How memorable was your first kiss, ?

Hello ,

Kissing. That's what I want to talk about today.

I was sent a link to a website this week that was filled with advice for how to write a great kissing scene. I clicked... as one who struggles with writing kissing scenes would... and scanned the page... as one who thinks she's heard it all before would...

...my take-away, from spending 22 seconds on the article, came from one of the 8 headers, which read,

Tip 6: Draw from your embarrassingly private experiences

Boom! I was twelve years old again. Standing in the driveway in front of my house. A few boys, who were all a year older, had unexpectedly dropped over to see me. Boys I really didn't know well at all. We rode the school bus together... that was all.

Turned out one of those boy had a crush on me and so he and his gangly gang came over to let me know... and to show me...

This is where my whole body cringes, where I transform from a plump grape to a shriveled raisin, trying to disappear to the bottom of the cereal box as I remember the scene.

Goober. That was the boy's name.

At least, that's what everyone called him. That's how I knew him. Of course, it wasn't the name his parent's gave him; that was Glen. But Goober was the boy who had the crush and who wanted to show me—with a kiss.

I was twelve. I had never kissed a boy. A boy had never shown interest in me. Goober was cute. And he liked me... so I said, "Sure, you can kiss me."

I was at least 17 before I kissed a boy again!

But back to Goober. He lived up to his nickname in that kiss. His tongue was down my throat before I'd even registered what was happening. And to this day, over 40 years later, the taste of his bad breath is as fresh in my mind as the smell of 3-day old chicken bones in the compost under the sink... 🤢

Thinking about my first kiss, in the context of advice about how to write a heart-melting kissing scene, was a big a-ha moment for me. If you've read any of my books, the sex scenes get steamy. But there's not much kissing—and very little, if any, tangling of tongues... I've actually asked a romance author friend to write a couple of kissing scenes for my books since I cannot force myself to feel the passion when tongues touch.

Ich. I need a palate cleanser now

Morgan and Tamara. They are a perfect, chaste kiss couple who drop head kisses on each other the way best friends do.

If you've read any of the first four books in The Mixed Six-Pack, my series about six brothers, you might remember a passing mention of Nick's half-brother Morgan. He's played a minor role in the series, until recently, being a little shy with his story.

But now he and Tamara, his best friend for the last ten years, have figured out that they don't need to fear crossing that line. It's my novella contribution to the Secret Santa charity anthology that is raising money for Ronald McDonald House (on sale right now across many retailers).

I don't think I've ever shared a scene from one of my books in my email to you... I wrote this scene before I read that article. And I didn't put together the shadow of my own first kiss experience until I was thinking about what to write to you today... brains are strange things, aren't they?

Here's the snippet, in Tamara's point of view. She and Morgan are walking in the forest, missing her brother, Jim, who was Morgan's best friend, until he died in a car crash at 17, ten years earlier.

Excerpt from The Magic of Mountain Air

We walked in silence and every time I looked over at Morgan he was smirking. I was smiling too, despite how many times I thought that Jim would have loved to have been on this adventure with us, wishing that Devon was Jim instead.

“What’s so amusing?” I asked him.

“Just replaying old times. Do you remember the first time I came to your place?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Do you?”

“Oh, yeah. It left an indelible scar on me.”

“Why, did you and Jim get into a fight or something?”

“You seriously don’t remember?”

“You do? Weren’t you like eleven or twelve? How do you even remember something that happened more than half a lifetime ago?”

“Some experiences stick with you. And that first after-school playdate with your brother was an afternoon I’ll never forget.”

“Because Jim was so awesome?”

Morgan stepped in front of me and stopped walking. “No. Because he had this little sister who tagged along with us when we went to the skate park. And some older kid—he was probably like thirteen but he seemed way older and pretty damn big at the time—he sat down beside—”

“I remember. He tried to kiss me. I was like ten years old.” I shuddered at the memory. “And Jim beat the living hell out of him.”

“Jim and me. We both beat the guy up. I got grounded for a month and wasn’t allowed to hang out at your place.”

“I didn’t realize you were there for that.” I shrugged.

“Your first knight in shining armor experience and you forgot it? My heart.” Morgan clutched at his chest and grimaced.

“I’m sorry I got you grounded.” I held up prayer hands.

 “Hell of an eye-opener for a kid who’d barely talked to girls, let alone hung out with one. That day made me so freaking glad I didn’t have four sisters to have to protect. I learned a lot from Jim about respecting girls, women.”

If you'd like to get a free copy of The Magic of Mountain Air, the prequel novella to The Mixed Six-Pack series, order your copy of Secret Santa: A limited edition Christmas Collection for just $0.99 today!

Oh! And when you pre-order, you actually get two free books—one is a cookbook with recipes from the stories in the anthology (very cool!), the other are short stories curated as a companion to the anthology.

Head over to this page to get your free books once you have your transaction ID from your purchase of Secret Santa.

Where are all the free books, Bloom?!

I'm trying something new to make it easier for me to write to you and keep my emails tidier. Instead of putting links to the books I'm sharing for my friends, and the promos I'm in, and the contests and giveaways which all detract from why I sit down to say hello, I've created a webpage where all that stuff can live, easy to get to but not underfoot... or under eye, I guess.

Have a look and tell me what you think.

Do you prefer having all the links to other books in a space off this email?

Or do you like them here?

Free stuff lives here!

Mwah, mwah! A kiss on each cheek to you for staying until the end of this letter.

If you have a memorable first kiss story, you know who'd love to hear it?

Yeah you do! It's me!

love&brushyourteethbeforeyoukissstuff,

Danika

xo