Guest Blogger Pender Mackie

Today I'm please to have fellow author Pender Mackie as my guest. She's going to talk about her new release, Stage Fright. Pull up a chair, and I'll grab us some drinks while you begin, Pender.

When I started to write Stage Fright I didn’t think I’d need to come up with dance routines or music. Sure the story’s main character is a dancer in an all-male revue, but how much time would he spend dancing on page?

More than I initially thought. A lot of Jesse’s dancing is seen through the eyes of Val, the new, and infatuated, bartender so the reader gets to see it too.

More than one scene features Jesse’s dancing and I found I needed music. It makes a difference to the way I visualized the scene. Was Jesse pumping his hips to something fast or writhing sensually to a slow ballad?

I have thousands of songs in my Itunes and I love dance music. I thought I’d just pick a couple of tunes and imagine Jesse dancing. No problem, right?   

Turns out choosing songs for a male stripper is harder than I’d thought, but I persevered.     

Here’s some of the songs I came up with, in no particular order. I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back

A fun song in which Timberlake channels a little bit of James Brown. Love the naughty nod to BDSM. "You see these shackles, baby I'm your slave / I'll let you whip me if I misbehave."

Goldfrapp - Strict Machine

Supposedly a song exploring the links between sex, machines and control. Music reviewer Andy Hermann wrote that the song was "a future S&M club anthem if ever there was one." I just think it’s great to dance to.  

Ginuwine - Pony

Anyone who’s played Grand Theft Auto IV or seen the movie Magic Mike (which I still haven’t seen, damn it) knows this song. Hard to believe it came out in 1996.

Freestylers - Push Up

Fast and fun. This song is perfect for some serious dancing and maybe a few one-handed push-ups on the stage.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Give It Away

This one’s good for sexy gyrating and at first listen the lyrics seem tailor made for erotic dancing. Apparently the main phrase is not a plea for sex, but meant to encourage selflessness and altruism. Now I like this song even more. 

Air - Sexy Boy

One of my favorite French bands and one of my favorite songs. Slow and sexy. The song was featured in the UK version of Queer as Folk.

Kiss - I Was Made for Loving You

An oldie but a goodie. Sure to get any members of the Kiss Army in the audience worked up. 

David Guetta - I Want to Make You Sweat

A great tune, but the lyrics are probably far too provocative for an all-male revue, which when compared to a strip club is actually pretty tame.

Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar on Me

This song makes no sense lyrically, but who cares? It’s a song guaranteed to whip the crowd into a frenzy.

Prince - Kiss

Written and performed by Prince, but Tom does a good version too. My preference is the Prince version but Tom had a few panties thrown at him in his day.

And now here’s the blurb and except for the book to go with this playlist.

Title: Stage Fright

Release date: January 22, 2013

Author: Pender Mackie

Genre: M/M Contemporary Romance

Stage Fright Blurb:

After six months dancing in a Las Vegas all-male revue, Jesse Snowe is used to being groped by enthusiastic females, but he's more interested in Val, the sexy new bartender. Jesse's tired of the closet, but when he thinks of coming out he gets stage fright. The thought of telling his fellow dancers he's gay makes his palms sweat and his heart race and not in a good way. Dating Val under the watchful eyes of the dance captain could reveal Jesse's secret and might be more of a gamble than Jesse's willing to take. 


For Val Tremain the glamor of Vegas is wearing thin. He's even less enamored with his new job, but knowing he'll see Jesse's beautiful body makes it easier to go to work. When Jesse hints he's interested, Val can't believe his luck. But Jesse's latest dance routine encourages a little too much audience participation and Val struggles with jealousy. 



Jesse knows his job's hard on their relationship and being closeted doesn't help. Strangers slap his butt every night, yet he's afraid to touch his lover in public. If he wants this relationship to work, Jesse may have to reveal more than just his body. 


Excerpt:

Jesse watched Chaz, their dance captain, work his magic. Chaz was an old hand at stripping and made it look so easy. He had a woman from a bachelorette party up onstage. She reached around and gripped his ass hard, her fingers digging into tanned flesh. Chaz pulled her to her feet. Jesse could see his muscular ass bunch and flex as Chaz mimed grinding against her.

Jesse looked over at the bar and sighed. The new bartender was wiping the counter. He wasn’t even watching the show. Maybe the new guy wasn’t gay after all. The guy behind the bar seemed more interested in dirt than dancers.

Jesse scrambled into his next costume, then nodded to Eric, their MC, from the side of the stage. “And now, ladies. Here’s the newest member of our revue and the baby of the group, Firefighter Jesse.”

Jesse bounced onstage to shouts and catcalls. He did a couple of backflips, then slapped on his helmet. His routine went off without a hitch, but as usual he needed to mentally gear himself up for the finale. He grabbed the crotch of his tear-away turnouts and yanked them off, leaving him in nothing but his T-bar. After six months of working as a dancer, he still felt kind of stupid wearing the minuscule thong, but he was grateful for the no-nudity policy. It helped him maintain the illusion that he still had some dignity. He spied a table that didn’t have too many drinks on it and jumped into the crowd.

The audience loved it. Jesse danced the length of the table, shaking his ass for the screaming women—and saw the bartender watching. He faltered, then recovered, leaping lightly off the table, squeezing through the press of bodies. He smiled and high-fived outstretched palms on his way as other hands reached for his chest, his butt, even trying for his package. His ass was slapped at least three times before he managed to return to the stage.

“Let’s hear it for Jesse. Who wants Jesse to put out their fire?” Eric asked the enthusiastic audience.

Backstage Mike threw Jesse a towel. “Holy shit, they’re wild tonight. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it back in one piece.”

Jesse wiped the sweat from his face and chest. “Me neither.” He shook his head, smiling. “Gives a whole new meaning to audience participation.”

Buy links:

Loose Id: http://www.loose-id.com/stage-fright.html

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Stage-Fright-ebook/dp/B00B4KBMAW/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1359039255&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=stage+right+pender+mackie

ARe: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-stagefright-1047134-145.html

Author website & blog: http://www.pendermackie.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pender.mackie

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pendermackie

That sounds hot, Pender!  Thanks for stopping by, come back soon!

Until  next time, take care!

♥ Julie

Welcome guest blogger Pender Mackie!

Good morning Pender, thanks for joining me so early! Let's just move into the den, shall we, while I grab us something to drink. Pender's going to talk to us today about her thing for brown eyes. Why don't you get started, I'll be right back.

Hi Julie, thanks for having me.

The Eyes Have It

I’ve always had a thing for brown eyes. The first crush I ever had was on a neighborhood boy with soft, brown eyes. I think almost every story I’ve ever written has a character with brown eyes.

Recently I had to take a flight on a DASH 8, a small prop plane. As small planes go this is a big one, seating about fifty passengers. I like flying and I’d done this particular trip many times without incident.

But something unexpected happened on this flight.

As I entered the plane, the flight stewardess directed me to my seat. Horror of horrors, I had to sit in one of two seats right at the front of the plane. That wouldn’t be bad, I don’t really care where I sit, but these seats face the wrong way. I had to sit facing the back of the plane, just like the flight stewardess.

I’d have to make eye contact with the other passengers, particularly the passenger sitting facing me. Since I’m a bit of an introvert this was slightly unnerving. I was one of the first to board the plane and as the other passengers boarded I scanned them trying to figure out who I’d be tangling feet with.

One of the last passengers to board was the man assigned the empty seat facing me. There might have been other people boarding after him, but once he sat down I stopped looking at anyone else.

He was just a normal-looking guy, but he had the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. I often write about eyes like that but I’ve never seen them outside my imagination.

I spent the next forty minutes sneaking peeks at him as he stared out of the window. He didn’t seem to notice me watching him. We never even made eye contact, but I couldn’t stop looking at his long black lashes and expressive brown eyes. I couldn’t quite decide on the color. I wished he’d glanced over at me just once so I could have seen if they were dark chocolate or a rich mahogany.

I’m sure I’ll never see him again and I don’t usually use photos or real people to create my characters, but those eyes were inspiring.   

A day or two later I was poking around the M/M Romance group on Goodreads. 

They’re putting together a free anthology called Hot July Days. (They did a similar anthology called Stuff My Stocking, back in December.)

Readers can submit a photo and/or write a “Dear Author” letter for a photo. Then an author chooses one of the photos and writes a story using the photo and letter as inspiration.

I was browsing through the photos and letters when I saw a photo that was perfect for me.

It’s the face of a man: A beautiful man with black hair and big, gorgeous brown eyes. One side of his face is covered with his hand and he has a tear in his visible eye. They’re not quite as pretty as the eyes of the man on the plane, but that story is mine.

I’m not sure exactly what I’ll write yet. The letter to the author suggests he’s been sitting outside a hospital door, looking sad. I do know that he will be with someone and the story will have a happy ending 

So now I should wrap up this blog and write a happy ever after for my sad, beautiful man.

Pender Mackie has been writing M/M romance stories for three years but Scent of Attraction is the first submitted for publication. She’s busy putting the final touches on several others.

Scent of Attraction    

Blurb

When Shawn takes a job at a cologne counter in a busy department store he hopes it’s the beginning of a successful career in the health and beauty industry.

But almost two years later Shawn is frustrated with his job and his love life. He’s still working the cologne counter, still single and still spending every night alone.

His job allows him to meet plenty of good-looking men but most of them are straight, and even when they aren't, Shawn is shy. He gets nervous and tongue-tied when he’s around a hot guy and the thought of going on a date with a complete stranger makes his stomach churn nervously.

When he meets friendly and outgoing Graham the attraction on both sides is intense and immediate.

Shawn might be willing to step out of his comfort zone this time, but there’s just one problem. Graham's already with someone else.

It looks like their relationship is over before they even share a kiss...

For an excerpt of Scent of Attraction visit: http://silverpublishing.info/product_book_info/new-release-c-1/scent-of-attraction-p-261

You can visit me at:

http://pendermackie.blogspot.com

That picture makes me think of an old song, Pender. I think Crystal Gayle sang it, but I won't swear to it - Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue?

Thanks for being here today, Pender! And thanks everyone for stopping by! Leave a comment for Pender, and she'll get back to you!