It’s been about a month since I came back from the 15th annual reiki retreat held in upstate New York.  For those of you who don’t know reiki (pronounced ray-key) is a technique for healing and spiritual development (re)discovered in Japan over a century ago.  It is a form of hands-on healing and connection with life force energy (called ki, chi, prana and other names in a variety of cultures).

One of the topics we discussed was living authentically, being true to who we are, not hiding our proverbial lights underneath bushels.  On the other hand, when I started in this business, someone very wise told me to never let readers know too much about myself since no matter what I revealed someone was sure to object to it.

Of course, this was in the days before blogging became commonplace and people twittered the minutia of their lives every minute.  These days, everyone seems to know everything about everyone else.  So what the hay (or is it hey?).

Yes, I’ll admit it.  I am reiki.  I had my first attunement in 2004 and am now an Usui/Tibetan and Karuna reiki master teacher.  A reiki master is not someone who masters reiki, but one who allows reiki to master them.  Reiki is not a religion, a cult or anything else crazy.  We do not sell Amway (well, maybe some of us do).

If this sounds freaky to you, forget I said anything.  If you would like to learn more, please join me at my new blog reiki4writers.  I’ll be discussing energy work and other esoteric topics and how they relate to writing and living the writers life.  If you’d like to join me on my slouch toward enlightenment (can’t go from Bronx girl to Bodhisattva overnight), you can join me at my other blog, on a mission from Goddess.  You’ll meet my alter ego, Devi, the one who’s writing a paranormal mystery.  This website blog will be just for writing announcements and such.

There’s nothing more I can say that you won’t see in the following clip –except ow!  my womb hurts!  LOL

That’s how Shoban Bantwal describes her latest book, The Sari Shop Widow (Kensington Books, ISBN:  13: 9780758232021). You know from my Vibrant Voices (which I’ll be starting again in February) that I love hearing from ALL sorts of folks.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but I wanted to entice you with a bit of a blurb for the book and a bit of video.  Here first, the blurb:

Pungent curry. . .sweet fried onions. . .incense. . .colorful beads. . .lush fabrics. Shobhan Bantwal’s compelling new novel is set on the streets of Edison, New Jersey’s Little India, where a young businesswoman rediscovers the magic of love and family. . .

Since becoming a widow at age twenty-seven, Anjali Kapadia has devoted herself to transforming her parents’ sari shop into a chic boutique, brimming with exquisite jewelry and clothing. Now, ten years later, it stands out like a proud maharani amid Edison’s bustling Little India. But when Anjali learns the shop is on the brink of bankruptcy, she feels her world unraveling. . .

To the rescue comes Anjali’s wealthy, dictatorial Uncle Jeevan and his business partner, Rishi Shah-a mysterious Londoner, complete with British accent, cool gray eyes, and skin so fair it makes it hard to believe he’s Indian. Rishi’s cool, foreign demeanor triggers distrust in Anjali and her mother. But for Anjali, he also stirs something else, a powerful attraction she hasn’t felt in a decade. And the feeling is mutual. . .

Love disappointed Anjali once before and she’s vowed to live without it-though Rishi is slowly melting her resolve and, as the shop regains its footing, gaining her trust. But when a secret from Rishi’s past is revealed, Anjali must turn to her family and her strong cultural upbringing to guide her in finding the truth.

Here’s the book trailer:

Not for nothing, but isn’t Uncle Jeevan a dead ringer for Lazar Woolf from Fiddler on the Roof?

To find out more about Shoban and her books, check out her website.

For all you writers who visit my site looking for info on how to write romantic suspense, the wait is over!

Starting October 19th, I will be teaching my romantic suspense class.

Here’s the description:

Fall Suspense Thing Writing Workshop is now accepting students!!!

National bestselling, Emma-award winning author for Romance Suspense Deirdre Savoy will be facilitating this month-long workshop set to begin the week of October 19. This workshop is for authors wanting to learn the basic craft of writing romantic suspense or those seeking to add a bit of dramatic spice to any novel.

Course syllabus:

October 19: What is suspense–how do you achieve it and how do you use it:

October 25: Dark suspense vs. light suspense–how to create the effect you want

November 3: The devil in the details–making suspense believable.

November 10: Love on the run–how to use suspense to heighten the romance and vice versa.

Each week, a lecture and assignment will be posted. Completion and posting of assigned work for peer review is not mandatory but advised if students want to get the most from the class.

Who should take this course:

–first time R/S authors looking to learn the basics

–R/S authors looking to hone their craft

–any author interested in taking their writing to new levels

How to register:

Apply for group membership here. You will receive an e-mail telling you how to make payment. Once tuition is received, you will be added to the group.

Tuition: $25. (First 5 students to complete registration will receive a free synopsis critique.

Mea culpa. Lo siento mucho. I apologize profusely. Folks have told me they haven’t been able to reach me.

Oops.

I hadn’t planned on disappearing. Unfortunately, my gmail account got corrupted in a way I still don’t understand and can’t access on the computer I used to use in the same way.

I have had sooo much going on that real life overtook the life of my fiction and my communication with you all. I’ve had to deal with folks getting ill, folks falling down and not getting up, myself catching the (ahem) tail end of the piggie fluj-like that afflicted us here in New York. On the flip side, I’ve also been healed of an illness I’ve been dealing with since childhood and discovered I have a calling  I hadn[t anticipated (more on that at a later date).

But I’m back hoping all of you will forgive me for not posting the results of the contest sooner (again, couldn’t access mail) but it is up now. Congrats to our winner Phyllis Lamken.  Way to go!

I’m also announcing the classes I’ll be teaching this summer and fall. First, we’ll have a little summer suspense thing. In September I’ll focus on helping you make your love scenes sizzle.

So thanks for your concern folks. You can always reach me on my contact me page.

Until next time –
Dee

Yes, it’s the big day for me. I’m not telling you what year, but I started compiling a list of things that did not exist when I was born and got really depressed.

So I thought I’d post something about another source of anxiety–the upcoming election. I don’t think I need to remind anyone that I’m an Obama supporter. If they don’t hold the election soon, I’m gonna bust. LOL But in the meantime here’s something fun pointed out to me by fellow author Gwynne Forster. Enjoy!

I’m sitting here watching The View and an interview with the actor who plays Dick Cheney in the new movie W.  I’m also thinking about the most pervasive question I get as an author:  where do you get your ideas.  Now I know you are wondering how exactly these two things intersect, so I’ll tell you.

Many, many, (many to the tenth power) years ago, I was young, adventuresome and caught in a downpour trying to get from Vineyard Haven where my cousin and I had gone to swim back to Oak Bluffs where we were staying (this is Martha’s Vineyard folks).  We had walked there but now we were soaked.  So my cousin decides what we really need to do is hitchhike the rest of the way.

Now, a few years back, when we were teenagers we’d hitchhiked as a group.  Our caveat was that we we only allowed to accept rides from little old ladies.  Yeah, we followed that.  But on this particular day I was convinced that no one was going to stop for two soaking wet women but an ax murderer with a gun under his seat.  You can see that at an early age I had a flair for murderous fantasy.

Still I wasn’t too worried since not a soul stopped for us . . . until a lone car slows and eventually stops in front of us.  The first thing I notice as we approach the car is that there is a baby seat in the back.  So okay, how bad could he be if he’s got a back seat stuffed with baby toys?  Still, as the two of us squeeze into the front seat, I tell my cousin to get in first since this was her idea.  If this guy starts anything I’m throwing myself from the car.

So we’re finally in and I’m so squished I can’t see who’s driving.  I can only hear his voice, which sounds oddly familiar.  He’s telling us about how he only stopped for us because he was lost and he was hoping we could tell him how to get back to where he was staying.

And it hits me who the voice belongs to.  I can’t see him, so I have to ask.  “I may be completely crazy, but are you Richard Dreyfuss?”  He laughs and says, “Yeah, and my hobby is picking up strange women in the rain.”  My cousin elbows me and tells me she was trying to play it cool.  Oh, well.

Well, we show him where to go, then he drops us off at our B&B (The Pequot, by the way, only two blocks).  We try to tell him how to get back to where he’s staying.  From the befuddled look he gave us we figured he’d be looking for some other drenched folks for further instruction.

The funny thing is, this happened a couple of years after Jaws was filmed on the island.  So it couldn’t have been his first time there.

But THAT is where I got the idea for my hero Jarad Naughton’s faulty sense of direction in Spellbound.

And, yes, I did climb the mountainside at Gay Head on a dare.  What the hell was I thinking?!?

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the bookstore–my first book Spellbound is being reprinted this month by Parker Publishing.  Pay no attention to the wedding cake on the cover.  It’s not a story that ends in a wedding, but what happens when my heroine Ariel arrives on Martha’s Vineyard to attend her cousin’s wedding.  Let’s just say that I wanted the tagline on the book to be because every good bridesmaid deserves fun.  LOL

It’s a lighthearted romp around the island where I spent the summers of my misspent youth and where I started writing.  It’s the story that made me the debut Rising Star author at Romance in Color and the book that spawned the series that included Holding Out for a Hero, Lady in Red and the upcoming Forbidden Games.

If you’ve read this book and loved it, please share it with a friend (makes a great holiday gift).  And don’t forget to enter my new contest to win an autographed copy plus an iTunes gift card.

No, not one of my novels but my baby offspring.  She’s the one in the front row in the hat.  She and her brother (who, incidentally, has sported a mohawk every summer for the last three years) go to this church to listen to underground or alternative bands.  Good clean fun.  Most of the kids I know who go are in Catholic school, driven by or picked up by parents (often me or my husband).

To the neighborhood I say, lighten up.  They may be loud and dressed in a way your generation deems inappropriate, but at least the pack of teenagers on the street isn’t hitting you over the head or thiefing your purse.  Not that night, anyway.

Actually I’m really communing with my muse on deadline.  So if you don’t hear from me for a couple of days, you know what I’m doing.  Hope you’re enjoying whatever you’re up to.