people are weird....

Okay, so I stuck a tracker on my website about a month ago, and now I can indulge my inner voyeur without getting myself arrested. This has, however, introduced me to a whole new world of bizarre and questionable Google search terms and the (I would expect) bizarre and questionable people behind them.

Most are pretty reasonable and applicable:

touching inside panties soaking

girls derty nickers with damp patch in [not mom-safe]

in side my knickers (not sure how these two hit my site, since I don't think I've ever used "knickers" in my fiction...)

steel between her legs

sitting across the office she parted her legs and showed me her [ahem] (have to credit this one--a complete sentence and every word spelled correctly)

he lightly touched her [ahem] with his tongue (again, astonishingly literate)

[coughcough] me through my panties

tear my pant with your teeth

romance thrust breasts hands (bwahaha! Why bother with filler words, let's cut to the chase, shall we?)

But other search terms give me mental images that I will never be able to scrub away, such as:

smell mom panties (oh, ewww)

.....or the one that made my eyebrows hit my hairline:

snake in my [place where no self-respecting snake would willingly go] (do I really need to comment further?)

So what do these people do when they get to my website? An astonishing number of them, even the aforementioned snake fetishist, spend between 20 minutes and a couple hours poking around, reading my free samples and looking at my bio.

Now, I've read some interesting books and seen some cool shows based on people who can read others' thoughts, and as a kid, I always figured it would be cool to have that ability. But looking at those last two search terms, I'm thinking I probably don't really want to know what's going on in people's heads. All things considered, I might just stop looking at my tracker and invest in a telescope and see what kind of normal, everyday shenanigans the people across the street get up to...

Excerpt Monday!

It's Excerpt Monday again, and I'm posting the first chapter of the f/f/m fairy tale menage I was insane enough to start writing last week. It's based on The Little Mermaid, but has a few twists. First, the merpeople are pretty much a bunch of elitist jerks. Second, the Sea Witch isn't evil, just...justifiably bitchy. Third, she wants in on the HEA.

Go ahead and read if you dare. :D

Another review for Chancellor's Bride

BookUtopiaMom just gave The Chancellor's Bride 7 1/2 stars out of 10 over at Uniquely Pleasurable. Here's a snippet:

"Right away, the sensuality of the prose in this novel grabs the reader by the lapels and refuses to let go.....The brief prologue immerses you in both erotic and intelligent imagery, establishing a high standard for the rest of the story to meet. It continues in that vein throughout the novel, and in actuality, is probably one of its strongest assets. Even when I had questions and doubts about motivations, I could always rely on the author’s voice to compensate for it."

This is a bit of a mixed review, the kind that's extremely helpful to me, pointing out a lack of clarity regarding one character's motivations that I know has bothered a few other readers.

Just shows me that while I am certain that my characters' motivations and conflicts make sense, I need to work a little harder to convey those things to the reader, who is less well-acquainted with my world and its denizens than I am. And that I shouldn't rely so heavily on my voice to carry the reader past those points of doubt or confusion.

But I'm absolutely jazzed that despite the stated flaws, she still found it a "lush, seductive read", and would give other books by me a go. Now I just have to try to finish Collin and Harral's prequel (which will be short, I hope, though I know myself well enough to not promise that), or get another m/m(/f) to start calling to me. Because I did absolutely love writing this one.

:)

Just needed to say...

...something I don't say often enough, but that I think about lot, and never more so than the last couple of months.

Mom? Dad? Thanks.

Thanks for being you guys and not someone else. Thanks for raising me right, for teaching me that people matter more than money, that what you do is more important than what other people think of you. Thanks for showing me what it is to own your mistakes, to have the balls to admit when those mistakes have fucked things up for other people, and to have the decency to try to correct them when you can.

Thanks for being there when I need you, no matter how stupid I've been. Thanks for helping me clean up my shit, even when I have no one but myself to blame for the mess. Thanks for helping me be a better parent to my kids, and a better friend to those who are important to me. Thanks for listening to me bitch, and for telling me to shut up when I've bitched long enough.

Thanks for teaching me that having a clean house is less important than having happy children. Thanks for teaching me that I don't have to put up with anybody's crap, and I shouldn't make other people put up with mine. Thanks for showing me that being happy is more important than having money, but that there ain't nothing wrong with having a little money, either.

Thanks for being an anchor in my life, for encouraging me to be independent enough to stand on my own, but unafraid to ask for help when I need it. Thanks for being proud of me, even though I didn't become a doctor or a lawyer or an architect or a computer programmer because I'd rather write smut and sling hash for a living.

I don't know if I will ever be able to express how lucky I feel to have you guys as parents. All I can say is thanks.

Just thanks.

I haz a dumb

Yes, I am stupid. Why, you ask (or not, as the case may be, since I may only be confirming what you already suspected)?

Because I started a new project.

Yes, with two projects already on the go, screaming to be finished and submitted to two separate editors at two separate publishers, I started a new one. If any of you are feeling the urge to dish out a good, sound spanking, now would be the time.

Of course, it's not my fault.

I blame Laurie M. Rauch, Samhain's new exec editor. She's the one who posted the open call for fairy tale-themed hot romance. She's the one who got me thinking about that most Scandinavian of fairy tales, The Little Mermaid. She's the one who put the idea of fairy tale, mermaid menage in my head. And now that dang sea witch will not leave me alone! She wants to tell her side of the story, and she wants in on the HEA, too.

I'm aiming this for Samhain's Red Hot Fairy Tale antho, but if it doesn't make the cut, I'll be subbing it elsewhere or posting it as a free read on my site. I've been writing for one day and I'm already 3600 words in.

This will be a short project--25k or less. We'll see how well I stick to that.

Hugs.

Winnahz!!

Okay, I've been trying to hold out for more entries (which, as it happens, allows me to indulge my own laziness, which is one of those indulgences I hate to deny myself), but methinks it's time to announce the winners of the two contests I've been ignoring for the last month or more.

Sigh. I am so bad.

So without further ado, the winner of my Bound by Steel poetry contest is:

M.A.

and, because I only had two entries, and I couldn't decide which I liked more,

Tarsilla gets one too!

And the winner of my Chancellor's Bride cheesy pick-up line contest is:

jenniferleeland

for her stunningly succinct entry, "Wanna fuck?"

As usual, if you could email me at kirstensaell(AT)yahoo(DOT)com with your info, I'll send your books as quickly as possible. Thanks for entering, and hope you enjoy them. And as always, feel free to let me know what you think, even if you think I suck rotten lemons or something. Feedback--even negative--is a good thing. :)