Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

More About Adriana

Focus #MFRWAuthor #Health

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Stay healthy? Here’s hoping! As we’ve been evaluating our purpose and focusing our writing and marketing energies after our three month break, we recognized that our highest value, what we prize most in life, is health. It undergirds everything else. Without it, none of the things we value and enjoy are possible.

We work hard to stay healthy. We eat a balanced diet, use fresh foods, and avoid excessive sugars. We spend at least ten to fifteen hours a week in some form of exercise, including core strengthening, weights and aerobics. We exercise our brains through staying curious, studying new things that interest us, traveling, learning new dances, working puzzles and playing brain games. No matter how hard we’re working, we take breaks, relax, get out and enjoy nature, and just chill. And yes, having hot sex is on that list.

When we were younger, I think we were more likely to take health for granted. Well into the second half of our lives, we know it’s a precious resource. We’re passionate about this, and we’ll be sharing more about this passion in future blog posts. Stay tuned.

A sample of what we love about staying healthy: Hiking at Bell Rock, Sedona, last January.

Adriana Sedona Hike 2015

Stay Sexy ~ The Best Little….

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Lacy-lips-mediumOnce it was the best little whorehouse in Texas—but now it’s in Nye County, Nevada, where we live, and it’s called the Chicken Ranch. So when friends invited us to Octoberfest at the Chicken Ranch, we decided we shouldn’t pass it up.

Loved it! Like no party I’d ever been to. Football was the theme, and guests were encouraged to wear team jerseys, so of course I hauled out my 2010 Championship T-shirt for the Green Bay Packers. Sad to say, not one of the ladies was a Packer fan – Steelers, Cowboys, Raiders, Broncos, even Seahawks. And I’ll have to admit their jerseys looked a little different than mine…

Drinks, finger foods, like any other cocktail party, with a little something extra. There was a “football” game where one player, blindfolded, had to carry a nerf football through the opposing team and endure a variety of tackles in order to reach the goal line. I won – and so did everyone who played, and I don’t think anyone minded the up close and personal tackles.

My favorite was the musical chairs lapdance. I’ll confess a lapdance has been on my bucket list for a while, so now I can check that off, very happily. Twelve of us, all genders, sat on chairs in a circle, and the ladies danced for us, then moved on to the next guest when someone yelled “switch.” Definitely entertaining.

Both of us also enjoyed a chance to talk with some of the ladies who work there. They’re normal people, making a good living. Some are saving up for hopes and dreams such as graduate school or starting a business. All are glad to be doing work they love in an environment that’s friendly, fully legal, and above all, safe.

Dare PartyI think that’s part of what made this such a fun, special event: a chance to be engaged in risqué, sexy behaviors with a group of like-minded adults, in a safe and legal setting where consent is at the top of the list and is honored.

Just like in the Dolly Parton movie, the brothels in Pahrump pride themselves in giving back to the community. They are often major donors to local charities, and they frequently host events open to the public, like Octoberfest. Next? A Halloween party at Sherri’s Ranch. I have my costume all planned.

 

Remembering Hollywood Park

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Remembering Hollywood Park

Historic Hollywood Park
Historic Hollywood Park

Two legs of the Triple Crown have been completed, and California Chrome is poised to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. This seems an appropriate moment to pause and remember the beautiful track where California Chrome first trained – Hollywood Park, in Inglewood, CA. The seventy-five year history of this exquisite racing venue came to a close at the end of the 2013 season, on December 21. We thought readers of our Riders Up series, set in the horse racing industry, would enjoy a photo tour of the facility.

My husband and I were fortunate to finally visit this track in person last November 15, a few weeks before its demise. Crowds were thin – part of the reason it closed is the popularity of off-track betting with those who follow the horses. But the venue still shone with its historic Hollywood glamor, at least to us. Hollywood Park PaddockIn addition to California Chrome, Hollywood Park was the training home of Seabiscuit, Citation, Swaps, Native Diver, Lava Man, Cigar, Zenyatta, and I’ll Have Another. Hallowed ground, for us. Here’s the paddock area – I’ll let you envision those famous horses saddling up as you stand at the paddock rails watching.

Several thrills for the day:

BHP TVG Hollywood ParkMeeting the TVG staff and getting my picture taken with them (Todd Schrupp, Paul Lo Duca, Simon Bray). We’ve been following the TVG network since 2000, shortly after its beginning, so we feel as though we “know” them, even though they’d never met us before. We’d be TVG network members if we could, but we live in Nevada, where it’s not permitted.

Having a chat with the Hollywood Park bugler, Jay Cohen, also the bugler for Santa Anita and Del Mar, so we learned he isn’t out of a job with Hollywood Park closing. He roams the crowds between calling horses to the post, and we enjoyed his occasional additional solos.BHP Hollywood Park Bugler Jay Cohen

BHP Call to Post
Call to Post

Seeing trainer Bob Baffert in person – totally recognizable with his shock of white hair. We watched his horse Infosec win a $30,000 claiming race and got to see him in the winner’s circle. Unbeknownst to us, Infosec was claimed in that race, and moved to Golden Gate Field under trainer Frank Lucarelli; he ran third to California Chrome’s win in the California Derby this spring

Trainer Bob Baffert and Infosec in the Winner's Circle
Trainer Bob Baffert and Infosec in the Winner’s Circle

And of course watching the races, cheering for our choices and reaping the benefits of hubby’s handicapping skills. We had a good day :).

Approaching the Finish Line
Approaching the Finish Line

Of course, you don’t have to own horses or visit a track (though we hope you do!) to experience the thrill of the race – Books One and Two in our Riders Up series are now available in Kindle format at Amazon:

Cassie's-Hope-eBook-web-redo

 

Riders Up

Book One

Cassie’s Hope

High stakes, a fiery Irish redhead, her stunning racehorse, and a fiercely loyal rancher

BUY LINK  Amazon

 

 

Heat-Wave-ebook-web

 

 

Riders Up

Book Two

Heat Wave

Hang onto the land–but at what cost? Feisty widow hires ace racehorse trainer to salvage her family’s heritage. Can they survive escalating threats to life and limb?

BUY LINK  Amazon

Garden in the Desert

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I’ve never lived in the desert before, but I’m coming to love it.

Sunday a college friend who lives here in Tucson invited me to brunch at the Tohono Chul Bistro – a delightful component of the Tohono Chul Gardens. After delicious omelets and sangria tea (fruit juice and tea, minus the alcohol 🙂 ), she guided me through the gardens, where she’s spent many hours writing and meditating.

Tohono Chul garden is  listed by National Geographic Traveler as one of the top 22 Secret Gardens in the U.S. and Canada, and I can see why. Designed to be a place where nature, art and culture connect, it is exquisite – and it was in bloom.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

My Writing Process ~ Blog Tour

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Welcome to the My Writing Process Blog Tour – a Monday feature where authors talk about their process and tag three more authors to share next Monday. Fellow Red Hot Authors Café author Lynda Bailey tagged me last week – you’ll want to be sure to check her post at this LINK. Thanks, Lynda! At the end of today’s post, I’ll tag three authors who’ll be joining the tour next Monday.

Q. What am I working on?

Sometimes I think my husband and I have too many irons in the fire. It seems we always have two or three new WIPs in various stages, plus some finished novels to edit and submit or publish, not to mention marketing everything that’s already out there.

Right now? Three unfinished manuscripts: First, an erotic romantic suspense (is there such a genre? We can think of no other descriptor for this book) entitled Next Man In – ménage, intrigue, a murderous villain on a personal vendetta against our hero, and a spunky pair of rodeo barrel riders for heroines. We love these characters – we just need to fill in some more details on the suspense plot.

Ripening PassionSecond: Book Four in our Passion series at Whiskey Creek, set in our (fictitious) New York based Institute that studies sexuality and creates educational sex videos. We’re having fun exploring what happens to romance with characters who have sex on camera for a living. Readers seem to like it, too.

Third: A time-travel series under contract with Extasy Books. The opener, set in Wales during the Roman occupation of the British Isles, is already finished, but we’re finding ever new complexities with these characters and their descendents as we bring them forward to the present day.

What that means for our process is that at any given time, a couple things have to sit on a back burner while we play with whatever’s hot. This week, it’s our rodeo riders.

Q. How does my work differ from others of its genre? The easy answer: most of our erotic romance features ménage – but very few authors are writing ménage for one man and two women. We also feature main characters across the age spectrum, including some in their fifties and even sixties. We’re out to prove Miley Cyrus wrong – great sex hardly stops at forty!

Q. Why do I write what I do? We started writing erotic romance because we hoped it would sell, but there’s a bigger reason. We’re baby boomers. It didn’t take us long to figure out that a lot of people our age have given up on sex. Clearly that hasn’t happened for us :), but we’re passionate about writing scenes that partners might like to read together to add a little heat or fantasy to their sex lives. So we write what we love to read (well, and fantasize, and watch, when we have time). Both of us especially love the possibilities that open up when we feature two women together. Readers might expect that an f/f/m ménage means two women focused on a man (and we know lots of men fantasize about this). But in our stories, we never put two women in the same bed without featuring their attraction for each other. Our stories are never about pleasure and fulfillment for just one person – we always strive for balance across our characters, no matter how many of them we throw in the bed at the same time.

Q. How does your writing process work? We’re a writing team. When a new story idea strikes us (and that can happen anywhere, anytime) we start noodling with it and taking copious notes, including on a napkin, if that’s all we have. A broad plot arc comes first, but then we spend long hours meeting our characters: who are they, where have they come from, what drives them, what tragedies and pain do they struggle with, what are they afraid of and why – background that might never show up on the page, but the stuff of their “real” lives. Then we start writing on page one. Every few pages we read what’s been written out loud and talk through what’s coming next. Once we write “the end,” it’s on to the seemingly endless edits. We take turns going completely through it until we think it shines.

Q. Who will we meet next week?

I co-founded the author group Midnight Seductions in 2007, and these authors have become my friends and support on the journey. I’m thrilled to showcase three of them in the Writing Process Blog Tour – watch for their posts on March 10:

EM Lynley

Beth Wylde

Qwillia Rain

It’s only maple leaves…

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The moment grabbed me from out of nowhere. Hubs and I were walking in the neighborhood (a daily practice, whenever weather permits). We rounded the corner, scuffed through the rustling golden maple leaves that had magically carpeted the sidewalk since only yesterday, and I was suddenly a five year old child in the front yard of the house I grew up in, where four mature sugar maple trees dropped their colorful bounty just for me, without fail, every autumn. A child’s paradise!

I’ve been thinking about the moment and about writing fiction – about the power of our sensory memory to transport us across time and distance, about the power of sensuous imagery to propel us into the moment. Four of my five senses were involved (well, okay, I never tasted them, now or as a child :)). Any sense by itself might have sufficed, but the combination was compelling. You can scuffle all sorts of other leaves in your path, but maple leaves have a light crisp sound all their own. It must be the sugar in them that creates their unique scent – I can smell them coming, and I wait for it every autumn. There’s the common musky autumn dried leaf scent, but there’s an added punch if it’s maple. The touch? Well, I didn’t pile them up for a tumble (they were my neighbor’s leaves, after all), but I did pick one up, crumble it in my hand and remember. And the sight – the intense color of any single leaf, the transformation of entire neighborhoods from green to gold (some years, mixed with some red and orange.)

Skillful authors use these details to pull us into the scenes they’re creating – here’s to more sensory images in everything we read, write, and do! And here’s a little taste of the autumn bounty from our neighborhood ~ the end of the lane, the view from our deck, and across the road from the front  of our house: