What makes a good kiss?

So I was thinking about kissing today, as I do often.  Kissing is one of my all-time favorite things to do when I am with a partner.  I could kiss for hours.  You know, the kind of make out session you had when you first discovered the wonders of kissing?  A friend suggested that I might have been stunted or just stayed in that age because that is when my life seemed to stop moving forward since I got into a long term relationship right out of Jr. High School.  (Eventually married and were together for nearly 20 years before we decided that we were no longer compatible.) 

In thinking on it further, it is possible.  I have met very few people that enjoy kissing as much as I do, that can do it for hours, literally loosing time and need chap stick the next day.  Excessive?  Not to me.  I have done just that, just kissing, touching but not going any further and quite literally 4 hours passed and it seemed like minuets rather than hours.  I find a good kisser, it’s hard to let him get away because, well… they seem to be few and far between in my experience.

What makes a good kiss for me probably differs from others as I can be satisfied with just kisses if they are done right.  I have no problem initiating kissing someone if I think they might like a kiss.  Take for instance, talking to a potential person to spend a great many hours with, someone I am comfortable with I like to test the waters.  

When our eyes meet, and the signal for “A kiss would be nice” such as the obvious lingering look at my mouth, (I like a smile accompanied by the look), then either they can start the kiss or I will.  Little movements with lips at first, testing the waters as I said.  I have an obsession with bottom lips, sucking on them gently into my mouth, moving my tongue around on them, waiting to see if another tongue joins mine or not.  To me, that is the “go ahead” I want before I deepen the kiss.  

Sometimes it takes a few moments to get a good rhythm, but once the exploring each other’s mouths start, I like to settle in for some real kissing.  It is a mixture of slow passionate kisses to faster, breathing harder kisses because hands are also exploring.  Nipples are being pinched; tongues are being sucked on, lips smoothly moving as each new sensation is felt.  It is fun to do this with clothing on, at least I think so.  

Mouths are one of my favorite things, always the first thing I have always noticed about someone.  If you add sucking on necks, or move to nipples… both partners nipples because if the partner is a man, he can also enjoy little sucks, bites and kisses on his nipples, well it’s a recipe for an explosion.  

Since I do write a lot about kissing, I would like to hear others thoughts on what they think the perfect kisses are.  Is it the peck on the cheek or lips, or perhaps, the faster the better?  Slower the better?  Tongue vs. No tongue? Get on with it why don’t you and kiss me quick so we can get down to the real fun?  Are kisses important to you?

Broken

Well here I am, less time has passed since my last blog posting but still it’s been a few days.  I hope that everyone is doing well.  

I have had the sad duty of watching people break from the first moment the carpet has been ripped away from their feet to land them on their bums in a hard painful crash.  It’s never fun to watch someone break, at least for me.  I know some people get a sick pleasure out of watching others in crippling misery but for me, it affects me on many levels.  

This last month, I watched my sister who has been married for 18 years suddenly tell her husband that she no longer loves him and she was leaving him.  Everyone was shocked especially the husband who had absolutely no clue there was a problem in the first place.  I watched this man, my brother for all intents and purposes break and beg his wife for a second chance.  I watched her turn him down flat and walk away, not caring if the consequences meant that she wouldn’t see her son as much but she felt that she had to do it for whatever reason plagued her.  It wasn’t for me to understand but this kind of thing drives me insane.  

My family is a very strong, albeit strange family.  We have family dinners every Sunday because we are so close.  If we miss a weekend my nieces and nephews struggle to the next week.  Yep, we are not the typical family that only gets together on holidays but we also get together whenever we can.  It is important to us.

Now I got to watch my daughter who is 29 years old get the shock of her life and shatter bit by bit when her life partner told her that she was in love with another woman after 8 years of marriage.  No one expected this at all, least of all my daughter or this other woman’s husband of 10 years.  They totally seemed like the perfect couple, never fighting, and being so full of love for one another.  It rocked my family to the core and as a parent, breaks my heart to see my daughter go through this type of horrible pain.  She is a strong woman and will get through it but anyone that has had a break up knows it won’t be an easy road.  

Now I have seen the grief process impact several of my family members on many levels as I am sure anyone can guess if they guess how close my family is.  I have seen the pain so intense that tears are not possible to be kept at bay as I see the heartbreak overwhelm the one affected at that particular moment.  The pain radiates from the person experiencing it to those around them, making it possible to see the devastation in progress, how each person there deals with it in their own way.  

The pain is a living thing, it creeps out with tentacles to penetrate a person and how strong that person is has the distinct effect on how far they will reach in, and how much damage they will do to the person it is invading at that moment.  It is hard to watch, even harder to share in the experience but I have learned from it.  I have learned from how I react to the confusion, the utter unbelief of the situation but more then anything, I have learned from how others deal with it.

 

I think as a writer, regardless of the genre they write it, any situation being it painful or happy is an opportunity to observe and understand how people work.  It is seeing past the given situation to the core, being able to internalize it and feel it I think that helps me in how to better write.  

This said it has been a tough year for me.  I have let my writing take a back burner in my life because I have been overwhelmed with life but I am now excited to look at my stories that I have started.  I am back to the “Onward and Upward!” thoughts.  I am ready to get busy.  I plan to take what I have experienced this last year and take advantage of it, writing for the pure pleasure of it and see where it takes me.  

I hope that others that might be experiencing life’s challenges take a moment to stop, look around and learn from what is going on in their lives.  Take advantage of the experiences and take the good from the bad.  Find that silver lining and don’t let the difficult things you see win.  Most important?  Find someone to smile at, say something positive too, and just listen to someone.  There are so many broken people these days that you never know when that smile, or kind word will make someone’s day, even in a small way :O)

Happy Reading!

What Really Matters

It’s been a while since I have had time to post on my blog.  I hope that you all had a nice summer!  Mine has been especially busy.  I have been helping a friend recover from an operation to remove two toes caused by diabetes.  Such a terrible disease.  He is doing well now, on the road to recovery and we are hoping he will be walking soon!  

I have also had a lot of life changes, such as my job slowing down to nearly stopping completely, family challenges, the whole nine yards.  I have done a lot of soul searching the last few months and I have come to realize what really matters in my life.  

People really are what are important.  I know a lot of people say this, and really mean it sometimes too but in helping my friend, along with a lot of challenges I find myself reflecting on not stuff, but people.  I am so happy to have such wonderful friends that help me remember who I am.

I had planned to have my next book out by now, nope, not done.  I let life’s worries take me over and I am done with that.  I am happy to say that I woke up this morning, totally sure what I am going to be doing and how to attack this crazy life I find myself in and I am finally at peace.  I am going to write, write, and write some more.  I am going to be getting several books out soon, letting the problems take care of themselves for once.  

I have several projects that I am working on and excited to get started.  I realized that I had not posted the wonderful news about my Time Well Spent the Complete Collection now being offered in paperback.  Yep, I am thrilled!  It is the “Name’s Edition” which is cool.  

I wanted to stop by though and let everyone know that I took a little break to help a friend, and now I am back to work.  I am excited to get the new books out.  Now just trying to decide which one to work on first :O) 

Have a GREAT day everyone and Happy Reading!!!

The Importance of Writting Reviews....

I know that it is important to write reviews, and I do write them for the books that I read as soon as I finish them so I don’t forget.  I didn’t understand how truly important it really is until recently.  Oh I have always wished others would write reviews on my books when they like and read them.  Even if people didn’t care for my books, if they would leave some constructive criticism so I could improve them that would be awesome.  I know people do like them since they tell me but for some reason, that taking a few moments to write what they like about the book is just too time consuming for a lot of people.

Well I have spent the last 10 days at the hospital with a very good friend and fellow author, Martin Sharlow.  He has had some complications with diabetes and has not been able to get computer access until recently.  He has not been able to promote his books or communicate with fans as he usually does.  Because of this, his numbers have dropped like a rock into a deep lake.

Now Martin has a lot of fans, tons of them in fact.  Most people really love his work, me being one of his most avid supporters of his books even out of thousands of people.  For some reason, people get so busy that they will write a review on one site such as Goodreads and it will be an awesome review but not write it on Amazon which is very important to authors. 

Recently people have written some very nasty reviews on his books.  Now I know that all books are not for everyone, people love and hate a book that is a fact of life.  Why people think that they need to tear a book up so badly is beyond me.  Not too hard to say that the book just wasn’t for them and move on rather than totally assonate the characters and insult the author.  Not called for in my opinion.  Those types of reviews make me wonder what the person that wrote it has against the author, because it is so over the top. 

My point is that this author is struggling now, was doing fantastic in his book sales and all it would take is a few people that have read his books and loved them to go on over to Amazon and write a quick review.  Even those that have done a review on Goodreads could just copy their review and post it on Amazon.  That would help a great deal!

If you haven’t read any of his books, I highly recommend them.  The Fallen Series is my personal favorite but I dearly love all of his books that I have read.  His characters are unique and his descriptions are amazing.  He writes Paranormal Romance and he also has a fantasy series, Storytellers that I love. 

So if you happen to read a book written by someone, please take the time out to review it.  It helps me as an author to know what my fans like and want more of as well, and I know that I am not alone in this as an author. 

Happy Reading & Reviewing!

Bella Marie

Martin Sharlow's Author Page

How to Unplug the GIANT Funnel....

 

The Tin Man had the right idea!  He wore his funnel hat the way that a person should have a funnel on their head if one were going to wear one.  The hole on top of the funnel is small so maybe one, or two at most ideas will fit at a time, whereas the bottom of it seems to form a great seal so no stray thoughts leak out.  Yep, pretty sure he was a genius.  

I on the other hand the last few weeks have had so many things to do that I thought, well maybe it would be a good idea to turn the funnel around because too many ideas were coming in at once, couldn’t lose any!  That way it would catch them and only one or two would come out one at a time so I could control the speed at which they bombarded me.  Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it seems to have backfired on me.  

Oh it started semi-slow with the normal stuff… Idea for vampire book, family stuff, idea to write book about family stuff, oh what do you know? More family stuff, then really, that is a great idea for this book I had worked on for a long time, got to throw that in there too.  Then it really got busy… More family stuff, oh wait!  Need to throw some life challenges in there too!! Can’t forget promotion, need to really work on my website and update it, not to mention my blog, oh really?  Smashwords didn’t accept my book for premium status because I spelled “copyright” wrong and didn’t notice it? Got to throw that all in there, the rewrites, oh yeah, got to edit the book that I am getting published for hard copy.  No I didn’t forget to do the review on the book that I have had no time to read, sorry, will get right on that. Life again?  Are you serious?  Three more story ideas flow in and can’t sleep because can’t write them because they make no sense, trying to come out all at once.  Promotion again, edits, wright here and there, who needs a job anyway, I’ve been meaning to lose weight, who needs to eat?

Then I don’t even realize it but I am overwhelmed to the point that my funnel hat is totally flooded to overflowing and I am left standing in the middle of the room not able to even think of the next thing to do.  I then get this revelation!  Well dang it, no one can work under these conditions!  I am going to fix this, just wait and see!

I lift off the huge funnel on my head, telling it the whole time, oh you can’t function all stuffed in there like that you poor thing, here let me fix you!  I stick it up to my mouth and blow, (or yell as loud as I can at the top of my voice until there is no more voice left.)  I imagine that the thoughts in the funnel are like a bunch of chocolate chips and when I blow on it, they go flying!  Oh they not only fly, but when they finally become airborne, I flip the funnel over to get a good seal so they won’t all bombard me all at once again.  

Then I sit down on a soft chair, taking a piece of paper, and quietly writing down all I have to do, in order and only let those be heard which can’t wait.  The rest, well I tell them to be patient, I will get to them.

As I continue to write, I can imagine a calm settling around me, as if every thought is now in order and ready to be more cooperative.  They won’t crowd each other because every thought wants to be heard.  They will work together and there you have it, everything will get done and it will get done in the best possible way, a little slower than I had planned but accomplished nonetheless.  

So my advice is, when your mind is on a collision course with so many “Got to get done right this minute rather you want too or not’s” it is time to just take a hint from the Tin Man and wear your funnel the way that it is meant to be, and just let all the rest fall into place, one thing at a time.

Happy Reading!

Bella Marie

Original Post was posted on Katie Salidas, Written In Blood. Check out her Blog, she is a fantastic writer!