A season to celebrate!

Drop on over to my website, click on the books link to see all the special bonuses you can get for buying one of my books from now until April 15, 2009. Guaranteed, you are sure to find something to please the most discriminating tastes.

Angeni has gone to print from Red Rose Publishing! Thank you Red Rose.
Shape shifters and paranormal transporting - multi-cultural entertainment. She a spider - he a wolf, she a singer, he a promoter--but nothing is quite as it seems and when this dynamic duo connect evil is bound to be on the run.

Lavender Lust and Spider Island are available (around June in print) from Bookstrand
Lavender Lust is more than black and white and Spider Island makes a person look at Stephen King's Dome in a whole new light. How could two authors have the same ideas - basically, at the same time. Mine was published long before his however {smile} and mine --is an island in Lake Superior, bound to chill your spine and thrill your need for a romantic suspenseful read.

And Dark Thunder and Valentine Express are available at Erotique Press.
Thunder is the noise, the lightening strike precedes - clairvoyance doesn't always protect its owner - and the raven-eyed warrior may be the devil in disguise.

Visit the website at http://www.cricket-sawyer.com click on the books link - hurry before this offer expires.

Changes

When you live in Northern Wisconsin you expect changes (winter/spring/winter) rain/snow/rain I love it.

When you are a writer you expect changes. Some publishers open doors others close theirs. One of my publishers will be closing their doors at the end of the month. I'm very sad to see Forbidden Publications going by way of the also rans.

Irish Whiskey - that just came out late last month with them and Inferno which was scheduled to release the 5th will not be released. Two others which were contracted by them will also be looking for a new home.

It's never ending this submission/rejection/acceptance route in this business. As an author one must have a calloused and turtle shell psyche, other wise I'm afraid we would all just give up.

But, you know what they say, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Time to pull up the bootstraps and dig in for yet another round.

Meantime you can still find Cricket releases on Erotique or Red Rose or Siren/Bookstrand--so come on up and see me some time! (Special Thanks to Mae West - "She Always Knew How" a bibliography by Charlotte Chandler (and Mae's verve.)

Time Flies and Turtles Take One Step at a Time

Sometimes when you are in Turtle mode you get there, eventually mean time you may miss out on a whole lot... So,for today I'll be in time mode and fly over here to say - HEY!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Would you believe Blue Interlude is in edits -- it won't be long before you will get an eye full of Cyan and her blue-eyed hunk. Can you imagine getting stuck in a tornado in a root cellar in the middle of Oklahoma? If it was with a hunk to die for you wouldn't really mind would you? What if his Camaro wound up deposited in a tree by the same tornado? (shhh, I don't want to give it all away--but if you thought Darien was a dark knight in search of a love story- wait until you meet...Nathan {VEG}

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Did you get your VALENTINE BUNDLE YET? If not you better hurry Valentines Day is only two days away and I wouldn't want you to miss out. Here is the information again.

Extra, Extra – Special Valentine Bundle Sale
VALENTINE BUNDLE
In celebration of Valentine’s Day
From now until February 14, 2009

Buy either
Angeni from Red Rose Publishing OR Dark Thunder from Erotique Press

(Angeni –The e-book edition available now.
Dark Thunder is available in Print or e-book now.)

And as a Bonus from the author, Cricket Sawyer, receive:
1. Valentine Express (Erotique Download)

2. Hunks and Hero’s from the Valentine Express Booklet (PDF file)

3. Spaghetti Variations Cook Book (PDF file)

4. Angeni Book Marks (PDF printable file)

Send your proof of purchase to Cricket at cricket@cricket-sawyer.com and she will send you your bonus items. Hurry while all the items are still available. Do it Now while you are thinking of it before the offer disappears.

ANGENI Buy Link
http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstore/product_info.php?products_id=357

Angeni weaves her web to entangle evil in its own cocoon of destruction. Shape-shifter, singer, protector her life is in turmoil, is Kaus Borealis soul mate or an evil that won’t be trapped?


DARK THUNDER Buy link
http://www.erotiquepress.com/direct/buy-erp-cs-dt.htm


Dark edgy romance, a vulnerable woman plucked from a loveless marriage. Saved, she thinks, by her dark knight. The dark knight becomes a dark warrior with problems of his own. Sucked into a spiral of bizarre behavior and terrifying consequences, she soon realizes what her vulnerability has cost her. Is there a way out?

Nociception

Nociception

Any idea what that word means? I didn’t either when I first saw it in my morning reading. The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder and Noah D Oppenheim.

Nociception is the perception of pain. Simple huh? It’s essential to human’s survival.
Children are born every so often that have, what is called, a congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis (CIPA). These children seldom live past the age of twenty-five simply because they don’t feel pain. If they survive the stage of teething without biting off their own fingers or something worse, they still are not out of the woods. They don’t know when they’ve injured themselves or have an infection that is eating them up.

We should be thankful for the sensation of pain. Seems like an odd thing, but it is essential as you can see from this one example.

The brain has a pain matrix that sorts out the intensity, location, duration and type of pain. This matrix is called anterior cingulated cortex. The funny thing about this brain center is it doesn’t distinguish between physical pain and emotional pain. This matrix responds equally to a broken leg or a broken heart.

So then, if I follow this logic (there’s that word again) a person could die from a broken heart. I used this emotional context in my mystery suspense novel The Pink Lady Slipper. The mother of the protagonist died from extreme fear. Emotional reaction can be as deadly as actual physical harm. I researched if it was possible to die from extreme fear at this time. I found it was. Amazing!

If all that follows as true, then there is truth to the clichés “Act as if,” “Fake it until you make it,” See it, believe it, achieve it,” wouldn’t you say?

BUY NOW! The Pink Lady Slipper
by Billie A Williams
http://erotiquepress.com
http://erotiquepress.blogspot.com

Valentine Bundle Sale

Extra, Extra – Special Valentine Bundle Sale
VALENTINE BUNDLE
In celebration of Valentine’s Day
From now until February 14, 2009

Buy either
Angeni from Red Rose Publishing OR Dark Thunder from Erotique Press

(Angeni The e-book edition available now.
Dark Thunder is available in Print or e-book now.)

And as a Bonus from the author, Cricket Sawyer, receive:
1. Valentine Express (Erotique Download)

2. Hunks and Hero’s from the Valentine Express Booklet (PDF file)

3. Spaghetti Variations Cook Book (PDF file)

4. Angeni Book Marks (PDF printable file)

Send your proof of purchase to Cricket at cricket@cricket-sawyer.com and she will send you your bonus items. Hurry while all the items are still available. Do it Now while you are thinking of it before the offer disappears.

ANGENI Buy Link
http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstore/product_info.php?products_id=357

Angeni weaves her web to entangle evil in its own cocoon of destruction. Shape-shifter, singer, protector her life is in turmoil, is Kaus Borealis soul mate or an evil that won’t be trapped?


DARK THUNDER Buy link
http://www.erotiquepress.com/direct/buy-erp-cs-dt.htm


Dark edgy romance, a vulnerable woman plucked from a loveless marriage. Saved, she thinks, by her dark knight. The dark knight becomes a dark warrior with problems of his own. Sucked into a spiral of bizarre behavior and terrifying consequences, she soon realizes what her vulnerability has cost her. Is there a way out?

Creativity - Music and Writing

What is Music Anyway? What is Writing Anyway?

In The Intellectual Devotional by David S Kidder & Noah D Oppenheim we are given a lot of food for thought. One thing they say is that Music has a pattern where noise only has sound. I’m afraid that could define Heavy Metal for me. Noise, loud and busy that has no rhyme or reason for being. Sorry Heavy Metal fans, it just doesn’t translate for me.

Kidder and Oppenheim say the basics of music compared to noise have to do with
Pitch —How high or low a sound is to the ear;
Scale—a stepwise arrangement of pitches;
Key—which is an arrangement or system of pitches usually based on one of the major or minor scales.

Simple isn’t it? The Ghost Music of Vaudeville by Billie A Williams, as a mystery has a similar basic set up. Pitch: how intense (high) or relaxed (low) the action
Scale: an arrangement of pitches that take us from each paragraph with a beginning, middle and end, to each chapter with its beginning, middle and end; to the book as a whole with a beginning, middle and end.
Key: That is a little harder, but I think of it as all the system of pitches – the paragraph, page, chapter, and book according to one of the Major (genre) or Minor (sub-genre) scales –genre and subgenres of the mystery from cozy, procedural, true crime, or hard boiled. Check your romance against the styles created with the analogies to music. IT works there too.

Therefore, everything in writing the mystery/suspense/romance can be reduced or elevated to its musical counter part. Our culture influences our pitch, scale, and keys whether that is in writing or in music. Extremes may abound even while the rules are followed. For instance music in India compared to the music here in the west such as opera, R & B, Jazz. Or, compare the Native American Drum, to the drum of modern rock – they are nowhere in the same playing field – the Native American Drum is spiritual, the rock drum is entertainment. Both, however, are entertainment and in some circles could be called spiritual.

Music and writing are both creative processes. Whether we use pitch, scale, and key or whether we use some other method to join the parts into a complete whole – they compliment each other, and I believe they embody each other.

It is said that we each “march to our different drummer,” and I believe that is as true in creating fiction as it is in creating music.

Sing Loudly, Write like the wind and enjoy the rhythm you create!
Cricket

Coming Soon!

You have to wait until May to see this one - but the cover will get you thinking about it, and I hope you will think it worth the wait. The title is Dark Thunder, due to be released in May 2008 from Erotique Press.

Cyan is aProgram Assistant in the Minorities Program at a local college. She has always been clairvoyant, but she never expected the dark figure who haunts her dreams to capture her heart until she meets him in person.

Darien sweeps her off her feet because she's seen him before. He's heated her dreams long before he exploded into her life. Be prepared for some thunder -- make that Dark Thunder.
More Later
Chirp, chirp,
Cricket