Sunday, December 17, 2006

OMG! I’m An EPPIE Finalist!

Potions Pax ad

The Amber Pax: Potions, Elixirs and Brews…Oh My! 
is a finalist in the Eppie Awards!

Erotic Romance Fantasy/Paranormal Anthology Category. Potions, Elixirs, and Brews…Oh, My!




includes Lacey Savage, Cassandra Curtis, Caitlyn Willows, Adrianna Dane, and Brit Blaise.


My story, I Put A Spell On You, is in that Pax! I am so excited. This is the closest I’ve ever come to any kind of writing award and can’t wait to see if our Pax has won. Woo Hoo!

Congratulations to all the EPPIE finalists, and to my fellow Pax authors. Ya’ll Rock!

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Deer Cursing

I pay attention to road signs. But you’d be surprised how many people don’t. Merge Here. This Lane Ends. Deer Cursing. Oh yeah…Deer Cursing! I figure they curse because most humans don’t read the damn signs!

I tried to get it on film, but couldn’t grab the camera fast enough. I swear, it looked like the deer, a young buck with a potty mouth, was cussing out my dh.

Thank goodness dh and the deer both slammed on their brakes. I’ve never given mouth to mouth to a deer and I sure didn’t want that to be my first time! :)

We just got back from a long trip out of town for a wedding and I can barely keep my eyes open…but I did want to give a hey ya’ll I’m back, yell out.

So…did you behave while I was gone, hmm?

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

A Day At The Zoo

Lions and Tiger and Bears, oh my aching feet! Someone got the bright idea to go to the zoo this last weekend. I haven’t been in over 18 years and it sounded like a lot of fun. Really a good plan. We look at the animals and they get to break up their boring day looking back at us.

It’s amazing how much things can change in the short span of 18 years.  I mean, I swear I don’t recall the zoo being quite that big before. And I really don’t remember all those steep hills! What did they do, import part of San Francisco?

No worries, I think. They have trams that are like small trolley buses with stops so people can get on the bus or get off at special designated areas. That way anyone with swollen feet and aching legs can hop the tram and bypass the sections of intense walking between exhibits.

After we attempted the walk down the hill and barely made it back, hubby got in line for all-day tram tickets only to be told that no trams were running for the general public. Silly me, I had no idea that the trams–all the trams–had been reserved for the day by Ford for the unions because it was a Labor Day Party.

So, dh seeing a sign about train tickets, suggested we get those. Great. That way we could see all the park and maybe get off at one of the stops it makes…except, after standing in line, buying the tickets and walking down yet another hill to get in the roped off maze of doom, we discover the train is a kiddie train. Although some parents braved getting on the rickety little thing with their kids, hubby and I looked at each other–with over 18 years of a sedentary lifestyle– and laughed. No way in freaking hell we’d fit in those tiny seats. I saw one svelte young 20-something mommy sitting comfortably on the train. Everyone else looked like they might need a crowbar to get outta the damn thing.

So, I went back to the train booth to get my money back. The girl gave me this disgusted sigh and credited my card for the train fare. But no receipt.

“Excuse me, but can I have my receipt back?” I ask, because you'd be surprised how many times I've gotten promises returns will be taken off my credit card, only to find out when I get my statement, that the refund was never credited.

“No. We have to keep that.”

“Then give me the receipt showing I got a return credit.”

“I can’t do that either. We have to keep those.”

“Are you telling me you took my money, took my receipt, and you’re keeping all proof of a refund? I don’t freakin’ think so, honey. I want a copy of something and I’m not leaving here without it!”

By now, Bear is tired, a little embarrassed, and sitting on a stone bench as far away from me as possible. Why anyone wants to give me a hassle I can never figure out. I mean, do they think my red hair is for show?

She must have realized I’m a natural redhead, with more than a little Irish in me when my dander is up, ’cause she relented and called for a supervisor. Who also told me the same thing, but did offer to take the receipts and make xeroxes of them for me. How freakin’ kind.

Grrr… See this is the sound I make when I am thoroughly pissed at the quirks of life. Amazing how closely it resembles that of the female bobcat…

DH has a terrible sense of direction and insists (even though I can see it clearly marked on the map) that the Siberian White Tigers are just past the Lions and Elephants, not to the left past the Lemurs. He goes to the Lemurs and I wait by the Lions. I know he’ll be back in a few minutes and I won’t have to walk another hill in vain. Sorry, but no Lemur is worth walking down a steep hill and back again, to see.

We get a little further and hubby decides he wants to go in the petting zoo area. Smelly goats that bite. Sounds like fun. I wait just outside the pen and try not to touch anything and hope nothing touches me.

A woman sits down beside me, watching her kids play with the goats. She seems unfazed as her son tries to head butt the large black billy.

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll hurt himself?”

“Oh no, he does this all the time.”

“What? Butts goats with his head?” Is this some new Extreme Sport I’ve missed hearing about?

“No, he butts everything with his head. It’s how he says hello.”

Images of this kid, grown up, flash through my mind. I bet he has alot of first dates. I stretch my legs and look down at my feet. My orthodic tennies are tight across my arches and the bridge of my foot. The ankles are puffed over the edges of shoe leather like a loaf of bread in the oven.

Then I see her son run toward her, building steam. He veres at the last moment and head butts me in the kneecaps–better than a Soprano enforcer.

Finally hubby comes out of the pen, smelling distinctly foul. Nothing more attractive to a woman’s phermones than a man wearing Eau de Goat.

I try to get up , but my legs are shaking. Hubby has to help me up. We walk a little further, and then a little more, with me lagging behind more with each step. I can go no further. So hubby takes off to see the polar bears, and says he’ll meet me back at the front entrance later. Abandons me. In front of a poster about African poachers.

I sit down at the nearest bench. Wait a few minutes then get up and try to make my way back. You know something? When you’re heading somewhere, you never think of the return trip. I walked a little further, a littler further trying to keep up with my guy–but now I had to go back over those hills and twisting roads.

I managed to get back to the elephants and grasped a safety bar to keep myself upright. By now my feet looked like red watermelons, my knees are almost as swollen, and my hamstrings were plucked out of tune.

I lucked out when someone spotting me, took pity on me, and called ahead for a golf cart to come get me. I finally made it back to the car with dh and on the drive home, he asked me if I had fun. I almost threw my icy cup of cola at him, but didn’t want to take it off my feet.

Fun? Oh yeah…I got a blog post out of it, didn’t I?

Hope your weekend was memorable (but in a better way). lol

Friday, June 16, 2006

The Drawing for the Amulet & the Bonus Contests

All the entries were wadded into tiny balls and laid on the rug for Snowy, my American Shorthair cat to choose. She decided they might be food and tried to eat them. Since more than one made it into her mouth as a snack, I pulled them out and tried again. This time I decided to draw the winner myself. And although I was sorely tempted to chew on a few first, I managed to rein in my impulse. LOL

The first name drawn from the box and the winner of the amulet is….Rhonda Stapleton! Congratulations, Rhonda! Please email me with your snail addy and I will get your prize out to you asap.

The bonus contest: The person with the most entries wins a Sensual Scents gift box. The bonus contest winner is: a tie! According to my records, both Debbie and Jennifer each have 29 correct guesses! So each of you will win a gift set! Congratulations! Please email me with your snail addresses, too.

Thank you all for sharing a part of your day with me. I hope you all enjoyed the Symbols of Prophecy Contest and will tell your friends. More contests will be on the way.

All the Best,
Cassandra

One little sip…the nature of the Cup of Fate

Bryn thought she was humoring her friend. Not turning her life inside out and upside down. Not playing into the hands of destiny–of fate…with one little sip.

The Cup of Fate is a special teacup, a magickal artifact that can transcend time and space, even dimensions for a select few. It alters the path of your life, creates a new future, especially for you.

Then it sends you on your way. There is no going back. And your life will never be the same again.
Many of you have come so close with your guesses. It does, in a sense tell you your future.

But more than that, it creates the path of your future, much like the cauldron of transformation and creation. And like the suitcase which depicts travel, it will send you where it wants you to be, whether you like it or not. :) It does not create the hero for you. Or you for the hero. And yet…it does act as matchmaker. It alters the path you were about to take, shifts it and sets you upon a new course with a none too gentle prod.

The Cup disturbs the calm and serene flow of space/time and dimension; transporting you to another realm where nothing is as it seems.

So, what exactly is the Cup of Fate? It is raw, limitless, ancient power, enchanted into a delicate, deceptively fragile-looking teacup. It also represents second chances, love eternal, harnessing the forces of nature, and the intelligence of the universe itself.

To read more about Cup of Fate, check out my website at www.cassandracurtis.com/books/cup-of-fate

Thursday, June 15, 2006

What is The Cup of Fate?

In an earlier post, I asked you, based on the symbols (clues), to determine the mystery behind the Cup of Fate. You see, my heroine is trying to piece together a mystery of sorts, and to explain what she is trying to figure out, would give away part of the answer…lol

There is a real Cup of Fate…sorta. Some of the same symbols appear inside it…but I created and used new symbols to serve my story. So, while some of these symbols will seem familiar, many won’t. :)

But I thought you might like to take a peek at what started this entire thing and read a short interview about how I come up with some of my ideas.

Cup of Fate view2.jpeg
photo courtesy K. Peterssen



One of the questions I’m asked most often is how I come up with ideas.

In the case of my fictional cup in Cup of Fate, it has a real counterpart. Honest. An online friend of mine in one of my yahoo groups, asked for my help one day. She had an heirloom teacup and saucer passed down from her great-aunt. The Cup had unusual symbols and drawings on the inside.

Knowing my penchant for collecting mysterious, arcane artifacts, she hoped I could shed some light on her unique possession.

I searched the internet, old antique china collector books, and asked around. I found the cup fascinating and during my search for the meanings behind each symbol, I began to ask the question that all fiction writers ask…what if?

What if you found something so curious and rare that it defied explanation? How would it cross your path, make itself known? What if it could foretell the future? Your future? What would it see? And what if it did much more than tell the future? What else might such an artifact–a thing of such immense power–do?

Ahh…now you understand why I had to write this story. It caught my imagination like nothing before and propelled me to seek answers.

As I started writing, the heroine pulled me into her story, made me a part of it. But ohh, I was jealous of her. After all, she got the hero. And what a hero! Did you get a look at him on my cover? Whoo-Ah! A feast for the eyes and the senses, my friends.

I hope you will enjoy Cup of Fate. Go ahead, take a sip…enter the fantasy…if you dare.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Symbols of Prophecy Contest

In my short story ebook, Cup of Fate, Bryn Tuttle makes a fateful choice when she agrees to go yard sale shopping with her friend. The women discover a unique tea cup, one that can foretell the future…or so they are told. Inside the cup are 32 symbols, each representing and depicting an event or facet of the future. Some of the symbols are fairly easily to decode, but I warn you, they get progressively harder.

You must utilize all your cunning to decipher their meaning and win the prize!*

Starting tomorrow, Monday, May 15 through Thursday, June 15 I will post a different symbol each day, scattered on my website. The symbols are key to the magickal artifact known as The Cup of Fate. Everyone who guesses correctly from each day’s symbol, will be entered into the drawing for a magickal amulet made from white jasper and housed in a carved stone box with a Celtic protective symbol. The amulet is unique in all the world–a naturally formed triquetra (charmed symbol) appears on the stone.

The drawing will be held on Friday, June 16, 2006 and the winner announced that day here on my blog.

To enter, simply leave a comment stating your guess of what that day’s symbol depicts/means along with your name and email (your email will not be shown on the blog). You can only enter one guess per day per email address. Void where prohibited by law. Then remember to check back on June 16 and see if you are the winner!

Your adventure is about to begin! Enter the Fantasy!

*Updated note*
This contest is now closed and due to the nature of the contest, I've removed all of the hidden symbols to make room and make way for other neat stuff, so if you are looking for those symbols after June 17, 2006, they are no longer there.

**My website & blog underwent a total revamp in 2012 and all pictures of the winning prizes along with all the blog posts from my WordPress had to be deleted, so all comments are also gone. Sorry if this leads to any confusion.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Upcoming Non-Fiction

Sex & Love for Grownups : A No-Nonsense Guide to a Life of Passion
by Sallie Foley

Paperback: 160 pages, List Price:$7.95
Publisher: (AARP) Sterling;
Release date: (August 28, 2006)
ISBN: 1402740751

Written by Sallie Foley, the “Modern Love” columnist for AARP’s 22-million-subscriber lifestyle magazine, Sex & Love for Grownups offers candid insights on the romance and relationship issues uppermost in the minds of mature adults.

Now the most poignant and provocative questions sent to AARP The Magazine’s “Modern Love” column have been collected—and answered—in a new book, Sex & Love for Grownups, that reveals everything you always wanted to know about sex, love, and relationships at age 40 and beyond.

With recent behavioral surveys showing that healthy Americans stay sexually active into their 70s and up, this is the perfect forum to find out what others are thinking and doing about finding a new partner, making love, and making love last.

Some of the questioned answered in the book are:

Q: My husband wants me to talk dirty to him. Is there a book I can learn from?

Q: Our kids just left for college, and it’s created a stillness between my husband and me. How can we reconnect?

Q: My wife and I are in our 50s, and we have sex once a week, but it’s not enough for me. Is this normal?


Hmm, they never seem to ask the real burning questions, like:

Q: My husband keeps falling asleep during sex. Is now a good time to use a cattle prod? LOL

Q: I’ve been waiting for hubby to fix the toilet in the kids’ bathroom, but he never has time. But somehow, he did have time last week to fix our new sexy 20-something neighbor’s sink. Does this situation call for a cattle prod? :p

And finally,
Q: My husband suggested we try mock dating to spice up our sex life. He doesn’t call the next day or leave a message and he didn’t come home last weekend. He’s dating all right–just not me? NOW can I use the cattle prod?


Monday, April 10, 2006

Sex With Salsa

My college pal and long time friend Jan, emailed me last night with a question. Would salsa burn the skin? Huh? Was she going to pop it in the microwave first or something?

No, she said she just wondered because her current studly liked to do body shots with the hot blend of salsa.

Well, I know that some chile peppers contain more “heat” and the juice and seeds can irritate and even blister the skin if kept in direct contact—but would the salsa? I just didn’t know. I suggested she coax him to try a milder version.

Then I told her if she gave it a try, I wanted all the details! LOL

I just know that somehow this will end up in one of my stories.
Don’t you just love adventurous friends? ;-)

*Update* Jan spilled some of the details later that week, which I won't repost on this blog, but the advice she gave was to do a skin test first and make sure you're not going to get a reaction you don't want.  Eeps! Also, about four months after dating her sexy salsa king, they broke up. In the intervening years I've tried to play matchmaker, with no luck. Finally, in 2010, she met the man of her dreams and they've been dating ever since. Congrats, Jan. Wishing you the best as always.

Love,
Cass

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Eating Your Words

Time to eat your words. Yep. You heard me right. 

Eat your words–better yet, eat the whole book! Every year a group of fanciful artists and writers create one-of-a-kind edible books in this international contest. So many hot and delicious books to choose from. 

For a glimpse at last years entries along with fun facts about the contest, go to: http://www.books2eat.com/

I do love chocolate, don’t you? Imagine the possibilities…umm delicious. If you could pick just one, which book/cover would you choose to eat?