I’m still looking for a home for “Cat” the novella I wrote back in December. To be honest, I haven’t been looking very hard, though, with everything else that’s been going on.

Last week, I wrote a short story based on “The Little Mermaid” called “Each Step Sublime.”  I read the original story, which I hadn’t done before. And you know what? “The Little Mermaid”  is one seriously effed-up story. Really. It’s scary and dark and heartbreaking, and not even the “positive” ending Anderson tacked on after the fact can make it less depressing.

I loved it. And hated it. And I knew I had to write my own version. So I did, and had a grand time doing it.

My reader cover, closed.

Another thing I have been doing is making random stuff. As an example, check out this cover for my Sony ebook Reader. Because I am a fabric whore, I made the whole thing out of silk. The fabric is black-and-white silk broadcloth. The ribbon is also silk, and has the added advantage of matching the new color of my office walls. It’s highly impractical–and I love it.

The eReader cover, open.

For the first time in several years, we have a Christmas Tree. It’s not a live one–the one and only time we had a live one, I was still vacuuming little needles out of the crevices in the floor in June–no, our tree is a fake we got on after Christmas sale a few years back. Last week, my sister came over, and we fired up the Christmas tunes on Pandora and made gingerbread cookies, and a gingerbread house, and decorated the tree.

So, anyway, I’m all aglow with the Christmas spirit. I don’t know how long it will last–my guess is it fizzles out around 5pm on the 25th–but it is rather pleasant. Heartwarming, even.  I’ll enjoy this happy holiday haze while it lasts, and use it to wish you a heart-felt, warm-and-fuzzy Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good write!

Once upon a time there was a scheming, lying tart who cared for nothing but her own beauty, her pleasures, and her shoe collection. Please, do not decide to hate her just yet, for she is the heroine and narrator of our tale. She is the delightfully wicked Lady Catriona, who will, before this story ends, lose all, gain all, make a friend, and find true love. Oh, and somewhere in the middle she gets turned into a cat.

The story is one you may think you’ve heard before. It’s the story of a hapless miller’s son and a clever cat with a fetish for fine footwear. It’s the story of Puss-in-Boots—but don’t you dare call her Puss. That name is far too ripe for ribald puns. The lady prefers you call her

Cat

The word hope has been thrown around a lot over the last couple years–so much so that it sometimes feels trite–but what else do you call this feeling? What else do you call it when your cynicism is wiped away, and the perilous world suddenly seems full of possibility?

Hope. I think I’m hopeful.

Chapter 4!

Hello, all.. Apparently some folks had trouble seeing this entry. I’m sorry about that. I checked it out and there was a ton of Microsoft gobeldygok in the html. I removed it, so that should clear things up. I dunno, it’s been displaying fine for me since I posted yesterday afternoon, so if anyone can’t see this, drop me an email (bettie @ [my domain name]). Oh, wait, that won’t work…

Chapter 4

Chastity stepped from the private luxury jet onto the sparkling white Italian marble tarmac of Cesar’s private airstrip. Chastity’s delicate sea-green eyes were more accustomed to toiling indoors scrubbing floors and changing diapers than cavorting on private Italian marble runways owned by virile Italian billionaires, beneath the overwhelming heat of the bright Italian sun. Her beautiful sapphire orbs began to water.

“Well, signorina,” Cesar said. “What do you think of my palazzo?” He leaned down from his great height to look into her streaming eyes. A strange expression crossed his handsomely rugged face.

Chastity wanted to ask him to return her sunglasses, which he had placed on his face before deplaning, but he silenced her by laying a finger across her lips. His finger was so strong, so masculine, so exotically Italian. She had no choice but to remain silent.

“Shh! Do not speak, signorina. I can see that you are overwhelmed by the size and beauty of mi palazzo. Your emotional reaction does you credit—unlike the gold-digging whores I have known in the past who mutter envious words like, ‘tacky,’ ‘garish’ and ‘overcompensating’ when they see my beautiful home.”

Mutely, Chastity nodded. Cesar’s Palace was as magnificent as the man, himself. In addition to the polished marble, crushed diamonds and gold leaf, Cesar had decorated the grounds of his palace with many tasteful reproductions of Michelangelo’s David and the Venus de Milo.

“Come,” Cesar ordered forcefully as he led her into the palazzo. “We will film the first commercial right here in mi palazzo. The camera crew awaits, and my fine team of chefs has prepared a grand buffet fit for the likes of a Roman emperor or a middle-income tourist.”

Windows lined the walls of the grand dining hall. In the center of the room was a long table bearing delicacies like chilled shrimp, lobster bisque, and some adorable little baklava made with walnuts, peanuts and honey.

Chastity gaped in awe. She had never eaten at a buffet. High class meals like buffets were too sophisticated for a simple girl from the lesser Piddlehinton metropolitan area.

For the second time since deplaning, tears came to Chastity’s eyes. But this time it was not the powerful Italian sun which caused them. No, it was the powerful Italian man by her side. The man who cared so much about her little babies that he spared no expense in making sure they were well fed and cared for while he filmed them for commercial purposes.

“Your eyes are leaking again, signorina. Perhaps you have the hay fever? Let me see.” Cesar grasped her delicately pointed chin in his large, masculine hand and tilted her heart-shaped face up to his.

Their eyes met. An electric connection sparked between them. The sensation that raced through Chastity’s body was not unlike the many times she had accidentally walked into the electric fence that bordered the pasture behind the orphanage.

She could not free herself from the powerful pull of Cesar’s dark, exotically Italian eyes. Cesar did not look away. He stared at her. His nostrils flared and the masculine bulge in his pants grew as straight and as hard as a pillar of fine Italian marble.

When he spoke, his rugged voice was low, seductive and suspicious. “I once knew a woman with eyes like yours. Her eyes were the color of the sky outside this window, or perhaps they were the color of the strange-smelling blue liquid my janitors use to clean this window—my memory is somewhat hazy because I was drunk. But I will never forget that her eyes were blue.” Cesar pinned her with a powerful, suspicious stare. “Your eyes are also blue, signorina. Don’t you think that is a strange coincidence?”

With a gasp, Chastity tore her heart-shaped face from Cesar’s strong grasp. What if Cesar recognized her? If he discovered Chastity had once shamelessly yielded to his ruggedly handsome good looks before running away to bear his children and toil in abject poverty, he would surely reject her as a gold-digging whore.

He would take the babies from her, and there was nothing she could do about it. No one would believe she was fit to raise her precious angels. She’d had sex! With a man! How could anyone trust two innocent babies to the care of a woman who had done such a thing?

Chastity bit back a sob of sorrow. She had to keep her identity a secret if she wanted to keep her babies. She had no other choice.

“I—” Chastity stuttered as she tried to think of some way to shield her true identity from Cesar. “I have the hay fever!”

She covered her face in her hands and ran in the direction of the nearest restroom. After locking the door behind her, Chastity dried her eyes and took a few huffs of her beloved permanent marker to calm her nerves before straightening her wig and returning to the grand dining room.

The buffet was in chaos when she returned. The film crew was arguing in Italian. The tables were overturned, chilled shrimp, lobster bisque and baklava bits littered the floor. In the center of it all, Cesar stood holding the twins in his strong, masculine muscular arms. The sight of such a handsomely rugged man holding two small babies would have been as heartwarming as an Anne Geddes photograph, if not for the fact that Miracle’s little face was swollen and blue.

“Mi bambino,” Cesar shouted. “We must help him.”

“He’s in allergic shock!” Chastity cried as she rushed forward, drawing the epipen she always kept in her pocket. With the efficiency of a professionally trained and licensed nurse, she administered the precious medicine.

Within minutes, Miracle was breathing normally again. Chastity followed Cesar up to the nursery his staff had prepared for the babies, and they put the precious angels to bed.

“I am fortunate you were here to administer their medication.” Cesar whispered as he came to stand beside her at Miracle’s crib. “You acted not like a nanny but like a—what is the English word for a lady doctor?—a nurse.”

“Thank you, Mr. Machismo.” Chastity smiled at Cesar’s compliment.

In fact, she was a nurse. She had earned her degree by taking night classes when the babies were asleep. After graduating at the top of her form, she’d thought about finding a job as a nurse, but she could not bear to leave her babies behind.

Chastity could not have cared for them on her own, either. Who had ever heard of an unmarried woman caring for two children by herself? No, she’d had no choice but to stay at the orphanage.

“I do not understand what happened,” Cesar said as he watched Marvel rest peacefully in his crib. “We began to feed them the delicacies from the buffet—the chilled shrimp puree, the lobster bisque, the walnut and peanut baklava pudding made with organic unpasturized honey—and this one turned blue. I do not understand. I give them only the best foods, and feed them with silver spoons. What could have gone wrong?”

Chastity looked up at Cesar. Her heart wrenched at the look of concern on his ruggedly handsome face. He was so upset. She did not have the heart to tell him that little Miracle was allergic to nuts, shellfish, honey and silver.

She couldn’t hurt Cesar’s feelings by telling him that he had been responsible for Miracle’s allergic reaction. Cesar would be devastated, and the fault was really hers. She had been the one to leave the bambini unattended with no one but Cesar, several waiters, and a commercial camera crew around to watch out for them.

It was not Cesar’s fault he had not noticed the medic alert bracelet on Miracle’s wrist, or the medic alert necklace he wore. Or the child’s custom-printed t-shirt which read “Please don’t feed me nuts, shellfish, honey or silver.” She would just have to hide the truth from him, and watch her babies more carefully in the future. She had no other choice.

“These things happen sometime, Mr. Machismo. You mustn’t blame yourself.” She dared lay a gentle hand on his broad, masculine shoulder and awareness jolted through her like electricity from an accidental brush with her old nemesis, the electric fence.

“Signorina,” Cesar whispered seductively. He cupped her cheek with his right hand.

Chastity met his hot, sensuous gaze. “Yes.” She answered him in a breathy voice.

Without another word, Cesar pulled Chastity to him, crushing her fragile body into his powerful, masculine embrace. Chastity knew she should try to resist him, but her heart was beating so fast. His strong arms held her so tightly. She seemed to be having difficulty breathing.

Spots swam before her eyes as Cesar’s tongue pressed insistently against her closed lips. It pressed against her lips almost as insistently as the hard, masculine bulge in his pants pressed against her waist.

Her lips yielded to the insistent pressure of his tongue. Cesar ravished her mouth with his, claiming it like an explorer thrusting a flag into the soft, fertile soil of an undiscovered land, only not so painful as that analogy might imply. The important thing here is the implication that soon, Cesar would thrust a pole of a different kind into Chastity’s soft and fertile parts. Because Cesar Machismo’s pole was more than ready to be planted.

Chastity disgraced herself with a wanton moan and Cesar thrust his hand into her hair to tilt her head further back so that he could continue to ravish her delicate pink lips. Just when Chastity was about to break off the kiss and explain that her neck would not bend to such an acute angle, she felt something pull loose from her hair, and the pressure eased.

“What is this?” Cesar growled.

Chastity opened her eyes to find Cesar staring at her while holding Gladys’s dog-washing wig in his left hand. His right hand was open, but stained with a black mark of not-quite-permanent ink that had rubbed off from the mole she’d drawn on her cheek.

Anger darkened Cesar’s features as he looked from the cheap wig to the ink on his palm to Chastity. “That hair! Those eyes!” he roared, throwing the wig to the ground.

“You! You are mother to mi bambini! You are the filthy whore I thought I loved, two years ago! Which means mi bambini are truly mi bambini.” He glared at her. “I cannot believe you let me exploit my own children for crass commercial purposes.”

Chastity stood, shocked. “You thought you loved me…?”

“Never mind. It is in the past, now. I was foolish to ever harbor tender emotions for a scheming gold-digger like you. You are a cold hearted stage-mother who thinks nothing of exploiting her children by putting them in commercials. But I won’t let you exploit my children. Not mi bambini!”

Cesar threw the tatty wig to the ground. “I know exactly how to deal with a harpy like you!”

Chastity hung her head. He would send her back to the orphanage and never let her see her babies again. She had no hope of fighting him. She had no choice but to do as he said. “You’re sending me away?”

Cesar’s angry face grew angrier. “Of course not. Cesar Machismo would never put the mother of his children out on the streets.”

He stalked to the door and jerked it open. “Tomorrow, we will get married.”

I suppose I should feel angry or something, but mostly I am just hurt and disappointed. I make plenty of material available for free. I like writing. I want readers to enjoy what I write. I have always appreciated it when writers provide free stories online, so I do the same. Pay it forward and all that.

This is why I am so disappointed to see the one and only story I have ever sold pirated. Right now two thirds of all Bettie Sharpe stories available to readers are free. I would appreciate it if instead of pirating the third story, people spend the $2.80 or $3.50 to buy it outright.

That’s less than the price of a latte.

My royalties from Like a Thief don’t pay for my tuition, or my school books or my health insurance. I can’t quit my day jobs. One day I’d like to be able to make a living on my writing, but I know the realities. My chances are slim. However, the fact that I actually have made money on a story–a story that still sells a few copies a month–gives me hope.

I like romance readers and the romance reading community. My experience as both a writer and a reader has been overwhelmingly positive. I believe the pirating of my novella was an abberation–the act of one inconsiderate individual amidst a veritable ocean of decent, honorable readers.

I don’t think my words here will influence that one person to change her mind. Mostly, I just wanted to give a clearer impression of exactly who gets hurt by piracy. The answer would be me: a woman in her early thirties who works two jobs when she isn’t in school. A woman who loves loves to write, and dreams of one day being able to make a living doing what she loves.

Get it while it's hot...

I’m taking a break from my nonstop writing orgy (32K since Thursday) to pimp the book of a friend. Now, I just bought my copy today, so you will have to wait a bit for me to rant and rave about Evie Byrne’s new novella, Dante’s Inferno, but I’ve read another book of hers that will be coming out soon from Samhain, and I’m currently reading one of her works in progress, and they are both fab-u-lous.

And if you want a professional opinion, just check out Mrs. Giggles’ review of Dante’s Inferno.

Not bad for book number one, eh? So buy yourself a copy. Get hooked.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled lack of blogging.

This past week, I’ve been a writing machine. Since Thursday afternoon I have written 29,204 good keepable words (Probably closer to 35K including what I’ve cut). Now if only they were all on the same WIP! But spread across 3 that’s still about 10K each. And the average is 5,841.16 words per day. Which is not bad considering I was at work all of Friday.  And the hubs and I binge-watched four episodes of Dexter, season 2 in a row yesterday. And, I cooked, ate, and slept and bathed regularly, too. But, damn, my arms feel like they’re going to fall off.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will now go off into the real world and catch a movie with the hubs.