With Chapter One’s return to the fold, P&T blossomed into a novel I proudly call my own… long teeth and scrappy ass included.
In the next few days please join me as I introduce you to Peak and Thrust chapter by chapter (much as I did for Hard Wood, Soft Heart). For twelve days, you’ll get a new chapter’s name and an excerpt. There’s bound to be laughter and tears, heart-warming anecdotes and harsh scraps of my reality as a day-to-day mental illness survivor.
As always, thank you for reading and thank you all for bringing every new Chapter One into my life.
Sincerely,
Chloe Stowe
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