The Night Raven Muse

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T13:01:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving from Romance For the Night Raven!

Meical Grabian is grateful for the sunrise.

I'm blogging today at Julie A. D'Arcy's Satin and Lipstick Blog :D

2011-11-11T16:05:00.000-06:00

Hey there, Night Ravens, come on over to Julie's Satin and Lipstick Blog for some Friday afternoon fun. Author Julie A. D'Arcy is letting me guest blog there...and uh-oh, the rubber duckies are planning an invasion. Could we get some folks over there to keep my little quackers in a row?

While you're there, enjoy the work of uber-talented Julie. Yes, those beautiful covers and the gorgeous artwork on the blog are hers. Julie is an amazing artist, as well as a gifted writer.

Many thanks for those of you who will form up a ducky brigade :)

That's happening now at Julie A. D'Arcy's Satin and Lipstick Blog.
Drop by and leave me a comment, and if you'd like a free copy of my Harlequin Nocturne entitled Incubus, email me at nanstein [at] gmail [dot] com.

Many thanks,
Janet

The characters of INCUBUS are at it again...

2011-03-21T12:44:00.000-05:00

WHEN: Wed Mar 23, 2011 (CDT)

WHERE: Fantasy Pages: The Official Blog of Romance and Fantasy Author Denysé Bridger

There's no telling who might turn up!

Join me on tomorrow (Feb 7) at Coffee Time Romance & More

2011-02-06T13:37:00.001-06:00

Event Name: "Bring in the New Year With Books and Coffee Time Romance & More

Hosting Group: Coffee Time Romance & More (CTRM)
Find out how you can win the Pandigital color e-reader that CTRM is giving away.
Hint: it has a lot to do with all those polka-dotted hearts you've seen popping up online everywhere

Event Description: I'll be sharing snippets from Incubus, and you never know who might show up to help me.

Where: http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=1592
Dates: Monday Feb 7
Time: I'll be posting throughout the day; drop in and say hello anytime.

Interview with Benemerut Neshi at RT Book Reviews

2011-01-19T19:07:00.001-06:00

Interview with Benemerut Neshi
RT Book Reviews on January 20, 2011

There was an absence of light in him, yet his soul lit up the cosmic river. There was no death in him, yet she couldn't feel his presence as she could a living soul. He was all intelligence and cunning. The only thing that made him seem to belong on this plane was his connection to the man she as trying to help. ~from INCUBUS

This is what Caroline felt the first time she ever encountered Benemerut Neshi, the powerful vampire who transformed Meical Grabian from a vampire to an incubus--or something of a combination of the two.

In a rare spirit of cooperation, Ben agreed to talk to the Night Raven News, and RT Book Reviews has kindly sponsored that interview. You can check it out right here on tomorrow (Jan 20). Ben may look 25, but he's actually several thousand years old and has the hunger to prove it.

Fortunately he fed very well before he arrived for the interview.
I hope you'll drop by RT Book Reviews and check out this rare visit with Benemerut Neshi.

Caroline's Interview on the Harlequin Paranormal Romance Blog

2011-01-07T20:02:00.000-06:00

Caroline and Meical had a very nice time at the second Night Raven News interview, featured on Harlequin's Paranormal Romance Blog. You can check it out if you'd like, and please feel free to leave a comment.

Better yet, drop by Meical's Facebook page and let him know you were there :)

Thanks!
Janet

Meical is being interviewed today at the Romance Lives Forever blog!

2010-12-14T13:03:00.000-06:00

Drop by Kayelle Allen's Romance Lives Forever Blog and find out what Meical has to say about seeing his first sunrise in 200 years, his life as an incubus, how you could win one of five copies of Incubus by friending him on Facebook, and who's up next in a new series of interviews brought to you by the Night Raven News.

INCUBUS is now available for purchase

2010-12-02T15:05:00.000-06:00

INCUBUS

Available now from

Harlequin Nocturne

How do you overcome the mistrust of an empath running for her life? One night at a time.

I found this clever-looking fellow in my inbox today... hee hee ....

2010-10-13T12:56:00.000-05:00

Tah-dah! INCUBUS now has a cover! :D

Come to the October Spookapalooza at The Romance Studio!

2010-10-06T10:07:00.002-05:00

Come have some Halloween fun and win some great prizes!

October 6 - 31...

Join the multi-author, party-hearty, spooky spectacular fun at The Romance Studio's OCTOBER SPOOKAPALOOZA and win some fantastic prizes!

Bag some beasties to fall in love with that will make the whole month of October delicious for you. One lucky reader will walk away with the grand prize: a Kindle!

You might also win a $25 Amazon gift card from me, compliments of Meical Grabian...

http://theromancestudio.com/party

Oh he's cute :)

2010-02-16T23:07:00.000-06:00

Just improved my character pics...this is Ellory Benedikt from Revenant :)

Whatcha think?

Happy Valentine's to Everyone!

2010-02-07T13:54:00.000-06:00

Well, it's a little early, but here's my Valentine for you :D

Whatcha think?

2010-01-15T10:59:00.000-06:00

I just finished this toon fellow -- who is he? A prince? A wizard? A rogue?
I think he has a story to tell, and as soon as he tells me what it is, I'm going to do a graphic novel to tell his story.

But first, of course, he's got to have a beautiful girl to fall in love with!
Because of course it has to be a romance.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-24T11:50:00.000-06:00

In this gift-giving season...

2009-11-11T00:21:00.001-06:00

Will the happy pumpkin please exit stage left? :)

2009-11-10T22:44:00.001-06:00

Yeah, Halloween is over, and it was grand. Now we're taking auditions for MR TURKEY 2009!
So if you know any gallant gobblers out there, shoo them this direction! :)

Click the pic to see the whole thing :)

2009-10-31T14:50:00.000-05:00

Self-Validation, or Living from the Inside Out

2009-10-10T14:54:00.004-05:00

From the moment we open our eyes when we wake up, we are required to make decisions and choices. They come to us out of necessity, survival, ambition, desire, delegation, and a hodge-podge of external pressures. We are constantly weighing one thing against another. If we look carefully, we could probably find an idiomatic expression in every language that coincides with "choosing the lesser of two evils" and "choose wisely" and "decide now; don't wait; act fast", "buy now and save..."

To live is to choose. To be human is to decide.

Yet, in the multitude of decisions we are called on to make from one moment to the next, including the ones we didn't see coming when we woke up, there is one decision that constantly needs renewing. We may not be aware of it, and yet, from the moment we arrive on the planet, a thousand influences around us constantly present themselves in an effort to influence that one decision.

The decision I speak of is that of self-trust, self-definition and self-validation. This is the three-legged stool every human being sits on. Remove one leg and the stool falls, and we fall with it.

Think of the myriad of influences that impact one of these three priceless ingredients of being a self-actualized human being. I'm referring to influences that exist outside of us, the ones that are external to our inner being. Many are positive and nurturing; many are not. Every one of them will define us, pending our acceptance, and our acceptance depends on how much authority we place in the source of the influence. We sometimes don't realize that we are the sole authority, the one and only expert, on who we are and what that means. We sometimes give that power away, and along with it, the power to choose for ourselves what will and will not be part of our self-validation.

These influences constantly present their "case" for who we are, who we should be, how valuable we are, what we should be doing, and how, and when, and how fast...and we accept those external definitions, sometimes consciously, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes out of conviction or fear or guilt or a longing to belong, and one accepted external definition builds on the rest.

Once we accept them, they become ours, for good or bad; they become truth for us as individuals. However they came to be, regardless of their value or truth, the moment we swallow them down they become our personal truth, and all personal truths tell us who we are.

So we go through our day deciding things, and yet we allow this most crucial decision of all, upon which the foundation of our personal peace, self-love, hope and stamina depends, to be influenced by what exists outside our inner being.

How might our other decisions be informed, if we begin our day by reaffirming our right to trust ourselves, define ourselves and validate our own existence? Scary thought? Yes. That means total self-awareness, self-acknowledgment and self-responsibility. Moreover, it means an identity crisis, because we sometimes become very secure with even the most hurtful self-definition. We may feel that the person we believe we are is preferable to anything else, because we have come to know ourselves in that light, even if we our maintaining a very negative self-image.

We may even go so far as to reject a more positive self-image, because that would mean we have to change, and we've become self-secure with our skepticism, cynicism, guilt and worst-case-scenario thought patterns. So some of us don't take compliments well, or are floored by blessings, or mistrust positive outcomes. We may even resort to reminders of experiences we've had that made us feel devalued.

If one's self-image is built on the negation of self-worth, on guilt, on a sense of having been cheated or deprived or betrayed by those in whom we vested the right to define us, then we can't help but be angry, insecure and convinced we are "not good enough". Even so, rather than trade that old familiar painful self-context, we will stick to our guns and go down crying, because this is the familiar face we wear when we look in the mirror and we don't know who we are unless we are that person.

And yet humanity is pure courage, by nature.

How might our relationships with others be improved if we declare our emotional independence from those external definitions which are not our own? How might we be healthier, since what we feel emotionally informs our entire outlook, and our outlook informs our physical well-being? How might we be stronger, live longer, be rock-solid for our loved ones, refuse disparagement, refuse anger, refuse guilt, refuse confusion, if we begin this day by deciding we are that person we decide we are, we like that person we are, we accept that person, just as we are right now in this moment, and acknowledge that nothing else can justify our existence or give value to our lives but our own inner council? How might we be stronger when we realize that this decision is ours alone to make and cannot be made by any other?

You can wake up each day, shoring up your three-legged stool, with a simple renewal of your unconditional definition of self-acceptance and self-appreciation for the fact that you are the one and only "you" on the planet, and you don't have to justify your presence here. You are; therefore you are meant to be.

This doesn't leave one's conscience on the outside. Because anything worth doing--including being yourself--is worth doing right. It's our innate desire to show the best of ourselves to the rest of the world. That's something you have to trust yourself on. But only when we can understand what moral integrity means to us in a context of self can it have real meaning in our lives. We may follow guidelines all our lives without understanding why we do; by understanding them in a personal way, as individuals, they become ours. But again, this means we have to trust ourselves.

Self-trust. Self-definition. Self-validation. Living from the inside out.
You can do this.

Ah this is better

2009-09-03T15:15:00.000-05:00

Well the blog looks a bit better now, more normal, less squished. Hopefully it will stay this way.
:) Janet

Something weird is happening here at Blogger

2009-08-06T13:18:00.002-05:00

So things will look a little strange around here until I can sort it out.
But I guess starting fresh is always a good idea :)