Bound for Trouble, bound for you?

A Christmas giveaway! I've got a story in here called Monthly, semi inspired by that cool werewolf film about the sexy woman who locks herself in her basement once a month and turns into a wolf. She might well have been French. Sort of set the bar for me for lycanthropy as a metaphor for female sexuality.

 Anyway, that's an aside (though if you can remember what the film is called, please tell me). This woman isn't a wolf, she just likes being locked in the basement every month or so. This is a story in which she Gets Caught and wrestles with her oh no, is kink wrong!? demon.

 I think about this a lot. I have a friend who considers herself modern and accepting, but she's routinely scathing and scoffing about anything kinky. One of these days I'll ask her what she'd do if she'd never been able to come to anything but the kinks she dismisses so readily. Would she go to therapy? Aversion therapy? Like people who try not to be gay? Or would she find ways to accept herself and her needs. Ponder ponder.
I also wonder about the way we laud athletes and the agony they put themselves through, for the sake of a challenge, of endorphins, of a win. What would you rather do, have a severe spanking, or run a marathon? Which would be more damaging to your body, I wonder. Which would make you cry more. I tell you this, I'd have another unmedicated labour in a flash before I ever attempted to run a marathon. And as for the spanking...

 But back to the comp. Leave a comment, think of something that's not illegal but that's tougher than a spanking, and I will pick a name after Christmas. And if it's only Charlie J Forrest, it's all good! :)

Editing

I got a very complimentary comment today on my story in Kristina Wright's Steamlust.

I agonised over that story. Mostly because it needed to be romance, and I was struggling with that a bit. But Nikki Magennis helped me get it right by making excellent suggestions, and I was able to do what was needed. I think a lot of the things that I was complimented on were down to Nikki's salient points.

It's tough, the editing process. I can't recommend getting someone to help you with it enough. Others will see things, ask questions, suggest things and pick at holes - when left to my own devices I tend to just change words to other words and dither over commas. With this one, as with others, I tied myself in knots trying to do what Nikki suggested - at first, my reaction to the notes tends to be, 'What? How?? YOU change it!' I wrestled with this one, and arghed a lot, and nearly didn't do it. I'm glad I did, though, I love the book, and I love the story, and if I'd any gumption I'd have written a prequel novel by now, but ... oh well.

So - I think that editing help allows you to write stories you are really proud of. Nikki helped me, yes, and I'm delighted at her input, but at the end of the day, it's me who decided how to act on those suggestions and adjust the story... I don't feel like it's any less my story. I think it's a skill in itself, being able to rework something, decide what advice is right and what you don't need, take out bits, write endings... it's what we do with edits that makes us writers, as well as what we write in the first place. It may be a painful process... but it's a good one!

I don't want it to be forgotten, so here's a little nostalgic view of Nikki's beautiful trailer for Steamlust. Joy!

books in the post

I'm working this afternoon instead of this morning, which is a bit of a drag, but right now I'm sitting in bed with a clutch of books around me, courtesy of Cleis Press and some review copies. I've a beautiful book on veggie growing, and two feel the fear and do it anyway type books that might encourage me to ... get out of bed, or at least do something more productive therein. And I've Alison Tyler's Twisted, which I failed to submit to, which makes me sad, as there's a lovely ToC of accomplished writers, and the first story by Jax Baynard is just ... it's excellent. The voice, the detail, the writing style... it makes me very happy, as it's just completely opposite to the lazier style of story I might sometimes indulge in... sex scenes without much behind them, no writery balls. I don't really know how to describe what I mean, but I know this story has both delighted me and put me to shame, and stalled my current up-against-a-deadline plan in its tracks, because I don't want to write something nothingy, or twee. I want to write grown-up, like this story. It's called Foundation Stone. I don't know if the rest of the book could possibly measure up, if it does, I may have to quit altogether. Reviews to come...

The Delicious Torment

I just wrote 'The Divine Torment' in the title bar. Can't be a coincidence.

The Delicious Torment 

Welcome to the second book of Alison's adventures in kinkland. This one is a treat  for me, because I just adored, loved, delighted at the love triangle, as it were, this book hinges on. I waited gleefully, because I know this book would be The Book of Alex.

In fact, it was more so than I imagined, as the story has been distilled down to focus around that particularly complex relationship between Sam, Jack and Jack's personal assistant Alex and their difficult and interesting dynamic. I loved reading about it on the blog, it left me breathless, full of gasp! moments (my favourite kind), from the moment Alex walks into the apartment and commands Sam to bend over so he can plug her.

Sadly, the book leaves out that little moment, as well as others that clarify the challenges of the relationship with Jack - in doing so it glosses over some of the more testing experiences he puts her through - the first caning isn't there - reading that, what, six years ago? made me genuinely react in fear, it seemed such a scary thing. Though at that stage, caning in porn was still something I covered my eyes for... funny how things become less shocking over time.

I want it all back in the story - I wish each moment could still be there, as I said before, but edited as it is, the book becomes a concise description of how the love affair develops as Jack tests Sam and pushes his own emotional fences.

I've seen it suggested that you can read this book as a standalone story, but honestly, I think you'd be doing yourself no favours to do that. Read it as part of how this intense, scary, deeply romantic relationship builds and grows, how every day of it goes unwasted, it seems like, the characters live every moment given to them to the maximum. Ponder that, next time you're choosing Brussels sprouts in the veg aisle, or watching another day just like the last one disappear into yesterday. You read this and you think, god, what did I do today? It's a whirlwind of tension - Sam might come across as a passive heroine, stirred this way and that by the elemental force that is her lover. It is a little like that, there seems no other way it could be, but her reactions and actions are also at the heart of the story, her being who she is that creates a story at all. I think that's why I like this cover more than the glossy UK one. The shiny lipstick-red demon heels and black background, for me, seem to miss the crux of the story, of who the heroine is. I like this one, with its feminine charm, its soft, pretty colours contrasted with steel handcuffs and willingly trapped girlish hands. The other seems to me a movie version, impersonal and titillating. This one feels far more real, to me.

So yes, read it, read it - and petition her publishers to give her more pages for the next one! I want more.