As a young girl baby sitting to earn a little cash, Lois Cutts Sullivan wove stories to the children to entertain them.

"I would mesmerize them," Sullivan said. "They would sit there and listen to what I had to say and want to hear the end of the story. I think I always knew I was going to be a writer."

Later, when she went to work as a bartender on the south shore of Long Island in New York, the people she met became characters she built stories in her head about. After 13 years, she had a collection of picturesque personalities.

"I met all these fantastic characters and I said, 'I'm going to write a book about this,'" Sullivan said in her Yankee New York accent. "These people are just too good, too colorful, too wacky and way out there to just let go. These are characters I had dreams about."

Sullivan said it's very hard to be in the bar and restaurant business and not run into Mafia members because they run all those businesses. She met bookies, numbers guys and shylocks.

"Tending bar, I met a lot of these cuckoo Mafia characters," Sullivan said. "They weren't like the bad, bad Mafia guys; these were like low guys on the totem pole, just guys. That's where you have the 'dees, dems, and doze.'"

Shylocks collect money from debts owed to the Mafia. The Mafia loans money at outrageous interest rates to people who don't have good credit. One of the bartenders Sullivan worked with was a Mafia money lender who used the bar business as a tax cover and business office.

The first book Sullivan wrote, "Shaken and Stirred," was developed during those years. The story is about a barmaid on Long Island. She's a woman who was married to a New York cop who gets killed, and owes a lot of money to the Mafia.

The Mafia wants the widow to pay it back, and they get her a job at a local bar.

The widow also has two adopted children from her husband's first marriage. She adores the children and they love her, but her mother-in-law, a snooty woman who has "married up," takes them away from her.

The Mafia member who helped her get the job, is a "good bad-guy," Sullivan said, and he has taken an interest in her.

"One day, a big, tall, good-looking biker dude comes in," Sullivan explains. "He turns out to be an undercover cop and thinks she's friends with the good bad-guy," and so the story unfolds.

"There's a lot of plot twists," Sullivan explains. "Mainstream fiction is really hard. The genre stuff: romance, mystery — they have there own audiences."

"Shaken and Stirred" is contemporary fiction which has won several awards in the Southwest Writers National Writing contests.

Sullivan joined the organization shortly after moving to New Mexico in the late 1980s.

"Writers really need to have each other because it's such a solitary thing that you do, you're into your own head all the time," she said, "so you need to try to be around other people of the same ilk."

"Shaken and Stirred" has recently been published by Siren Audio Books.

Sullivan is excited because it's an audio of her characters that come alive in performances by vocal artists.

Siren Audio Studios in Albuquerque has produced the story with a full cast in audio theatre reminiscent of the old radio shows in the 1940s and '50s. The company produces audio books that depart from the conventional narrative.

"Our passion is for full cast audio drama because stories have many voices," said publisher Linda Coulombe Roybal. "To all those voices we add layers of movie-quality sound effects and music so the audience is swept away on an exhilarating new kind of literary journey."

The audio book will be available on Aug. 24 at www.sirenaudiostudios.com

"The publishing business right now is really tough," said Sullivan. "They're in competition with e-books, and it remains to be seen how it's going to play out."

There has been so many publishing house mergers, there are less places for writers to sell their work, she said.

"In the old days, you'd mail in a manuscript and they'd put it on a file until they could read it," Sullivan said. "Forget it, now you can hardly get anyone to read a query letter, let alone respond."

While large publishers have captured some of the electronic book market, there are numerous small e-book publishers springing up every day.

In these economic times, some people aren't willing to pay $25 for a hardcover book when they can read an e-book for a few dollars from the smaller e-publishers, she said.

"E-books have taken off more than anyone had ever anticipated," Sullivan said. "You can get a full length novel for $3, $4 or $5 from one of the smaller publishers."

Sullivan doesn't have hard-copy manuscripts. She does everything on computer.

Her second book was her first venture into writing romance novels.

"Catch a Falling Star," is the love story of a soap opera star from New York and a Wyoming cowboy artist who has lost his Muse and son during an ugly divorce. The soap star and horse wrangler meet when the actress visits Wyoming at the bidding of her estranged father when her soap opera character is permanently written out of the television series via death.

"I like to try everything," said Sullivan. "Life is like a buffet, you won't know what you like until you try it."

When Sullivan joined the Land of Enchantment Romance Authors, a local chapter of Romance Writers of America, she met several women in professional businesses writing erotic romances on the side, and doing a good business at it.

"One of my role models is a civil engineer," said Sullivan. "She's very forthright about it, and she's very, very published in hardcover. She's great. If it's good enough for Sara, and she's such an upstanding, lovely person, I can do that."

So Sullivan took her pen (keyboard) to writing short, erotic romance stories. She started out by studying the genre at workshops on the Internet and by taking psychology, writing and English courses at the University of New Mexico.

"Erotic romances have to have a happy ending where the parties involved live happily ever after," she said, "I like to write that stuff with happy endings."

The difference between erotica and erotic romance is the happy ending, she said.

She took a pseudonym, Cat Lovington, and has signed with e-publisher Carnal Passions, a subsidiary of a large Canadian publishing company, Champagne Books.

The stories are available through Kindle, Sullivan's website at www.catlovington.com, and the publisher's website www.carnalpassions.com

"It's really writing for women. I have a following; I have fans who look for Cat Lovington stuff," Sullivan said.

Who better to write women's erotic romance than a woman?

She does have some male fans, but mostly it is women who read the erotic romances.

"Women are more aroused by the written word while men are more aroused by visuals," said Sullivan. "I think a lot of times women like this romance stuff because it gives them an opportunity to live their fantasies vicariously and encourages them to try new things," she said.

"Many women become stimulated by intimate conversation, non-sexual affection and kindness, and long, subtle foreplay, while men tend to become aroused quickly.

Men are just not romantic, at least not the everyday guy who might be very wise and kind, a loving husband and father — just not romantic," said Sullivan. "There's no rose petals on the bed and there's no soft music and candlelight — these are women's fantasies," she said.

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