Dodging Eros Cover Image X starts at the beginning.

After spotting an allegedly intoxicated C.I.X. in an empty field several days ago, reliable sources have reported that the mysterious original artwork has been involuntarily checked into the exclusive Shady Acres Art Spa to get "refreshed" for its upcoming debut. There's speculation about loose threads, sun damage, and dangerous pigment mixing.

The original artwork for the Dodging Eros, Through Past, Present and Pleasure  cover image was seen wallowing in an empty field. Wailing and babbling was heard. While most people in the U.S. are celebrating Thanksgiving, C.I.X. is probably headed to art rehab.

The search for the original Dodging Eros artwork enters a new phase.

Can original artwork experience Stockholm Syndrome?

Artistic freedom is on the horizon.

Focus on the contrasts between her innocence and his experience.

Add more internal conflict.

Give the lead male character a tortured spirit.

Dig beneath the surface of each character.

Let the characters transform throughout the story.

Reveal more details about the characters' lives.

Make the characters appealing.

Highlight the main male character's virile sensitivity.

Reveal the characters' passions in different ways.

Offer titillating physical descriptions of the characters.

Internal conflict adds drama.

Make the characters dynamic.

Establish the power hierarchy.

Build tension.

Make the main female character relatable.

Tap into current trends in popular fiction.

Hook readers with a memorable opening sentence.

The original artwork for the Dodging Eros, Through Past, Present and Pleasure cover image remains in an undisclosed location until this author satisfies the Art Dept.'s requirements for its release. C.I.X. is using the time of forced isolation to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Two days down, twenty-eight to go.

The original artwork for my Dodging Eros cover image has decided to take advantage of its time in captivity by participating in National Novel Writing Month #NaNoWriMo.

Time to get serious about promoting Dodging Eros, Through Past, Present and Pleasure by Cardyn Brooks... Just as soon as tonight's candy crawl ends Surely, the Art Dept. will understand.

The original artwork for your cover image is inside this portfolio. Meet our demands or risk having this and all the digital files disappear forever.   The Art Dept. demands recognition! They want buzz. They want anticipation. They want a swell of word-of-mouth chatter to grow into an avalanche of interest in the masterpiece of cover art they have created with their inspired genius. Dire consequences for my book and me if I don't deliver. This author would appreciate your help in satisfying them by leaving a guess in a comment for one or more of the Dodging Eros Cover Reveal Contest clues posted at BlerdyBingeReader.blogspot.com during the original four days of the contest (Saturday 10/25/2014--Tuesday 10/28/2014). Thank you!

I think the whole Art Dept. is annoyed with me for not doing justice to the gorgeous results of their talented labors. Please help an author out of a tricky situation and leave your guess in a comment for one or more of the clues posted to BlerdyBingeReader.blogspot.com during the original four days of the contest (Saturday 10/25/2014--Tuesday 10/28/2014). Thank you!

Dodging Eros Cover Reveal Contest for a chance to win a Good to O bag of adult treats  When reading the clues, consider word associations, literal, figurative, and slang meanings from different angles; mainstream and fringe interpretations.  Day Four Clues             Second Significant Image Component: Sometimes organic, sometimes synthetic, this shadowed contour with deliberately spaced curves to measure development glides up and down the rails on ranges across the United States and around the world.  Submit your guess for Day Four Clues as a comment to this post.  Participants must be at least 18 years old and are responsible for any and all applicable income declaration requirements and taxes, and for providing valid, government-issued proof of identity, age, and eligibility. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. See Dodging Eros Cover Reveal Contest Details in Blerdy...

Dodging Eros Cover Reveal Contest for a chance to win a Good to O bag of adult treats When reading the clues, consider word associations, literal, figurative, and slang meanings from different angles; mainstream and fringe interpretations. Day Three Clues          Accessory Related to the Central Item: A directional sign, common cursor icon, and the lead character in a popular U.S. television series on the CW channel. Some professional Chiefs run around with these on the sides of their heads while they throw, catch, kick, and chase rocks. This particular one resembles the universal symbol for the core of human physical and emotional life, or the center of a vegetable. Submit your guess for Day Three Clues as a comment to this post. Participants must be at least 18 years old and are responsible for any and all applicable income declaration requirements and taxes, and for providing valid, government-issued proof...

Dodging Eros Cover Reveal Contest for a chance to win a Good to O bag of adult treats  Day Two Clues           Central Item: In a shoelace, as a ribbon, weapon or instrument, this item bends according to its handler’s strength and skill. When it’s pulled taut to launch a projectile, it’s described as this tired, careworn state of being. A grasping, sometimes graceful arrangement of digits once used to measure horses, and still frequently sheathed in a tight, removable protective layer often made from preserved animal hides or woven from animal hair. Submit your guess for Day Two Clues as a comment to this post.  Participants must be at least 18 years old and are responsible for any and all applicable income declaration requirements and taxes, and for providing valid, government-issued proof of identity, age, and eligibility. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. See Dodging...

Dodging Eros Cover Reveal Contest for a chance to win a Good to O bag of adult treats When reading the clues, consider word associations, literal, figurative, and slang meanings from different angles; mainstream and fringe interpretations. Day One Clues           First Significant Image Component:  Whether Stoic follower, builder of walls to hold back uncivilized hordes, instigator of the precursor to the Justinian Code or Roman emperor, the patron saint of this now obsolete warrior-hunter would have cheered for Geena Davis in her quest to compete as an Olympian.           First Significant Image Component’s Orientation and Details: Creating an appealing one online is a good idea. Expert criminologists do this with a high probability of accuracy; untrained amateurs don’t. This sloped joint can be found beside most roads, and comes with its own blade. This lim...

Cover Reveal Contest for Dodging Eros, Through Past, Present and Pleasure by Cardyn Brooks The Good to O bag of adult treats has an approximate retail value of $110.00. It contains a 100% silk designer scarf (vintage, purchased new, never worn) sized to accommodate a variety of uses according to your imagination and your mood, luxury lubricant courtesy of Überlube, condoms, a handheld massager (not shown; backordered), luxurious passionfruit soap, chocolate, a music CD with classic standards about love, and a signed, limited edition first printing of Seducing the Burks, Five Erotic Tales by Cardyn Brooks.  Special thanks to  Überlube for their generosity. http://www.bustle.com/articles/38871-i-tried-lube-as-a-beauty-product-and-this-uberlube-is-surprisingly-effective-even-outside-of    Day One Clues will be by posted by 2 p.m. ET today, Saturday, October 25, 2014  When reading the clues, consider word associations, literal, figurative, and slang me...

Dodging Eros, Through Past, Present and Pleasure by Cardyn Brooks is something different. It's an unconventional erotic novel as a social commentary romp with elements of spoof and theater of the absurd; a mashup of subversive riffs on love. Entitlement, privilege, and identity have shaped the politics of pleasure and the risks and rewards of loving and being loved for generations. Dodging Eros serves these layers in a provocative brain dessert for adults. Participants must be at least 18 years old and are responsible for any and all applicable income declaration requirements and taxes, and for providing valid, government-issued proof of identity, age, and eligibility. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law.  Day One Clues will be posted to BlerdyBingeReader.blogspot.com by 2:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, October 25, 2014 . New clues posted each consecutive day until 11:45 p.m. ET on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 . One guess per unique site visit...

Coming soon...  Dodging Eros, Through Past, Present and Pleasure  by Cardyn Brooks Cover Reveal Contest: Participants must be at least 18 years old and are responsible for any and all applicable income declaration requirements and taxes, and for providing valid, government-issued proof of identity, age, and eligibility. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law.  The Good to O bag of adult treats has an approximate retail value of $110.00. It contains   a 100% silk designer scarf sized to accommodate a variety of uses according to your imagination and your mood, luxury lubricant courtesy of Überlube, condoms, a handheld massager, luxurious passionfruit soap, chocolate, a music CD with classic standards about love, and a signed, limited edition first printing of Seducing the Burks, Five Erotic Tales by Cardyn Brooks.  Dates and details TBA

Returning Champion: "Let's try 'Archaic Gender Stereotypes' for two hundred, please, Alex." Confession: The media's tone-deaf obliviousness continues to astound me. Time to donate more to MissRepresentation.org.  BATAF: All women want the same things, and sexism propagated by women undercuts the legitimacy of other people's valid outrage. 

The Ignorance Defense Confession: All these widely acclaimed leaders of multi-billion-dollar organizations like JPMorganChase, the IRS, and the NFL continue to impress me (in a disturbing, watching-a-catastrophe-happen way) with the unwavering strength of their audacity to use "I didn't know." and "No one told me." to shield themselves from being held accountable for the catastrophic fallout of their leadership failures.  BATAF: Voltaire was wrong: with great power comes no accountability. 

.............. STRONG!  Confession: Password protected accounts are only as secure as the smartest, least ethical IT person's interest in accessing it.  BATAF: User I.D.s and passwords are hackers' primary foci.  

Writing Contemporary Fiction in the 21st C. Might Not Be Your True Calling If… Every character is Anglo (or every human character is Anglo in Sci-Fi). There are no LGBTQ characters or families. There are no physically or developmentally challenged characters. Perfect is used to describe human bodies, personalities, relationships or families. Financially poor characters are inherently ignorant, lazy, and predisposed to bad actions. Christianity is revered as a legitimate religion while all others are impugned. Strong and powerful character traits are segregated into masculine and feminine distinctions. Emphasis is placed on female characters’ clothing sizes, weight, shoe sizes, slender anything; pale, milk or pearl white skin and beautiful blonde hair. References to doing something like a girl or being a woman are offered as insults. Single female characters are referred to or think of themselves ...

I I v Confession: Geraldo Rivera's beliefs about what "... a woman brings to a marriage more than anything else, to a relationship, is her youth. Youth is a fragile and diminishing resource..." didn't surprise me. In recent years, it's been his clueless comments about wearing hoodies in the Trayvon Martin killing, his ill-advised naked selfie post (Who does he think he is--James Franco?), and now proclaiming this 18th-century attitude that have swung the media spotlight his way--not the excellent journalistic relevance of many years ago.    BATAF: A woman's value decreases as she ages, while a man's increases.  

photo by Cardyn Brooks 2014  Confession: Fiction books with humans on the cover almost always make me feel excluded. They rarely resemble me in skin color, body type, age or attitude. BATAF: The growing demand for diversity in casts of characters and main characters is a fad.

photo snapped by Cardyn Brooks 2014  Confession: Hearing someone (or myself) say, "Thank you for your service," to a military service member always sounds like inadequate words of gratitude for all that they risk and suffer and sacrifice to protect the U.S. The expanding investigation into VA hospitals magnifies that sense of shameful inadequacy. BATAF: One day; one holiday weekend per year is sufficient acknowledgement for those who have died to protect and defend the United States of America.

image by Cardyn Brooks 2014  Observation: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Bill Gates made technology mainstream. They and their peers conceived and built upon innovations that launched this current digital society, measured by likes, views, unique visitors, subscribers, customer reviews, etc. We are connected through many more ways of communication and information access at the same time the depth of our face-to-face connections is eroding because we're always looking down into our personal tech for amusement and knowledge. BATAF: Human- to-human engagement is obsolete.   

image from weneeddiversebooks.tumblr.com  Confession: The #WeNeedDiverseBooks and #DiversifyYourShelves threads are so encouraging to me after reading so much mainstream contemporary fiction in which there are no non-Anglo characters or the ones who are included seem flat and false. BATAF: Diversity is a politically correct fad, not a universal necessity.

original image from hercampus.com Confession: Being called bossy doesn't bother me. Not teaching our girls, boys and young women and young men how to move through life as propelled by ethical ambitions, the Golden Rule and internal validation does. This Ban Bossy campaign is well-intentioned, but ignores the source of the leadership gap between girls and boys: the suffocating narrowness of gendered expectations and the consequences of not conforming to them. BATAF : Desirable female and male personality traits are rigidly defined.  

image from crooksandliars.com  Confession: It didn't surprise me to learn that Hobby Lobby indirectly invests in companies that manufacture the types of contraceptives that Hobby Lobby finds objectionable based on their religious beliefs. It did surprise me that no one on their highly educated and generously compensated legal team advised Hobby Lobby to divest from these mutual funds before filing suit for an exemption from the ACA's contraception coverage mandate due to infringement on the religious freedom of their corporation's personhood. They could have easily avoided the appearance of sanctimonious hypocrisy. BATAF: A woman's fertility is her only significant contribution to society.

Question: What if everyone universally agreed that intoxicated people are automatically not candidates for any kind of sexual activity? Regardless of the circumstances. When in doubt, don't.  BATAF : The burden of proof always falls on rape survivors to prove they weren't asking for it. 

image from thebadgecentre.co.uk Confession : Having as large an assortment of romance fiction about actual adults (instead of 30+somethings who behave like emotionally stunted high schoolers) as there is in YA and New Adult titles would create a lovely selection for this voracious reader.  BATAF : Once a woman hits her 30s, her best years are behind her.   

"I Am A HueMan Target." by Cardyn Brooks (c)2014 Confession: The verdict in the trial of the man who killed Jordan Davis did not surprise me. In death, Jordan Davis was judged with as much automatic suspicion by the jury as he was by his killer in life. BATAF: A white man's fear always justifies the use of deadly force against black male bodies.