Instinct

As a woman who’s always been more into planning than spur-of-the-moment, I recently put my resolution to remain flexible into play. Several months earlier, hubby and I purchased tickets to a comedy event. Almost daily, we chatted about the upcoming concert. Since the venue is several hours away, we agreed on arriving early and enjoying the sights of the city. No planning in advance, except for purchasing the tickets.

Fast forward to the week of the performance. Nothing that happened in our working week dampened our moods. We were ready for Friday night. Anticipation buoyed us and boosted our energy levels. Two days before to the concert, my closet doors remained closed in the event I became tempted to pull a couple outfits from the racks and ask his opinion on a favorite.

As happens with all good moods, they eventually reach an end point. Conflict delights at barging in on a woman before she’s out of her pajamas. The morning prior to our getaway, I brewed the coffee and turned on the television. The Weather Channel delivered the awful news. A winter storm would sweep into our area overnight. A call of icing doesn’t bother me when I’m watching NHL games. But the notion of driving on slick roadways doesn’t thrill me in the slightest.

Despite the dismal weather prediction, my hubby remained confident all would be fine and we’d no need for alarm. My writing day beckoned and I gladly heeded the call. I played among the plotting sheets on our living room floor and steered my thoughts away from the approaching storm. After about an hour I took a break and enjoyed a mug of green tea while curled up on the couch. The remote control lay nearby on the coffee table, but I resisted picking it up and rechecking the weather. Hubby’s reassurances played in my mind. Before half of the tea was gone, pleasant warmth tracked from my neck to my toes. Warmth I couldn’t attribute to the tea. Something stirred deep inside me. Many link this sensation to their gut, but I don’t. My instinct is settled somewhere else, and I’m not concerned as to its pinpoint location. The fact instinct has served me well in cases where I’m apprehensive sustains my faith in the well-hidden predictor. Instead of sipping, I gulped the rest of my tea and returned to the story plotting. All would be fine. My instinct and hubby were right.

The following morning I awoke earlier than usual, headed for the family den and peeked out the curtain. A glazed front walkway and driveway greeted me. But no chills chased through my body. I tuned into the local forecast and also accessed the online report for our destination city. The temperature was trending upward, and the pink-contrasted portion of the scan was tracking northward on the radar. A direction opposite the one we’d travel.

After a hearty breakfast we hit the highway. From the minute we reached the interstate, our conversation remained upbeat. We reached our destination in good time. Even the brief drizzle of rain didn’t change our mood. Sightseeing. Shopping. Strolling the city streets. Dining at a new restaurant we’ve added to our list of all-time favorites. A spectacular comedic performance ending our day. Though we didn’t arrive home until after three the following morning, we were still laughing and repeating some of the funnier lines from the show.

How many of you have relied on instinct? How accurate has your instinct proven?

Feel the heat in erotic fiction,

Shawna Moore
ROUGHRIDER – Ellora’s Cave
HELLE IN HEELS – Ellora’s Cave
TORMENTED – TBD Ellora’s Cave
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Have an Umbrella? From Drizzle to Deluge

Late last year I decided to allow for more spontaneity in every aspect of my life in 2008. Some would deem this a resolution, but I prefer calling this a new approach or outlook. Instead of resorting to advanced planning I’d let Life surprise me from time to time. Go figure. The moment I let down my guard, Life turned nasty over the past several days. All was going along smoothly and then—Wham—certain events threatened to veer me off course in a major way. I was thankful I hadn’t lost my fondness of contingency plans. The resulting reality check—no matter how much I want to slacken my grip on those proverbial reins, I can’t toss them aside for extended periods of time. Remaining flexible, while recalling and utilizing past successful strategies, is the best way for me to navigate emergencies and devastating news or events. This also holds true for my writing. Sometimes freestyle works well, sometimes a more choreographed method works better.

For the past seven years I’ve been writing full-time. Over those years, my process has changed and morphs with each story written. In the beginning, I surrendered completely to my creativity and didn’t use plotting sheets or a white board. Before I wrote the first sentence, I knew the story’s beginning and ending and some of the rising action scenes, but I didn’t script anything formally. On reflection, that process didn’t work and cost me more time during the self-editing of subsequent drafts. Currently I prefer plotting most of the scenes in advance, but I allow for spontaneity and don’t mind tossing out scenes already jotted in favor of ones that work better for the plot and/or characterization.

What about you? Are you an advance planner, a go-with-the-flow type, or a person who favors an approach somewhere in between?

Feel the heat in erotic fiction,

Shawna Moore
ROUGHRIDER – Ellora’s Cave
HELLE IN HEELS – Ellora’s Cave
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Tucked Underneath the Christmas Tree

Each year I celebrate Christmas, I rely less and less on the gift-giving aspect and more on the true meaning and majesty of the holiday. But as a child, I marveled at the presents tucked underneath my parents’ Christmas tree. After Thanksgiving, never before, our town hosted a lovely seasonal parade complete with marching bands, festive floats, prancing horses and a host of other lively participants. Mom or Grandma would go in search of the man selling balloons and purchase me one of the pretty helium-filled toys in the shape of a Christmas character. Bundled in boots, the wool or down-filled coat, scarf and mittens, I’d stand with my mom, dad, grandma, and aunt while watching the parade. Once Santa’s float passed, they’d take me to the place on or near the town’s square where Santa Claus held camp in his holiday house. Granted, I cried a couple years at being placed on his lap, but I always managed to convey a partial list of the toys on my wish list. Santa’s house also had a mail slot where we children could slip our letters to him and never have to worry about them getting lost in the seasonal shuffle. Of course, I’d count down the days until he was poised to make a trip down the chimney.

On Christmas Eve, usually sometime around eight in the evening, my parents would warn they heard sleigh bells in the distance and that it would be wise for me to head off to bed so he wouldn’t pass by our house. I’d enjoy a story read or told by Mom or Dad and then crawl under the covers. Sleep usually eluded me, but when the dreams came they often brought any number of happy images, and I later jotted them in my diary. Twinkling lights and tinsel on the family tree. The plates filled with various kinds of cookies Santa hadn’t sampled. Ice-cold glasses of milk for all. And you all have likely guessed I was up and about before dawn on Christmas day. I’d tiptoe into the living room and admire the stockings hanging from the mantel or dangling from the fireplace-iron stand. Somehow Mom always heard my first footsteps and appeared before I had a chance to shake any of the stockings’ contents to figure out what they contained prior to ripping off the wrapping paper. She’d carry the stockings over to the couch, turn on the Christmas tree lights and start perking the Christmas-morning coffee for Dad and herself. By this time, Dad was stirring and turning on more lights throughout the living room.


Photos from those Christmases past fill the family’s albums and make for wonderful journeys to the past on occasion. I have vivid memories of many of the presents Santa delivered, but my all-time favorite was my first bicycle. A gleaming cherry-red Schwinn with a cute basket between the handlebars and training wheels. My five-year-old heart filled with joy, and I had a hard time waiting until the sun came out to take a couple short turns around the driveway with my new bike. Then it was off to Grandma’s house for more fun, good cheer and Christmas dinner. Such was the wonderment of youth.

As snowflakes fly outside the den window, I wish you all the best and brightest for the holidays and beyond. Share with me your favorite Christmas present, whether or not it fit under the family Christmas tree.

Season’s greetings and steamy readings,

Shawna Moore http://www.grant-moore.com
ROUGHRIDER – Ellora’s Cave
HELLE IN HEELS – Ellora’s Cave