Blaze Authors Blog » Nancy Warren

My Stripper Name

Nancy Warren — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:00:43 +0000

Just call me Princess Nancy. Yep, that is my bona fide, official Las Vegas stripper name. I am, you see, a proud graduate of Stripper 101.
I must admit, on booking my trip to Vegas, I was apprehensive but kind of intrigued by the whole notion of ordinary women learning stripper moves. I might not have done it but I thought my characters would in my upcoming series, so, Naturally, where my characters go, there go I! There were six of us in the class, which is given in a small dance studio in the V theater in Planet Hollywood. While we were in class, a Beatles tribute band played out front adding the surreal experience. So, anyway, here’s what I learned. 1. The sexiest part of a woman is her attitude. It’s true! We were all shapes, ages and sizes, and it didn’t matter. Once a woman finds her inner stripper, she connects with her sexuality. Or maybe that works the other way around. 2. Pole dancing is easier than it looks. I have pretty weak arms and was fairly certain I’d be on the floor faster than a firefighter zipping to a five alarm fire. But, in fact, you use your own body momentum and your legs to help hold you up. Though, I must admit, my arms are still sore and the class was Thursday. 3. The stripper is in control. I think that’s the fun of it for us average women who never intend to take our clothes off in public (and probably wouldn’t get paid if we did). When you do this stuff in the privacy of your home, you set the pace, and the results can be a lot of fun.

So there you are, my holiday gift to you, straight from Princess Nancy, three tips for a thrilling private strip party. 1. Attitude, baby. Attitude. 2. Use your body and trust it. 3. Take control. And have fun with it. Your guy will thank you.

I wish you all a very happy, sexy and fun filled Christmas and holiday season.

Nancy

Going Back to an Ex

Nancy Warren — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:00:54 +0000

When I wrote The Ex Factor, which is out this month, I was thinking of a friend of mine who I’ll call Karen. Because that’s her name. She’s got a habit, when her relationships end, of going back to old boyfriends. Why is that? Obviously, there’s a sense of connection with who you used to be. Going back to a former lover is a little like time traveling backward. Karen says she sees these men as they were when she first met them, and feels her younger self being reflected back. Powerful stuff. I think there’s always a sense of longing, too, for whatever it was that drew you to them in the first place. In memory we remember the good times and forget the bad. In any case, when I wrote The Ex Factor, I named the heroine Karen partly in honor of my friend.

I know for myself that if I’m going to be somewhere where I’ll see an ex, I definitely put a little extra effort into my appearance. It’s not that I want them back, but I want them to think, ‘Damn, how did I let her get away!’

I’ve conducted a very informal poll among my friends and I’d say a little more than half of them have gone back to an ex, either briefly or long term, or they would consider it.

How about you? Would you ever go back to an ex? Know anyone who has?

Why are all the hot guys on True Blood?

Nancy Warren — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:00:17 +0000

Well, watched the season finale of True Blood last night. It’s a show I’ve really come to love even though I’m not much of a paranormal girl. I love the show for its dialogue and for the most delicious eye candy. Who knew vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters could be so hot? Of course, as a writer, I can rarely watch a show simply for pleasure any more than I can read a book simply for pleasure. I always find myself watching as a writer. Honestly, it gets exhausting. So, anyway, here I am in the middle of True Blood, the season finale and I notice that they manage to sneak in every one of the male hotties and I started thinking about what each one represents. They are all archetypal in a way, which I suppose is their appeal, apart from the smouldering eyes and great abs, that is. There’s Bill, the main love interest of our heroine, Sookie Stackhouse and he is a vampire. But he’s that alpha who is always watching out for her. He’s a guardian, but sometimes we’re not quite sure of him. However, his love seems so deep it will defy death. Wow! This is powerful stuff. Then there’s Eric, her rival love interest. He’s a much darker character, a Viking who isn’t afraid to take what he wants, but the more we see of him the more we see he has hidden depths and is also capable of great love and sacrifice. He’s the ultimate bad boy to me. Dark, dangerous, and oh, so sexy you want him to drink your blood. Some of the other romance archetypes are the lone wolf, and in this case he actually is a wolf inside a man, who longs to belong. And doesn’t he appeal to the nurturer in all of us? There’s the dumb but sweet younger brother who is capable of true heroism when someone he loves is in peril. There’s the bar owner, who is a classic beta hero. He’ll make sweet love to you and then cook you breakfast and listen while you pour out your troubles. When he shifts, he isn’t even dangerous, he’s the cutest dog you’ve ever seen. But cross him and he’ll bare his teeth, in fact, he’s not afraid to use them if he has to. I find every one of them appeals to me in some way, though I have to admit to a secret preference for bad boy Eric, played by the most delicious Alexander Skarsgard. I love his sexual darkness, especially when tempered by flashes of wit, or the lightness he hides. Yum.

What are your favorite hero types? And why?

Nancy

Intuition

Nancy Warren — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:00:18 +0000

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! You know, I’ve always found the number 13 to be pretty lucky for me, thereby thumbing my nose at the old superstition. It’s sort of strange to get excited to be assigned to the 13th floor (often marked as 14, as though you might be fooled thinking that after 12 comes… 14) or to be number 13 in line for something, but it’s true. Which brings me to this really cool workshop a friend of mine took. It was all about transitions. Which should, perhaps, be capitalized, since the Transitions were usually huge. People in her course were leaving marriages, changing jobs, facing trauma, drama, uncertainty of all kinds. And the big takeaway for her?

Intuition.

As in, we all have it. It’s that little voice inside you, that feeling in the gut that tells you — or tries to tell you — when you are veering off course. And when you are heading exactly in the right direction. Let’s face it, change is hard. But we all go through it, sometimes in big ways, sometimes small. One of the exercises she had that I really loved is you write down ten words. Then you take the four that most speak to you. And you compose a sentence. She said that everyone in her course was blown away by the power of that sentence. I tried it, and my intuition is telling me that the sentence I came up with is too sensitive to share. But honestly it took me about five minutes and I had a real aha moment around what my subconscious wanted to tell me.

Why don’t you try it? You don’t have to share, simply let us know if you found it useful. This stuff can truly change lives.

A shout out to Dawn Atkins, Dawn your cover is gorgeous!! I don’t blame you for being all excited. And Joanne Rock, OMG I wish I could have been at National this year. It is like a sorority event. You looked gorgeous as always.

Candace, I want your job!!

Enjoy this special day. If your intuition is telling you it’s going to be a lucky one, then it will be. So, once again, Happy Friday 13th!

Nancy

Sailing, pool…Hockey?? and other sundry adventures

Nancy Warren — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:00:42 +0000

First off, I’m very excited to have My Fake Fiancee on shelves this month in company with some of my fave authors. I thought the covers this month were scrumptious. Though why my heroine is wearing her bathing suit in the bathtub has me in a puzzle ;-) Oh, well. In the scene she’s um, not!

So, sometimes as an author, you end up writing a book completely out of season, which is what’s happened to me. I’m writing a Hockey Encounters book right how. With the whole world in a heat wave I am writing about ice. And cold. And winter coats. Honestly, I sweat just thinking about it. This would probably be a fun exercise at a writing workshop, a kind of test of the imagination. Okay, it’s 90 degrees outside, write about a snow storm. Or, we’re in a snowstorm, quick, write about sitting on the beach on a hot summer’s day. I’ve actually found a hockey rink that’s operating, so that’s good. And sometimes I stick my head in the freezer for inspiration :-D But mostly I’ve been sailing. I recently got invited to crew on a 35 foot sailboat. I am having so much fun. It’s always a fun bunch of people and we are racing. The first night I went out the crew was so slim I actually had to do a pretty important job. I was tailing, which means I had to pull and winch one rope that operated the jib and another that operated the spinaker. I was doing great. Until in the heat of the race somebody yelled at me to ease off the jib. No problem. I eased. And eased, and let more rope out until finally somebody yelled at me to STOP. Seemed I was letting down the wrong sail. Which is not usually a good way to win a race!! However, in spite of my newbie disaster, they keep asking me back. And yesterday we won our race. What a thrill that was. Then I came home sunburned and wrote a bout snow, and cold and hockey…

Meanwhile, another friend of mine invited me to play pool. Now, I have never ever played pool before. Not even once. So, picture me in a bar, getting a lesson on how to play pool (which naturally involved a nerve strengthening beverage) and then this couple comes up and challenges us to a game. Talk about pressure! I mostly tried not to do anything stupid like knock the white ball in a hole, and let my partner do the heavy lifting. It was great fun. Fortunately no one was serious. And then I came home and thought THAT’S how I can get my princessy figure skating heroine to go out with the jock hockey player. He’ll challenge her to a game of pool and she won’t be able to resist. That’s what I love about writing. The greatest scenes come in the most unlikely places. Now If I could just figure out a way to get a sailing scene in a hockey book…

Hope you’re all staying cool, except when you’re reading some red hot Blaze.

Happy Reading

Working on my Hockey book...

Men Reading Romance

Nancy Warren — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:00:19 +0000

So, I’ve had some fun lately with men reading my books. Obviously some men have always read Blaze. Sometimes it’s a wife or girlfriend who hands her man a book and says, ‘read this. This is what women want and sometimes a guy’s just curious. But lately, I’ve had the odd experience of having quite a few men I know or only sort of know read my books. Here’s a random sampling of thoughts. First, from Rob who read Under the Influence. Rob’s a single lawyer and took my book on a boys’ skiing weekend. Apparently, they all had some fun times reading aloud from my book. A boys’ weekend? Wonder what scenes they were reading! But what he said to me was that it struck him that before my heroine slept with the hero she’d noticed how clean his bathroom was. He was quite enlightened by the fact that hygiene is a real turn on for women. Yes, I do my bit to spread the word that slobs aren’t really sexy to us. Next was Rick. Rick’s a 62 year old guy in my hiking group. He’s been married for a long time and I think the marriage has dwindled to convenience and he likes to think he’s a bit of a chick magnet. He read a NASCAR Valentine’s novella I wrote. In that story, the heroine ends up in Daytona during Valentine’s after being falsely lured there by a married man pretending to be single. When she finds out she dumps him, as any good heroine would, and then meets the hero. Rick can’t get past the fact that my heroine dumped the married guy. He thinks I’m way too hard on cheaters. :-O Go figure. Then my screenwriting buddy Doug read Too Hot to Handle. We ended up having a really interesting conversation about the ways women and men communicate. My favorite part of the Doug story is that he read the book on public transit. I love the picture of him, this tall, serious man holding a bright red Harlequin with a sexy cover. He told me he definitely got some female attention on the bus.

What about you? Do you know men who read romance? Do you think it would be good for them? I know a Harlequin hero is too much for most mortals to live up to, but I think men can learn a lot by reading what we value in a man. For me it’s honesty, integrity, sense of humor, oh yeah, and a clean bathroom.

But what IS style?

Nancy Warren — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:00:57 +0000

I have to admit, reading Joanne Rock’s post from yesterday really made me think, (and, btw, Joanne you can write anything you want and I’ll read it) what IS style exactly? I love that line in When Harry Met Sally when Carrie Fisher says to Bruno Kirby after she insists he get rid of his wagon wheel coffee table, “Having good taste is like having a sense of humor, everyone thinks they have one, but not everyone does.” I’m going from memory, so I might have the wording slightly wrong, but that’s the gist of it. Of course, Bruno immediately tells her in no uncertain terms that he has a sense of humor. It’s a great moment in the film and I always laugh. As I was reading Joanne’s post about style, and from viewing a few painful episodes of What Not to Wear, most people think they have a fashion sense and sometimes it’s so bad their friends have to stage an intervention. When I think about my style, I think I have different styles for different days. Different times of the month. Different moods. Okay, different versions of me. Which is what I love about fashion.

As I always point out when I teach writing classes, the way we dress announces to the world a great deal of what we want to say about ourselves and often a lot of what we don’t intend to broadcast. Clothing can say: I’m a rebel, I’m rich, I’m so trendy I always have the latest look, I’m so eco-friendly I only wear rumpled hemp, I’m a conformist, I’m on a team, in a club, a cult etc. Or the wearer can unknowingly announce themselves as a wanabe, like the kid in school who copies the cool kids but never quite gets it right. I know I’ve mentioned Glee here before, but one of the things I love about that show is the clothing. The cheerleaders ALWAYS wear their uniform, because they are the it girls of the school and that uniform is like a constant brag. Sue Sylvester, the coach, ALWAYS wears a track suit because being head coach is so obviously her whole world. Kurt, the gay gleek always dresses with glamour in mind, except on this last week’s show he tried on a new look — I won’t spoil the episode if you haven’t seen it, but it’s worth viewing just as a reminder of how much our clothing choices say about how we feel about ourselves.

I bet we all have truly embarrassing moment stories around fashion. I remember one day in Grade 6 a few girls all decided to wear skirts the next day. This was a school where the uniform was jeans, jeans, jeans. So, I turned up the next day in my skirt — and the others had all chickened out. I felt like my naked legs were two blazing beacons of nerdiness. Even writing about it now I remember how awful that day was.

How about you? Do you have a clothing story you want to share? Or a favorite character who is defined by their style?

I think it’s fun when reading novels or watching TV and movies to pay attention to clothing and realize how much we assume about a character based on their clothing.

Gleeful about GLEE

Nancy Warren — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:00:07 +0000

Okay, I admit it, I’m a Glee addict. I am so excited about the second season beginning tonight. This show combines so many fun elements, the big musical numbers, the intertwining stories of high school ambition and heartache, the delicious villain Sue Sylvester, played by Jane Lynch, who I think is one of the funniest women on the planet, and my personal favorite, Matthew Morrison. And here’s why I think my Glee gushing is remotely relevant to a Blaze post: Matthew Morrison is hot. And part of his appeal, to me, is that there’s an adorable geekiness to this high school teacher who puts his own time and money into reviving the seriously uncool Glee club. The kind of men who make a woman’s heart pound range from the pure alpha, a warrior who will sweep a woman off her feet in spite of hersel

He looks this good and he can dance and sing? Be still my heart!

f, and the more metrosexual guys who wear earrings and make cooking look sexy. Morrison is the latter kind of hero. He’ll listen when a young girl has a problem, will take on a second job as a janitor to help pay for his very unlovable wife’s whims, and will stifle his attraction to the much more lovable school guidance counselor. But, best of all, he sings.
And he dances.
And I can’t get enough of it. It’s not that I don’t mind the odd viking, CEO, hockey star, cop or other alpha hero, because they can make my heart pound too, but the older I get, the more I appreciate a lower key guy. One who will cook, and take out the trash without complaining, and sing and dance.

How about you?

Unmet Needs

Nancy Warren — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:07:01 +0000

First a shout out to a couple of other Blaze babes who have books out this month. Bonnie Edwards’s first Blaze, Possessing Morgan is out now. I’ ve known Bonnie for a long time and was really excited to find that we’d have books on the shelf the same month. She’s a fabulous writer who really has a way with heroes. I can’t wait to read PM. And I just started Heather MacAllister’s His Little Black Book. I am loving it. I really like the Encounters books with several stories that intertwine. Heather’s all take place around a Hurricane. She had me cracking up when a hot shot exec plans a little intimate encounter at a beach house and accidentally text messages the invitation to his entire phone list. Now that’s a great set up. I’m having a hard time putting the book down.

Speaking of intimate encounters, I had the truly hideous experience last night where a good friend of mine (who might have had a glass of wine too many) pulled out Too Hot to Handle and proceeded to read aloud one of the love scenes. Oh, yeah, did I mention we were in mixed company?? I am not embarrassed about what I write. Sex scenes are a fun celebration of developing love and obviously an important aspect of a Blaze novels. But read out of context? Oh, puh-lease. What was interesting was that (after I’d quit blushing) the men in the room got us into an interesting discussion about heroes. Not so much the ‘where do you get your ideas’ question but they wanted to know where I get my heroes? And here’s what I said. A romance hero is not a real man. We know this. He’s fantasy. I write men the way I wish men could be. Always there for us, someone who knows what we want and need even when we aren’t aware of it. Oh, I’m melting already! He’s got a sense of humor, work he’s passionate about, he looks like Hugh Jackman, Clive Owen, Bradley Cooper (insert your fantasy guy here), he’s strong and sensitive, flawed but ultimately redeemed by love. If circumstances require it, he may time travel or fight off wolves with his bare hands. In short, he’s not like anyone you or I are likely to meet. But the more I think of it, I suspect he’s also about unmet needs. Mine, probably, when I write him, but I think one of the things that draws me to romance — both reading and writing it — is knowing I’ll have certain needs met that aren’t met by real men.

And I’m okay with that.

How about you?

Love is all around…

Nancy Warren — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:54:12 +0000

I have a confession to make. I get so SICK this time of year of bright red hearts and display upon display of cards and candies and stuffed animals and candles and bath oil… It goes on and on. And have you ever actually gone out to eat on Valentine’s Day? Restaurants are crowded, servers are run off their feet and instead of an intimate, romantic evening, I end up feeling stressed. Or worse, checking out the other couples and trying to gauge if they are really in love and if so, whereabouts on the scale of new-found passion to married-so-long-they-have-nothing-left-to-say to each other that these people fall. I’ve always thought that the most romantic gestures are the spontaneous ones. Of course, that said, I often end up writing Valentine themed stories. For instance, right now, I’m in a NASCAR Valentine collection with Vicki Lewis Thompson and Dorien Kelly called Racing Hearts. In it, my heroine’s planned Valentine’s Day goes horribly wrong. And last year, Under the Influence featured a workaholic heroine who stumbles into a restaurant not even realizing that it’s V Day. Luckily she meets the world’s most adorable bartender and well, the rest is all the good stuff that makes up a Blaze. One of the reviewers at All About Romance chose UTF as her favorite book of 2009. I was so thrilled by the honor that I will send a copy of Under the Influence to someone who leaves a comment. However you choose to spend this special weekend, whether with a lover, with friends, or curled up with your cat, make sure and do something nice for yourself.

Happy Reading,

Nancy