Anya Bast

…but for a good reason. I’m so close to finishing Witch Blood I can taste it.

Next week, thirteen things I do when I have writer’s block. Luckily, I don’t have it now!

Rhian asked me a good question in my call for blog topics. (Got a topic you’d like to see me blog about? Put in the comments…PLEASE). Who puts the kink in erotic romance? Do authors really sexplore to gain fodder, do they borrow from other authors? Where does it come from?

I get this question a lot, actually. Newspaper interviewers have asked me this. Here’s what I say…. (of course, I can’t answer for all erotic romance authors, just moi).

My kink comes from everywhere.

I will say right off that my husband and I have a great sex life. We have always had snapping sexual chemistry and are well suited to each other in this area. So, yes, I do get some of my inspiration from my personal sex life. Both physically and mentally, since my husband will work through scenarios with me, er, orally. (Stop it! I mean as in conversation.)

But, no, I haven’t personally gone out to research everything I write about. Sorry to say, I’m just not that deviant. Rather than a sex kitten, I’m more your regular thirty-something woman you see pushing a cart at the grocery store. Sorry to destroy anyone’s illusion. Heh.

I have always had a great imagination and I’ve always enjoyed research of the bookish variety. These two things together are really where a lot of my kinky scenes come from. I research women’s sexual fantasies, the ones they don’t talk about out loud — bondage fantasies, menage a trois, female/female encounters, ect. I have an article I wrote about some of the most popular female fantasies. I should dig it out and post here sometime.

By the way…I can NEVER get any readers to talk about female/female encounters, but, (oddly enough, hmmm), it’s a top sexual fantasy for most women.

Anyway, first and foremost I define my characters. The plot grows from there. Though sometimes I’ll start out with a specific fantasy in mind — like menage a trois, or BDSM, or male/male.

So basically, my kink comes from everywhere — my sex life, books and research, and my imagination.

Great question, Rhian!

Whisper of the Blade is now available at Ellora’s Cave!

BLURB:

Emmia feels the emotion of all who surround her. Her Talent is empathy and it’s more curse than blessing. She employs her skill as a justice mercenary, discovering criminals and meting out punishment. Soon she finds herself investigating an enigmatic man named Magnus, at the behest of his friend, Quinn.

In a sexual tangle…

But both Magnus and Quinn are drawn to Emmia, just as they are drawn to each other. All three of them become lost in a weave of scorching and erotic desire coupled with emotional need.

Soon Emmia is balancing the two men like swords to uncover the truth and not be hurt in the bargain…

***Please note this book is a menage a trois romance with male/male elements***

~*~*~*~

Excerpt: Whisper of the Blade, by Anya Bast

Copyright © ANYA BAST, 2007

Magnus guided his horse past the thick covering of bushes and trees of the old forest he traveled through. He’d left the main road through the Eastern Mountains some time ago to indulge himself in a solitary ride back to Ravensbridge. He knew the way and, if he ever lost it, he had a compass and a map tucked into the saddlebag of the chestnut brown stallion he rode.

The journey would take longer cross-country, but he had no pressing need to be back at Ravensbridge. Indeed, he did not even have a desire. Rolf, his castellan, could take care of things until he returned. Everyone much preferred him gone these days, anyway. Many of them wanted him dead.

He wouldn’t go easily, though. They’d have to lynch him. Magnus refused to be punished for a crime he never committed.

The evidence was damning. Magnus knew that to every man, woman and child at Ravensbridge it appeared he’d committed murder. It even looked that way to Quinn. Sorrow clenched in his chest and throat when he remembered the look of shock, then doubt in his best friend’s eyes.

Even the person who knew him best in the world thought he’d done it.

Magnus knew that Quinn was even now on his way through these forests to seek the aid of a justice mercenary. That was the primary reason Magnus had gone cross-country. He wanted to get a glimpse of the woman who might stand in judgment of him, the woman likely to be his executioner…if she could manage to kill him, that was. Since he was innocent, he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

A full four weeks had passed since the crime had been committed. Four weeks of hell in which he’d been accused, had protested his innocence and finally laid down the law because he’d felt he’d had no other choice. Unable to exist at Ravensbridge amid the whispers, suspicious glances, and outright fear of him, he’d left to travel to his sister’s keep.

A messenger bird, keyed to his location by someone who had the Talent, had reached him yesterday, letting him know that Quinn could not take the uncertainty of Magnus’ guilt any longer and had gone to employ a justice mercenary.

The woman was well known in the Eastern Mountains and he knew she dwelt in these leaf-laden hills. No one could pass through these woods without her knowing it. As an empath, she could sense the whereabouts of anyone because of the emotions they emitted. She would never sense him, however, because he was also an empath. The rare talent canceled out in two people face-to-face. Well, theoretically, anyway. There were so few empaths in the world, it had rarely, if ever, been put to the test. Mostly likely, he would not be able to feel her emotion, nor her his.

The idea of meeting someone like her was an attractive one…even if she might want to kill him. He’d take the risk.

Further into the forest, he heard the splash of water and a woman’s voice swearing low. Silently as he could, Magnus slipped from his mount, tied him to a tree and stepped carefully through the trees, trying not to break any branches. She wouldn’t be on guard for sounds in the forest. He knew that for certain. No, she’d been open to sensing emotion, not listening for noise, just as he would be in her position.

From his place in the undergrowth, he caught a glimpse of her in a large, still pool of water. She stood with her back to him, lean, lithe body moving as she bathed herself. The sunlight sprinkled her skin through the canopy of trees overhead and caressed her short, curvaceous body. Long, dark hair hung damp down to the small of her back, twisted into a braid that lay like a heavy rope along her spine. A pity her buttocks were concealed under the water. He had the sense they were as luscious and sweetly curved as the rest of her.

She turned a little, revealing the tender swell of a breast topped with a pinkened nipple. Her profile revealed her to be a beauty, but her features were set with an intense expression, almost sorrowful.

But the most wonderful thing was that he didn’t know how she felt. The absence of foreign emotion while he viewed another person felt like a balm to his often-battered soul.

Magnus stared. He’d never expected beauty, not from all the tales he’d been told about this woman. He’d expected her to be strong, mannish, but while it was clear she was muscled, her body well-toned from physical exertions, she appeared small, almost delicate. She seemed barely able to hold a sword, yet she’d gone up against some of the worst scum Molari had to offer and had come away the victor.

Magnus took a step toward her before he remembered himself. To court a conversation with Emmia, the most deadly of justice mercenaries, was to court death.

And he was already doing that.

miladyinsanity saved my bacon and gave me a topic to blog about.

She asked me how I picked my pen name.

I’m actually not sure how I got the Anya part. However, a long time ago I had a lucid dream. I had a great deal of lucidity in this particular one and, as I usually do, took the opportunity to fly. Have you ever flown in a lucid dream? Very cool! Anyway, during the course of this lucid dream, I met up with a woman who called herself Aiya. Like everyone you meet in a dream, she was some aspect of myself. That’s my theory, anyway.

Flash forward years in the future. When I cast about for a pen name, the name Aiya just popped into my head. But I couldn’t use the name Aiya, because it was too different and hard to pronounce, so I ended up with Anya. It wasn’t until after the fact I remembered that lucid flying dream I’d had and the dream aspect named Aiya.

So I guess my brain just pulled that name from my subconscious at random.

The ‘Bast’ was a nod to my love of cats. Bast, of course, being also known as Bastet — Egyptian cat goddess. Pretty cheeky of me to take the name of a goddess, wasn’t it? I hope a lightning bolt doesn’t strike me down one day.

I liked the name because it was simple. There are few syllables and I think the name is fairly easy to remember. I do get a lot of “Anya Blast”. I occasionally have to google “Anya Blast” because people list me that way so often.

The name is my name now. I answer to it all the time.

One formula for selecting a pen name is to take the name of your first pet and the first street you lived on. If I’d chosen my pen name this way I would be, “Pussywillow Belmont”. Yeah, so…NO. I’n not sure what genius came up with that one.

So I’ll throw this question out there to other authors. How did you pick your pen name? Or to readers…how did you pick your online “handle”.

So what do I blog about these days when my days are filled with taking care of the Divine Miss S and getting in writing whenever I can? These days my life is taken up by pressing baby issues, mostly. Like what diaper truly is the best to use for overnight? And how can I get my daughter to eat these organic mushed up peas? Or how the hell can I occupy her for fifteen minutes in order to clean the kitchen floor?

In between these heavy domestic issues the thoughts in my mind are about Witch Blood. They have to do with how to off certain characters, the limitations of magick, and the lifestyle issues of demons.

It’s a strange juxtaposition.

I could blog about how my husband is ordering The Worst Movies Evar from Netflix. Like French horror movies. Yes, you read that right. The French DO make horror movies. They are, sorry to say, just as bad as American horror movies. They’re just, you know, in French.

Or I could blog about how I’m totally trying not to obsess about the release of Witch Fire…and totally failing.

Or I could blog about how I’m sitting in our screened in porch right now with the Divine Miss S rolling around in her Pack n’ Play next to me saying maamaamammamm, (an attempt at Mama, I think), and how it’s a freaking BEEYOOOUTIFUL day.

So, tell me…is there anything you’d like me to blog about? Any pressing blogging issues on your mind? Burning questions for a paranormal and erotic romance writer? C’mon, let them rip. I’ll blog about them.

My brain is far, far too mushy to think up thirteen things. I’m too concentrated on offing one of the characters in Witch Blood and how, exactly, to do it. Of course, that’s all I can say because I don’t want to give away any spoilers.

I am almost finished with the book, though! (hence the reason there’s no Thursday Thirteen today) Here’s a page count bar….

350 / 385 (90.9%)

I’m also putting the finishing touches on a press kit, which…DUDE…never thought I’d need a press kit in my life. Turns out I do. Turns out it’s actually past time I have one.

Between all that, plus a site update AND a newsletter I need to get together and I’ve got my hands full today.  But I hope you all have a good time Thursday Thirteening it! I’ll be back next week with another simulating list of thirteen things. *koff*

…if you were there before and aren’t there now, let me know so I can add you!

Wow!

My Witch Fire book trailer won a bunch of categories in the Cameo Awards, amateur division, put on by the Romance Galleria (which is a very cool site, if you haven’t visited yet).

Best Paranormal
Excellence in art direction
Excellence in writing
Promotional excellence

I’m floored!