To continue February’s romance/sex theme here at The Blood Red Pencil, I was asked to discuss the 12 Steps to Intimacy. Although in romance circles, Linda Howard is known for her presentation on the topic, in fact, she gives appropriate credit to Desmond Morris for presenting them in Intimate Behaviour: A Zoologist's Classic Study of Human Intimacy by Desmond Morris (originally published in 1971). Bottom line: human beings are hard-wired to establish relationships, because without them, child-rearing probably wouldn’t happen. Unlike most other animals that can fend for themselves early on, human infants require a lot of time, effort, and teaching before they can survive on their own. There had to be a strong mechanism in place to bond a man and a woman so that they’d stick around to raise their offspring. For those of you who'd like to know more about how the survival of our species revolves around sex, you can find more in a post I wrote for my own blog . Studies have sh...

With BRP’s focus on romance (and all that ties into that) and writing this month, I thought it would be a great idea to talk with one of my favorite romance authors, Samara King. I don’t call Samara a favorite because she’s my best friend. No, I call her that because her stories have wonderful blends of intriguing characters, humor, fierce attraction between heroine and hero, great sex, great stories (so that the sex isn’t just a prop), and a fast pace that makes you want to race to the end of the story. I wanted to get her take on how she as an author comes to the page to write her sexy love scenes, how she considers the story she works on when developing sex scenes, and what advice she would offer to writers looking to develop sizzling sex scenes. Let’s see what she had to say! Samara King is the author of eighteen multi-genre works within romance fiction in novel and novella lengths as well as poetry. Writing romance has been a part of Samara’s world since her days of sneaking...