Views From the Electronic Garret

Is Green the New Sexy?

2008-09-13T20:05:00.003-06:00

I dunno—you mention a “green man” to me, I’m thinking pagan god, face of oak leaves, all of that. Or maybe a serious case of decomposition, depending on my mood. But this piece says women are more likely to think about commitment if a man is green.

Spock was green, right? I could commit to him.

As always, peace and (x-rated or otherwise) joy!

pxj

Published, America?

2008-08-26T09:35:00.001-06:00

PA claims not to be a vanity press. Fine, whatever—doesn’t matter to me. As an author, I’ve chosen to submit to publishers with business practices and lists that appeal to me. As a reader, I choose to read stories that appeal to me. And if that should mean purchasing a PA book, I don’t suppose that I’d melt into a pool of shame or anything.

But I have to admit that I, like many others, tend to assume that any book published by PA isn’t going to be worth reading. This may not always be true, I know, but it’s a pretty safe bet just on the percentages.

Scanning the new books at the local public library recently, I came across a PA book. First I can recall having seen there! I’m sure there are others, I just haven’t seen them. Or noticed them if I have. This one, I noticed.

REPLACEMENTS
Mary Elizabeth Garrison
ISBN 1-4241-7103-2

Without any commentary on the quality of the writing—I haven’t read the piece, you understand—I present to you the backtext. Verbatim.

REPLACEMENTS

Thispschologicaldrama adetailsayoungw om an’sstruggle
to overcom ehertroublesom elife.Raised from childhood to
doubtherow nm ind and perceptions, the centralcharacter.
M arlow K issingerisdoing herbestto succeed in herw orld.
Experiencing lonelinessandalienation, the “right” thing to
do doesn’tseem to be crystal clear.This character-driven
story unfoldsasM arlow desperately seeks the approvalof
those around her.The everyday realities ofM arlow ’s life
experiences are som etim es shocking and disturbing.
How ever,herstory isa tribute to the tenacity ofthehum an
spiritandhow life can provide replacem ents for thosew ho
need strangers to becom esurrogatefam ily.

CoverArtD esign by Paige T.Leatherm an

You know, in the print world, writers are sometimes told to comb over their pre-print galleys “with a microscrope” to catch every possible error; it’s easier and so much cheaper to correct mistakes at that stage. The equivalent post-typeset instruction is sometimes rendered as “fix all those mistakes visible from a distance of six feet.”

My eyesight’s not that great, but somehow, I think this qualifies.

As I understand it, PA authors upload their own files; chances are, this is a simple matter of the author not understanding how properly to generate the desired output format. It happens.(1) But where was the pre-release review? Did no one look at this before it was released? And, as a reader—do I want to waste my time (and money, should I be purchasing instead of borrowing) on a book so obviously unseen by any editorial eyes that they can’t even get the spacing between words right?

To all the editors, proofreaders, beta-readers, ARC reviewers, typesetters and assorted miscellaneous people who work to ensure that the books on bookstore shelves are readable—

Thank you.

pxj

(1) Hey, it’s happened to me! Ask me about my first encounter with PageMaker for an amusing imitation of your basic rabid mammal. Lovely program, but horrible instruction manuals.

The Incredible Reappearing Author

2008-08-18T23:27:00.000-06:00

No, I'm not...that word. I'm not, really, and please don't jinx me by saying it! But I do seem to be popping up more often. And since I'm trying to reclaim my health as well as the rest of my life, I've joined the lovely Celia Kyle's Incredible Shrinking Authors (and Industry Peeps)

Come on by, take a look! Lots of different goals, lots of different approaches, lots and lots of support.

Happy (healthy) curves!

pxj

Friday Flash: The Postcard

2008-08-15T19:11:00.002-06:00

In an odd mood today, so here' an odd little short. Happy weekend!

The Postcard

Silver bleeds to salmon as night becomes dawn, and I sigh, watching soft petals fold away. How long until night falls again?

...goodbye, the breeze whispers. Good day.

Noon, glaring gold and faded green, wilted heat. Promise of thunder in the distance, but only a tease; bone-white clouds fray and fade away. Ducking into a market, I am served a brown drink like mud-flecked water. Delicious! Tamarind. Bought you this postcard and a shirt, pale gauze, voluminous. The cloth smells of the shop: bay rum and citrus. I wonder if it will glow in the moonlight, as the petals do?

(Imagine me rising from a blossom, clad only by the moon and wreathed in flower-scent. Does that thought make you smile, too?)

Late afternoon, the sunlight gold as honey, shining through drought-thinned leaves and melting over melted post-work pedestrians. Office workers swelter in their sweaters and jackets until they can shrug free, rushing for their air-conditioned cars. I nibble crisp jicama white as starshine, flavored with lime and chile, and smile as they pass wiltingly by. They are so very beautiful, a garden's worth of blossoms, similar and yet unique.

Once, you were such a face, chance-spied, limned by the rays of the setting sun. And I...

I, arrayed in silver-white, sit lotus in the garden and wait for the moon to rise. My eyes are closed, yet still I perceive Moonflowers’ slow unfolding, furry calyx yielding to the need of the luxuriant satin petals to be free. The urgent approach of nightbird, moth, bat, seeker after sweetness summoned by perfume. A slower drawing-near, footsteps light as goosedown but not at all hesitant.

Your smile, as you wait for me to turn.

The heat of you in the cool night, and the satin brush of petals over our skin...

See you soon!

pxj

Five-Ring Circus: Condom News Round-Up

2008-08-12T19:08:00.003-06:00

1. Gold medal for condom ads!

Man, I am SO far behind on condom news. (Well, not having posted anything in...um, moving on.) Have you seen the Beijing Olympic Condom ad campaign yet? A series of clever stills like the image above is garnering nearly as much chatter as the games themselves! The company, Elasun, has some clever take-offs on other ads as well. No need for a quip here, I think the ad-folks have created humor enough.

For now, anyway. -G-

2. Happy Birthday! Wait...who are you?

The female condom turns 15. An earlier roundup, unposted due to illness, included a study on female condoms and barriers to use. (I'll see if I can turn it up.) IIRC, price wasn't the primary objection women had to the things; the major reason these aren't used more is that a lot of us don't really know what the things are or why we should care. 15 years in production. And 00 in advertising time.

3. Sadly, you'll need more than 35 seconds

Spray-on condom has technical and approval issues Y'all remember this, right? The condom in a can, about which I confess to having made my share of jokes. Well, it's no longer coming soon.

Le Sigh(tm).

4. Every Man's Dream:

CDC pays (popular) men to talk about (safe) sex
Sort of. Actually, the program gives gift cards to social leaders, not $$ per se. No word on whether those cards can be redeemed at condom-sellers.

5. Can I be an honorary Canadian?

National Sex Day 2008 – August 21
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hWc-aGdi5XyxnXo7kL53F3Ldu1tA
A day to celebrate sexual well-being. And, yes, the organizer is providing free condoms.

And, finally:

6. While you're waiting for designer phalli

Intellx recently announced a line of, well, let's say interestingly shaped condoms. SafeSexyShapes, they call them, made with a new technology that allows them to move a bit past the, um, natural model. Oh, the possibilities! The press release mentions a number of future options--Submarine, anyone? (Down, periscope! Oh, stop me. Please.) Or maybe you'd prefer to be a beer bottle, hourglass, baseball bat (!)... Available now are a flat-top model "YourTube" and the ever-popular dolphin--complete with, ahem, "pleasing bottlenose."

The deponent rests.

pxj

...just casually sauntering by...

2008-08-11T18:47:00.002-06:00

Let's get one thing straight: I am NOT back. Over the course of my illness-and-recovery cycle, call it the past year or so, I've declared my return several times, and each time, something bad has happened. Not always terrible, but always a setback, consuming time, money, and energy I'm quite sure I could better have employed in some other way. And, frankly, I'm sick of it.

Also, growing superstitious. "Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action"? Not unless the Universe doesn't like me anymore... Horrible thought, out of which such things as throwing spilled salt over shoulders is born! So, no, I'm not back. Really. I'm just posting. Saying hello. Maybe I'll do it again. But I am not back.

Even if you should happen to see me on a loop. Or in real life. Say hello, by all means, buy me a cup of coffee if you like, tell me about your new book--I'm always interested in that--or whatever's got you smiling or amusingly ranting. I miss you all, and I'd love to get caught up!

Just...don't, please, whatever you do, say "welcome___" to me.

K? Thnx.

pxj

Friday Flash: Pick of the Season

2008-05-02T16:02:00.004-06:00

Strange couple of weeks. Haven't had any issues with my memory in a while--the last symptom of my illness and by far the most disturbing. The doctors cleared me to get back to life, though with lots and lots of cautions. And the Universe...promptly gifted me with jury duty. A whole blessed week of jury duty.

This, I need?

Haven't yet converted that ordeal into fiction, sorry. But, hey, it's spring! Incredibly vibrant, cheering, blooming-and-blossoming-and-burgeoning all over SPRING. End of the loquat season, beginning of mulberry. Yummy spring, bright and warm, and it feels so wonderful that (gasp!) I had to reach for my keyboard and celebrate.

Hmm. Maybe I'm not quite back to normal, if that was the first impulse? -G- Can't complain too strenuously, though I'm not yet certain where this particular fruit-inspired story is going. But you'll see what I mean...

Pick of the Season

Ivan watched sidelong as, just outside his window, the nymph tipped back her head, exposing the long column of her sunbrowned throat, and sank small white teeth into the sunset-hued fruit she had just plucked from his tree.

His tree. Seed planted with his own two hands, in the rich soil of his land, planted to grrow where he could see. And still! Birds and wasps he expected--thiefs of nature who yet gave back as much as they stole--but this was no bird to pay in song for the fruit she ate.

Not...exactly.

Eyes flashing, he rose, headed for the door. But a mirror gave him back his appearance, reminding him he was not appropriately attired. Changing his guise took no effort, only a spark of will. A man of this age, this place and time. A man to charm this unwinged thief.

The mirror told him he now wore greying hair, shaggy if not unkempt; his reflection looked at him from earth-brown eyes. Neat pressed denim pants and a shirt of similar weight showed shoulders broader than his own form had, a lightly muscled chest, a stomach softened with age though not quite fat. Older than the nymph--the woman, he corrected himself. A father figure, perhaps.

Or perhaps she, too, was older than she looked. He paused in the doorway, neither indoors nor out, and stared. Bright sunlight picked out silver strands within the russet hair, and faint pale lines radiating outward from her eyes. When he spoke, she turned at the first sound of his voice, her lips shining with fruit juice, cheeks coral with emotion, spring-green eyes wide.

He met her gaze and he felt--

Something.

#

"Excuse me?"

Caught in the act, Sadie could only wince. It's not as if you don't know better, she reminded herself, and slowly turned to face the (presumed) owner of the tree she'd been robbing. Harvesting. Over-ripe fruits fermented at her feet, proof enough he had no use for the things. So was it really stealing?

The cops would say so, if asked. She could only hope the tree's owner would be satisfied with scolding her and sending her away.

"Excuse me, please?" the voice came again, and Sadie paused in her glacial motion, caught by the rich tones--and the accent. Like something out of an opera. Russian? Yummy as fresh-picked loquats, she giggled, and the smile stayed on her juice-sticky lips when, at last, she faced him.

Oh, yum-yum-yum! Loam-brown eyes in a sun-weathered face, brows raised quizzically. A thatch of greying hair flopping to the collar of a shirt that framed broad shoulders. A strong but not too strong chin. And those lips--
Sadie blushed as she realized what she was thinking. Blame it on the perfect day; spring always made her frisky. And there'd been the delightful feeling of naughtiness as she crossed the sidewalk, venturing near the house, the allure of those golden-sunset fruits hanging so temptingly, their taste...

"Excuse me, please," it wasn't a question now, the voice firm though still melodic, "I asked you, what are you doing to my tree."

To the tree? That's nothing, tovarisch, she thought, swallowing laughter and nearly choking. Ask me what I want to do to you! Better he didn't; the way she was feeling, she might tell him. Which would open up a whole new can of...fruit.

"Loquats," she managed, holding out her hands, a cluster of ripe yellow-orange fruits balanced on one palm, the fruit she'd just bitten into when he caught her in the other. Her gaze followed his as he stared down, and seeing the clear juice welling from creamy flesh, she sighed. Licked her lips.

"They are...you find them good to eat?"

A good sign. The folks who asked that didn't usually call the cops. (And you know you need a new hobby, she scolded herself, when you've racked up enough past encounters to judge that! Right? Right.) The standard loquats-for-dummies lecture rose to her lips, but she didn't speak it. Instead, she plucked a perfectly ripe fruit from the cluster and held it out to him.

His brow furrowed: a forehead-centric frown. "Show me."

She looked at him, this homeowner who, so far, hadn't really objected to her trespassing. He stood barefoot on the slate steps, in jeans and a button-down shirt with the sleeves folded back, and made no motion either toward her or away. Cell phone in his pocket, so if he'd wanted to dial 911...but instead he simply stood, waiting. Watching her as much as she watched him.

Okay. Her purse lay still where she'd dropped it, by the sidewalk, but she had a small pocketknife on her keychain, used that to slit the fruit in half. "You can't eat the seeds. Poisonous. Pretty, though." Two large tiger's-eye ovals flew as she flicked the knife. "And you'll probably want to pull the membrane. Some gourmets blanch and peel the fruits, at least for cooking, but fresh," the blossom-end cut away, she extended the fruit to the man, "well, here."

He took one half from her, delicately. "Show me."

#

Sadie watched his eyes as he bit into the creamy flesh, but saw nothing. No flash of surprise or of pleasure, no ecstatic slow closing, not even the suspicious narrowing of a man who thinks a trick's being played on him. He bit down, chewed, swallowed, but showed no reaction at all.

It worried her. But the sun's rays warmed the fruit-half still in her hand, releasing its unique bouquet, and she remembered his request. Demand. Show me, he'd said, and so she would. Feeling a trickle of juice making its sticky way toward the hollow of her palm, she decided to truly give him a show.

Step one: put the knife away. That was harder than it should have been, even after she wiped the blade clean; her hands were shaking, just slightly. What was it about this man? Something. One thing at a time. The blade snicked home at last, and she stifled a relieved sigh. Step two: Um, next? Oh, right; she needed both hands free. So all the fruit, except for that one still-leaking half, she laid by his feet.

Noting their oddly squared appearance in passing, and the old-ivory sheen of his toenails.

Rising, she took a sudden step back, out of his shadow. Shivering. She panted, tasting copper, wondering. Fear--like a storm--had swept over her, through her, but surely there was no reason to be afraid. There was only an attractive older man standing on his front stoop, asking, quite reasonably, why she was picking fruits from his tree.

An attractive older man willing to listen, to try, to learn. And he'd asked her to show him...

#

Ivan shifted his weight back on his heels, adjusted his newly broadened shoulders to let the sunlight pass unimpeded. She'd flinched from the touch of his shadow, sudden fear darkening those light green eyes. A moment he had not chosen, would have side-stepped had he been able to, but he hadn't expected her--yet--to kneel at his feet.

Laying his own fruits down in offering. Brazen, this woman!

And no sooner had he thought it than a new light was in her eyes, mischief dancing in green like the legends of his home that led wanderers a merry and dangerous way. Could she be more than she seemed? But, no, she was human, salt sweat and strong emotion and the rich red blood beneath the skin. Human, mortal, thief.

Her mouth would taste so sweet.

***

No, that's not all there is. That's not even all I've written today---but it's all I'm going to post right now. In part because I've already gone over wordcount, but also because there are three separate and distinct paths I can see for this story. And I'm feeling greedy enough that I want them all! Were I to post the next bit, that only works with one path, I'd feel obligated to keep traveling it.

But, hey, if you have any preferences...

The happy hermit,

pxj

Can't be a science nerd post 'cause this ain't science!

2008-04-11T16:31:00.002-06:00

I'm foaming at the mouth over a recent story on the AP wire. The header reads "Sex and financial risk linked in brain"; doctors' orders or not (mouth-foaming not being an approved activity), I had to read on.

Why do I do these things?

My first reaction, discounting the rabid-animal imitation, is simple disbelief: Let me get this straight: my non-hermit friends work their buns off trying to get press coverage for their latest fantastic opus, and this makes it onto AP?

This isn't science. This isn't even fuzzy science. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, nonsense.

When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler

Okay, I'll buy that. Of course, young men aren't exactly known for either their disinterest in sex or their sense of financial responsibility. Hmm. How young were these guys? Old enough the reasoning pathways were fully formed? (Teenagers really are different, though maybe not quite a separate species...) Article says hetero men, but what if you were to study men with stapler fetishes? Or those guys who are, you know, really fond of snakes...

Giggling, I read on. And choked. Their sample size was 15 college-aged men

Fifteen? That's not a study, that's barely a start. Deep breath. No women? Do women not take financial risks? Of course. Was this an all-male school? No. So
why no women? Because

they didn't know what pictures aroused women

Where should I begin? Granted, the actual study isn't nearly as silly as the AP article makes it sound, and, yes, there is a link provided to some actual almost unbiased news coverage, but it's still irresponsibly sensational reporting.

Or maybe I'm just upset because chocolate didn't get a better mention. Or, for that matter, sex. –g–

As always,

pxj

Flash Fiction Friday: Pixie

2008-04-04T16:32:00.002-06:00

Hi, folks.

Yep, it's the hermit, posting. Asking for help, actually. (Hail from a clear sky; two blue moons in a single month; kind words from a mother-in-law...) The worst part about being sick for so long, for me, is that it gives me permission to do nothing. But I'm not all that sick anymore, really, and now--

I NEED SOMEONE TO KICK MY A*S!

More specifically, I need someone to remind me that I don't get to call myself a writer unless I write. That unfinished drafts are useless as unfletched arrows. That...

Blecch. Surely you get the point. It's a Flash Fiction Friday, so here's a tidbit. From (you guessed it!) a story I haven't finished. Nearly, almost, it's only missing a few little things...

Rev up those feet, won'tcha?

pxj

Anna blinked, absurdly conscious of the small breeze the motion stirred. The weight of her eyelids, their passage, tiny muscles in concert. The brief cessation of sight. Normally, of course, all of that would have gone unnoticed—but there was nothing normal about this.

Impossible not to tremble, but her hands were steady, holding onto her camera with just enough pressure, not tight enough to stress the plastic, but with no risk she’d drop the thing. It was her favorite digital, the one she called Pixie, the one she carried with her everywhere. A camera that ate batteries with voracious appetite, but that never failed her in the clutch, that never fogged or blurred, that fit all her old lenses and scopes and held thousands of images in its capacious expanded memory. The camera that never faltered nor falsified, never lied.

Pixie hadn’t lied to her this time, either; she’d only thought it had. Thought the image it had shown her too preposterous to be real.

But it was. He was. Not the least bit credible, but real just the same. Sitting at a café table just like any normal man, in a small Louisiana town no one beyond the county line had ever heard of, a mystery in human shape. With eyes that held her easily.

“Please,” his voice was cultured, soft and deep with only a hint of a drawl, “sit down.”

She sat. She didn’t think she could have stood much longer anyway, her legs shaking as badly as the rest of her. Except her hands.

“Will you have tea?”

Tea. She’d never understood how people could drink hot beverages once the temperature got above ninety, but just then, she felt chilled. Tea might help. Only, she’d have to let go of Pixie for that. And she might drop the cup, shaky as she was.

He hadn’t waited for a reply, pouring with an almost laughably serious expression, completely focused on the small task, setting the saucer properly before her. “Please.” Oh, that voice! It had a texture, that voice, like wet sand, soft and sharp all at once.

Fit match for the man.

Anna drew in a quivering breath, the scent of him—earth and oak, something sharply green, moisture and a hint of chalk—overwhelming in the close, still air. Louisiana humidity. Which writer was it that had likened it to an animal humping your leg? But he’d forgotten to mention the decadent perversion that rich air carried on its fetid breath, that made a woman want to turn and draw it up her body, see what fun she could have rolling around with it.

Darlin’, that feeling’s not from the air. Take another look at the man-rock sitting there.

The Primal Stone. That’s what she’d seen through her camera, a free-standing bone of the earth, dark as obsidian, strong as granite, rooted deep in the land and unwilling to be quarried free. Small sparks like sun on mica danced over an unremitting darkness shaped vaguely like a man. To her eyes, he wasn’t quite so daunting.

But so much sexier.

It wasn’t his looks, though she supposed he was handsome enough—black hair worn a little long, the way she liked it; dark eyes; strong features, bone structure clear beneath just enough flesh to keep him from looking raw; broad shoulders. She couldn’t see much else, with him sitting at a café table, but he had wonderful square hands, and his nails were clean.

It wasn’t his looks that stole her breath, but the sheer solid strength of him. She could feel it, sitting across the table, knew others could feel it as well. The way the waitress kept one eye on him, no matter where she was; the way no one came near enough to jostle him, though there was a crowd.

“What—who are you?”

“One of your picturesque natives.” Flash of white teeth: a smile. “Drink your tea.”

Heat washed across her cheeks as she obeyed.

No secrets in a small town. That was the maxim, long-ago learned and yet still a surprise. Anna hadn’t been back to this particular small town since a summer visit when she’d been twelve or so. Even then, it had felt stifling, her mother fluttering, a pair of spinsterly great-aunts forever telling her to mind her manners, a flock of cousins teasing, locals whose dialects and motives she hadn’t understood, and no real consciousness of time in the whole place. So unlike city life. She’d told her mother after that visit that she was never coming back, and she hadn’t, either, until now. This trip was an obligation, for the family; they’d just buried one of the great aunts, and she’d come for the funeral.

Though that wasn’t her only reason. Being a freelance photojournalist wasn’t the glamorous, financially secure life the movie-makers portrayed; she’d hustled a few assignments to pay her way, including one for the Chamber of Commerce. Small wonder people knew what she was doing, wandering with her cameras. And, usually, Anna wouldn’t have cared if it bothered them, if they thought she was playing safari in their home. Anyplace else, yes, but not here; this place had never been kind to her, so what matter if they thought she was cruel? It wasn’t like a few pictures would hurt anything; hell, some would even help! And she’d take them and be gone. She wasn’t interested in leaving good memories behind; all she wanted was to leave.

Or, all she had wanted. Now, there was a big solid chunk of mystery calmly sipping tea, watching her as she watched him.

She opened her mouth, and words fell out. “Picturesque. You are, you know. Uniquely picturesque.” Before she was through speaking, she worried she might have said too much. Flickering monster-movie images rose before her mind’s eye, vampires and werewolves coldly disposing of the mortals who had stumbled upon them. The sun shone down, almost too bright, but her skin bore a renewed chill. What was he, this man who looked like a monolith to her camera’s sight?

Whatever he was, he knew, she was sure of it. Coal-black eyes stilled as he looked at the camera, and sound faded from her world as she watched him look. He knew she’d seen. She thought again of his impossible image in her camera sight, wondered if he’d destroy the camera before or after he took her life. Horrible thought, that what might have been the best photos she’d ever taken wouldn’t be shared with the world.

“I-if you’re going to kill me, I’d really like to know why you look...like you look. First.”

He threw back his head and laughed, the sound like a friendly landslide.

...

Story: Donny Boy

2008-03-17T17:32:00.002-06:00

yes, I've written something. This must be a good sign. A very brief seasonally appropiate work-safe m/m something. Enjoy. (The story and the holiday. Just, if you really do drink green beer, please don't tell me!)

pxj

Donny Boy

“Hey, Danny boy. You know why there’re no good men around?”

Donny kept his eyes on his work, pulling a Guinness with an artist’s attention to detail. Customers who couldn’t be bothered to get his name right shouldn’t expect any better than to be ignored. The woman in the green lipstick didn’t seem to need an answer anyway.

“It’s all the fault of that damned Irish saint.”

Not the wisest thing to say in an Irish bar, and particularly not on St. Patrick’s Day, but Donny wasn’t going to tell the woman so. She was sloppy drunk, half poured out of her perch on the bar stool, and would probably fall over if anyone took a swing at her.

He almost wished someone would, just so he could see it. Green lipstick! The saints wept. And a green-patterned dress about three sizes too small that made her look like a mildewing sausage. About the best that could be said of her appearance was that she seemed very much one of the crowd.

Donny thought there was little worse that could be said of a person. Except maybe that he was an Englishman. Grinning to himself (he didn’t really have any problem with the English, though it was sometimes fun to pretend so), he delivered drinks to a booth in the back and swiveled his way back to the bar, trying not to step in time to the ghastly version of whatever “traditional” tune the band was mangling at the moment. At least it wasn’t Paddy Murphy—again. Not yet sunset, and already he’d heard every interminable verse of “The Night Pat Murphy Died” five times! When once through was almost enough to make him wish he himself were dead.

At least the tips were good. St. Patrick’s Day was big business. The bar’s floorspace had been extended by a tent and temporary taps installed behind a board-and-sawhorse arrangement, but he’d claimed the permanent Guinness taps for himself. Even if that meant doing the odd bit of table service when others were busy. He hated fighting with the jury-rigged air-lines, and besides, the tent was louder. Though this year, some idiot had put the stage just beside the delivery door.

Which was open. Donny tried not to frown—it would only make his headache worse—tried not to curse, tried not to hear the bagpipes and bass fighting to establish a key.

Tried not to step on the man kneeling behind the bar.

By all the saints! That was a sight Donny hadn’t expected on this day of days. Though certainly no stranger to men on their knees, Donny was between companions and in no hurry to form any new attachments. The last one had left scars. But this man was lovely, more beautiful than handsome, all entreaty with his big brown eyes and soft red lips parting.

“Excuse me?” His voice! Oh, bards would have given their souls in trade for such a voice, rich as stout and deep, flavored with the lilt of home... “You! Hand me that bag afore the line blows. Drinking the green beer...”

Donny’s cheeks were hot as he fumbled for the stranger’s tools. “Sorry,” he mumbled, cursing himself. Great first impression he’d made. “That the central or the stout mix?” He could fill pitchers of the other while the man worked, get ahead of the crowd’s thirst and busy his hands so they wouldn’t reach out all on their own to stroke the shining nut-brown hair or trace the line of those shoulders...

The man’s smile flashed bright in the neon glow of bar signs. “Central, this one. I’ll be changing out t’other in a moment, but it’s up for now.”

“Thanks.” It was only his imagination, he knew, but Donny felt as if he stood near a fire, the man only inches away, gracefully bent toward the arrangement of valves and tubes and canisters that fed the taps.

Whoever he was, he was a good deal faster than the guys who usually serviced the bar. In only a few minutes, Donny felt an incandescent tapping on his right calf; looking down, he fell into deep brown wells, hearing only distantly the man’s words that the Guinness would be briefly offline.

And then he was standing, a bit shorter than Donny’s own six feet, slim enough to seem taller than he was. Neon barsigns sent light bouncing red and gold and green from the long brown hair, and the green shamrock lights strung all around made his skin almost impossibly pale. His jeans and dark tee looked almost like a costume on him, somehow—Man Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day—the body so wonderfully displayed it had to be intentional. No man wore jeans that cupped his ass like that unless he wanted it to be looked at.

Right?

Donny felt the stirring in his own jeans and thought desperately of cold. Screwing his eyes shut helped; his headache, but it seemed a decent trade. When he thought he was safe, he opened his eyes and smiled at the serviceman.

“Ken,” said the man with the appropriately stout-hued eyes, holding out a long-fingered hand.

Donny introduced himself, almost choking on his own name as his mind finally registered the design of Ken’s shirt. “Test your work?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Ken swung lightly over the bar to sit beside the drunk still half-propped between stool and stein. Turning to her, he asked her to explain. “What did St. Patrick do that you think there are,” his voice made the words a quote, “no good men around?”

“St. Patrick banished all the snakes.” She nodded owlishly. “An’ where do you think they came? Here!”

“My lady, that might explain a number of bad men, but not a lack of good ones. I assure you, some such survive.” He leaned in close. “You must first seek if you would find.”

She blinked again, laboriously following his gaze toward the crowded tentspace, then slipped from her stool and lumbered off.

“Nicely done. Thanks. I was about ready to drown her, myself.” Donny slid the Guinness across the bar so accurately that the glass stopped an inch before Ken’s hand.

“ Not one to hear the good Father maligned?”

“Don’t much care. He was a Roman anyway. No, it’s that I’ve heard the whole pitch. After she gets that bit out she starts singing. ‘Trouser snakes nipping at my ankles’.”

“I don’t believe I know that song.”

“Neither does she.”

Ken’s laugh drew attention, and the music hiccupped as the crowd began a sort of osmotic movement toward the bar. “Oh, damn,” he muttered before sipping his stout, raising an eye and nodding his appreciation. “That’s why the separate line. You use a proper pub mix. Lovely.” He drank more deeply this time, and Donny watched the play of his throat, admiring.

“Hey, Kenneth!” The shout came from three directions, startling Donny until he realized the caller was onstage, his voice miked. “Ken-neth!”

“She wasn’t altogether wrong, you know. There’s a snake for sure, great legs or no.”

Donny grinned wide watching as Kenneth made his slow way to the stage. Good looks, great voice, humor, knew the difference between proper stout and swill, and shared his taste in men. Truly someone was looking out for him. If not for Ken himself, who’d seemed more than a bit reluctant as he turned from the bar. Or perhaps that was only wishful thinking; certainly, there was nothing shy or reserved about the way he stood before the mike!

“Can’t stay long, boys,” he heard Kenneth say from all around, “I’m working tonight. But if the crowd drinks enough, I might get to come back.” And as the band began a song, all the instruments miraculously in tune, Donny found himself suddenly busier than he could possibly be.

Everyone ordered Guinness, no doubt in honor of Ken’s, Kenneth’s, T-shirt. Or perhaps inspired by the delivery truck outside, just visible through the still-open door. Though in that case, wouldn’t someone have ordered Harp, or a Black and Tan? Well, no matter; Donny pulled pint after pitcher after pint, dancing behind the bar as the band he’d been cursing earlier suddenly proved that they could, in fact, play.

And then the crowd was shouting and clapping and carrying on, and Ken was there, smiling wide and bright, grabbing up his satchel. “I’ll be listening for the call,” he nodded, and was gone, leaving in his wake a scent of stout and salt and green and a chorus of sighs.

Donny’s first among them. Damn, but that was one lovely man.

***

The Guinness flowed like water, ales and lagers and whiskey fell into open mouths like rain, bands followed one after another up onto the stage. Donny lost count of the number of times he heard the same few songs. Some of the groups could play their instruments, others could play the crowd, one or two even managed to do both at once, but none caught his attention for more than a song or two.

Until he heard that deep, rich voice with its bite of iron rise above an off-key chorus of some neo-trad piece. “Hey,” it called, “you’re not Irish!”

Donny let his hand slip from the tap, leaving golden foam to drip into a half-filled glass, and raced to the door. He made it just in time to see a young man leap from the stage, cordless mike in hand. Heart in his mouth, visions of riots dancing in his mind, he watched, breathless, as Kenneth reached the other man and the two of them nodded—not at each other, but toward the stage.

“Oh… You’re not Irish, you can’t be Irish, you don’t sing Danny Boy...”

A stunt. Damn him. Impressively staged, though, and wonderful harmonies. Heart still pounding, Donny went back to work, dropping a bar cloth to sop up the worst of the spills. Ken shouldn’t have to get his knees wet.

Though that mental image did nothing to slow the race of his pulse.

The band finished out its set, and Donny cocked an ear toward the crowd. It wasn’t his imagination, he really could track the singer’s progress by the sound: high-pitched squees and low rumbled invitations, any number of admiring whispered curses, soft sighs… Who was the man? And did he do it on purpose? He’d slipped in easily enough that Donny hadn’t noticed, it was the voice—he’d laughed, and suddenly all the world was his stage.

Odd he wasn’t playing, then. Irish musician on St. Patrick’s Day, surely he could have had his choice of gigs. But instead he was making air-mix deliveries. Very strange. Maybe I’ll ask.

“Got that call.”

Donny’d expected it, but the voice still surprised him. He nodded without turning, hating the flush he could feel spreading down his neck. He was too old to have schoolgirl crushes—and the wrong gender besides. When he felt less like he was on fire, he glanced over his shoulder. Under his arm. Finally turned, to gasp as Ken’s hands grasped his hips to keep him from falling as he jumped back.

“Sorry. Just wanted to see how long it would take.” This close, the singer’s eyes were flecked, earth-brown and iron-dark. His breath smelled of malt (how else, on this day of days?) but also of grass. And his body was a furnace, radiating heat.

Donny tried to speak, but his voice was gone. Licking lips gone dry, he managed to croak: “...take...?”

Ken blinked, and his eyes when he opened them again seemed somehow less hot. More sane. “Never mind. It’s just that I hate this damned green-tinted-everything travesty of a day. No need to take it out on you.” Ken smiled, but it was a smile devoid of humor or warmth, and Donny shivered as he was freed.

“Let me see to the lines and I’ll get out of your way.”

What the hell just happened? He went out like a light! Still beautiful, but…quieter…now. Oh. His voice was as wonderful as ever, but pitched so that only Donny would hear. Off stage. Probably not a bad thing.

Though Donny wasn’t sure just why he thought that. “Ah. Um. Ken. Going to sing more tonight?”

“No, I don’t think so.” The voice echoed hollowly from somewhere beneath the bar. “Why?”

“Your leprechaun seems to have gone off-shift. Thought I might offer to take his place.”

Donny held his breath. If he had to, he’d make himself a good deal more plain—he could still feel the touch of those hands on his hips, yearned to feel that touch elsewhere, and that odd chill, too, had reached him, making him think that Ken maybe shouldn’t be alone on this St. Patrick’s night. Let the basses and bagpipes fight it out without him.

Ken twisted somehow, coming up from his knees gracefully enough to steal Donny’s breath. “My leprechaun—? Ah.” He grinned. “That’s not all he does, you know...”

And Donny laughed, hearing the question beneath those lilting words. Deliberately campy, he fluttered the bar cloth in one hand. “Well, darlin’, I should hope not! What a waste of a good shillelagh!”

Kenneth raised a pint, toasting the words and the bargain just made.

-end-

The e-hermit checking in

2008-03-07T17:45:00.001-06:00

Still alive!

Figure I ought to start out with the good news. –G– As for the rest…well, the doctor didn’t say “recovered,” as he’s spent much of the week reminding me, only “recovering.” I spent the weekend now past and gone at a Celtic (Irish) music festival, and completely wiped myself out—though it was worth it, and not just for the men in kilts.

Although, you know, there were a few truly lovely kilt-wearing men around, some of them with arms full of bagpipe, some without… Oh, sorry. Am I drooling on the keyboard again?

So, not in much shape to post nor chat, but getting through the backlogged e-mail. Slowly. Relying on the Draft function so that I can make sure my messages actually say what I need them to say (for a change).

Hope you’re all celebrating Spring appropriately!

pxj

What? Details? Um.

Seriously eclectic music program, as always. It’s why we love NTIF! (Okay, that and all the men in kilts. Or out of them. If you ask politely, I might tell a tale or two…) Not sure what my favorite musical moment this time might have been, but probably from one of these three bands:

Matt and Shannon Heaton Band—with an incredible percussive dancer!
Brother—Men in pleather kilts. With didgeridoos.
Altan. What can one say?

Okay, back to e-mail. See you ’round!

Ketchup, please?

2008-02-20T17:29:00.004-06:00

Since it seems I’ve got some words to eat. -G- Turns out what I thought was recovery was only a brief respite—and when I pushed myself, I got worse. Pretty nearly instantly. Dramatic as all, but hardly entertaining. Sigh. February now, no longer really the new year, but I have a resolution. Everyone listening? Here it is:

I am going to listen to the doctor. I am!

And this time, he says I’m on the road to recovery.

Let’s hope he’s right. So: Hello, all. What’d I miss? Come wave things under my window!

pxj

Duck, Cough, Goose

2008-01-17T18:57:00.000-06:00

Yes, folks, I’m okay. Picked up the traditional holiday cold (it’s not Xmas until I start coughing!) and couldn’t seem to shake it off for entirely too long, but I’m back. Working through a whole heap of messages—please resend anything urgent—and chasing deadlines and so on.

Such fun. Anyway, it occurs to me that I haven’t said anything to anybody about my holiday yet. Seeing as I’ve been flat on my back since. -G- It was something of a fowl-heavy trip, between the usual Peking duck (one of those things you just can’t get here at home, and a lovely excuse to visit the only part of Philadelphia in which I’ve ever felt welcome, even when I don’t get a chance to see particular friends there) and the geese I finally managed to get through airport security. No avian flu, fortunately. I kept waiting for a down pillow to explode or something, to finish out the pattern, but had to settle for a chance glimpse of one of my favorite sorts of raptors, a Harris Hawk, on New Year’s Day.

But I think the standout event of the whole holiday season—not counting unwrapping and attendant girly squee!—had to be the discovery, while playing a dice game with family, that I’ve officially become a “real” author in everyone’s eyes at some point when I wasn’t looking. Mind, I’ve been “my {insert relationship} the writer” for years, but it’s now so much a part of my identity that they can joke about it.

At which realization, you really could have knocked me over with a feather! Except that the “rhino virus” beat you to it. -VBG-

Hope you all had a lovely holiday, and that your 2008 has so far exceeded expectations!

-pxj

Solstice Wishes

2007-12-21T16:39:00.000-06:00

x-rated and otherwise

-pxj

(The image is one of several Solstice e-cards available at JPC Artworks)

Does that condom come in decaf?

2007-12-20T21:55:00.000-06:00

Happy holidays—celebrate safely!

It occurs to me that I haven’t done a condom posting in, oh, weeks! So here are some relatively recent condom links and images, carefully selected for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

*VivaGel is coming! This microbicide has been approved in Australia as a condom coating, and the manufacturing agreement’s official. The product is “designed to prevent transmission of STIs” including herpes and HIV! It was announced for US testing in Nov. 2006...

*Musical condom ad. No, that’s not “ad for a musical condom” (how last year!); it’s a six-minute musical film promoting condom use. Catchy song, too!

*No lead in these, I hope? (Sorry, couldn’t resist!) The perception of condoms in China is undergoing a profound shift. In a country where possession was once considered de facto evidence of “illegal prostitution,” new laws require condoms to be provided in hotel rooms by the end of next year.

and condom ads on TV in that region, too.

(But, sadly, the aphrodisiac ant extract won’t be coming to store shelves any time soon.)

*Safe eggs and other Asian condom ads. Some great images!

...And, finally, news from Ethiopia, fabled Home of Coffee: coffee-flavored condoms.

Yes, really.

Upon their release, in one week approximately 300,000 of these coffee-flavored condoms were sold to the masses. Each pack contains three condoms and costs about one Ethiopian birr or eleven cents, less expensive than other condoms being marketed in Ethiopia.

These coffee condoms not only smell the part, they also look the part with their deep brown color. DKT-Ethiopia was meticulous in their research, even creating the new condoms to taste like the Ethiopian coffee of choice: the macchiato. The macchiato preferred in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, is usually made with a shot of espresso and liberal amounts of sugar and milk. DKT initiated this campaign as a response to condom-user complaints that the latex scent of regular condoms was overpowering. This spurred the launch of these coffee condoms in Ethiopia as well as other regional-specific flavors in other parts of the world.

Man, some days I think the Universe really does love me. How else, in the midst of the HoliDaze, would it arrange such a beautiful distraction for me? Standing in line for a hour to hand over money I can’t afford on things I’ll then have to carry across the country? No problem! Because while I wait, I can wonder:

What “regional flavors” might be deemed appropriate here in the Lone Star State? Chewing tobacco? Chuck-wagon chili? Beer?

As you chase around town tossing your tinsel, ask yourself what weird flavors might be popular in your neck of the woods? Or, um, not neck, exactly...

As always,
peace and x-rated joy!

-pxj

Friday Flash: Regional Were

2007-12-14T23:44:00.000-06:00

Well, the first version of this post was on Friday! (Ah, the holidays—when one can spend so much time running around like the proverbial decapitated fowl that one completely forgets the celebratory aspects of the season.) After the jump, one wholly unedited excerpt of a story that just bloomed beneath my fingers yesterday. As yet unfinished, sigh. Did I need this? Apparently part of me thinks so.

Drinks are properly someone else’s territory, but I try never to ignore the breath of the muse. Hand that chica a breath mint and be prepared for long silence! Besides, drinks and raccoons are a natural match; that dipping behavior, don’t ya know.

“Ah. Wondered where you’d got to.” The bartender’s smile said more than his words, full of mischief again with a hint of—what? Sorrow?—something she couldn’t name. “Friend of mine wants to buy you a drink.” He pushed a martini glass across the bar.

Whatever that drink was, it was certainly no martini. Red and white, cocoa or something around the rim, with a tiny dried pepper floating on the top... Lacey blinked, looked again. Still there. “What in the name of Santa’s smallest reindeer is that?”

“Seasonal.”

“The drink or the curse?”

He only shrugged, but the tilt of his head suggested she look toward a certain table. For whomever had suggested that perversion of decent alcohol, no doubt. She didn’t, too appalled to move so much as her head. “Do I want to meet someone who would buy one of those?”

“Yes. Well, you want to meet this guy, at least. I think.”

She wasn’t so sure, but he’d turned away to serve someone else anyway. Sighing, she reached for the glass, holding it near the base of the stem lest it contaminate her. The smell of spice and chocolate rose as she moved.

The bar’s lighting could have won awards, a marvel of shadow and illumination, grace and mystery. Lacey stepped through pools of gold and silver, grey and night-black, feeling rather like she’d walked all inadvertent into a movie. Something definitely cross-genre, she mused, noir-ish atmosphere welded onto a Western setting and a perfect horror of a concoction in her hand.

As she neared the table the bartender had indicated, she added grunge to her list. There were two men at the table, both scruffy. The one seemed huddled within his oversized top and sloppy pants, and his hair hadn’t seen a barber’s shears in far too long.

The other, though, the one with his back to her...he wore his battered clothing like high style, his jeans torn beneath leather fetish straps, his shirt pure silk. The set of his narrow shoulders told her he knew she was coming. She had to laugh; was he so sure she wouldn’t dump the drink over his head? Not that he’d done anything to deserve it except have execrable taste, but that might be enough. Chocolate liqueur and hot peppers? And whipped cream?

He turned, and she trembled, caught.

No. No, no, no. Eyes so rimmed in kohl he looked like he was wearing a mask. Absolutely not.

...except...

Spirits of the season! He was so completely wrong it might actually be right. Fun, that was what she’d been looking for, right? Not a date for the company Christmas party, just...fun. This so-confident man might well be that, with his sharp-toothed grin and his self-assurance like a cloak. He hadn’t pushed, had waited for her. That said something, surely.

His table-mate rose and departed, murmuring something Lacey didn’t bother to hear. She looked, really looked at the man, trying to see beneath the leather and eye-liner. A small dun man who could have been almost any age, any race. Dark eyes rimmed in black like a Goth, but without that self-consciously dire attitude. Black-outlined lips curved in a welcoming grin, and his sharp nose twitched with humor. A diamond stud earring twinkled in the shadow of his thick hair, that wasn’t no-color, Lacey saw now, but rather several shades, black and brown and tan and grey. His eyes were dark, brown or black or simply accommodating the bar’s dim light. His skin was a creamy brown thanks either to his parentage or the sun’s kiss, hands and rope-muscled forearms darker than his face.

What shade might it be in those places the sun never touched? If there were any.

Lacey choked on a laugh. Hadn’t so much as said hello to the man, and here she was undressing him in her mind. Did it matter that she was clothing him again? Well, yes: she’d skipped over the fun part! He would be fun, she was as sure of that as she’d ever been of anything. Any man who could grin like that!

She was staring, she realized. As was he, but he, at least, was smiling; she was just standing there, mouth open like some drunken idiot. “I’m sorry,” she managed, “the bartender didn’t tell me your name?”

“Call me Rocky.”

His widening smile made the words a dare, and she spoke exactly what was in her mind. “Not while I live. And that’s two.”

“The drink being the first? Hardly fair, you haven’t tried it. You pass, by the way.”

“I wasn’t worried.” She admired his quick grace as he rose, held out a chair for her. When he resettled himself across from her, a clattering caught her attention. His nails were long, slightly curved, and painted black. Oh, boy. Sudden flash of them against her skin, teasing; sudden image of him, just as he was, at some business function as her date. She couldn’t decide whether to sigh or sob or giggle.

“Try the drink.” His musical tenor wove between, among, her thoughts, suggestion, not command, and she was so torn between reactions she actually did it, lifted the glass to her lips, felt the soft thick burn or spirits seeping slowly as she sipped.

Wherefore the Werewolf?

2007-12-14T23:39:00.000-06:00

Why are wolves the most common weres? Shifter stories are common across cultures and feature all sorts of alter-forms—bats, birds, bears, cats, foxes, even—stretching a point—cockroaches! But werewolves are far and away the most popular.

When was the last time you saw a real, live wolf? Sure, the romantic image of those noble wild creatures roaming free is, well, romantic. But the original stories were so popular in large part for their plausibility. That howling outside the ring of fire or the safety of walls could have been a predator on four feet...or on two...or maybe something other, some vanished friend or rumored ally, someone who chose not to bind him- or herself to society, someone who briefly slipped the community chains but might return...

With the explosion of daring choices made possible by e-, there are now more were-critters than ever before. (Ahem. Ferrets? You know who you are!) But wolves still outnumber the rest*.

Locally, I’d have a better chance of running into an armadillo, bat, coyote, deer... Whole alphabets of animals, but no wolves. Not in the city. There’s a rescue facility pretty close for those poor mad half-wolf things, but that’s certainly not running free! Just beyond our lights are hosts of creatures, worlds of mystery... Why aren’t more of us enchanted by the nearer shadows and what they might hold?

Okay, it’d be pretty hard to make an armadillo a figure of mystery and romance. (Particularly erotic romance! A wrinkly armored possum-kin-looking thing is just naturally made for comedy.) But surely there are some intriguing other choices available, given the vastness of the animal kingdom! And animals that wouldn’t seem out of place in a given area would tend to offer more scope than the modern wolf-skulking-in-shadows tale where the poor creatures are so indistinguishable from vampires the territories often overlap.

Nancy Collins had a really good idea with those coyotes, native to the territory as they are. But, again, they’re not the only native creature out there. Hmm. Anyone interested in some fresh-made regional weres?

pxj

*No, I haven’t counted. Feel free to, should statistics gladden your heart. I’d love to see the results!

Friday Flash: Home for Christmas

2007-12-07T15:48:00.000-06:00

Early for Christmas, but appropriate for the date--this excerpt is from one of my very few military pieces. "Home for Christmas" is an erotic short with para elements, about 3,000 words all told. It first appeared in my "not-a-newsletter" infrequent mailing, with a contest: the story contains lyrics from several Christmas carols, and I gave a gift certificate to the first person who correctly identified them all.

And, yes, I will be sending another Message from the e-Garret this Solstice or thereabouts. In case you were wondering. -g-

pxj

Midnight, and quiet all through the house.

Jaci tiptoed into the living room, intending to dispose of Santa's snack, and to slip a few last surprises into the stockings. But what to her wondering eyes should appear—

Jill's playing tricks. Charlie's stocking had joined the others, displacing the angel. Jaci frowned. She'd chosen not to hang it, deciding it would just remind her that her love had to be away at Christmastime. Not that she could forget. But there it was, with a suspiciously shaped bulge in the foot that made her hope the kids wouldn't look too closely. The milk they'd poured so solemnly had been replaced with eggnog, complete with a dusting of spice, and there were fewer cookies than there had been on the plate. One even had a bite out of it, as though someone had heard her coming and just this instant slipped away.

She sniffled. The scene wasn't her sister's style. It was Charlie's. But he couldn't be with her this year. Damn it, I promised myself I wasn't going to cry. She ate a cookie instead. And then another, washing it down with a swig from the glass. The eggnog was well and truly spiked.

A little tipsy on sugar and sentiment and southern mash, Jaci toasted the star on top of the tree, and spoke. "Dear Santa, what I want this year..."

She inhaled to speak her wish, and choked. For the past few days, the house had smelled like evergreen and candlewax and cooking, with a little hint of dog.

Charlie'd been gone long enough that there was no hint of his scent anymore. Except there was. Her imagination, or just suggestion.

And then the touch of fur on her cheek. "Have you been good this year?"

"No. I've been very, very bad." Jaci opened her eyes to see Charlie in a Santa suit. Only Santa had never looked this good. No bowl full of jelly here! Ermine-trimmed red velvet did not hide the hard swell of biceps, nor the even ridges of muscle on his abdomen. The tunic ended mid-thigh, but there were leggings beneath, descending into black boots; the double layer of fabric did a slightly better job of concealing than only one, but not by much.

"You like?" Charlie smiled and struck a pose, and Jaci came out of her chair in a leap to hug him. Laughing, he pulled her to the doorway, tilted her chin up so she could see the mistletoe, and then bent to claim her lips in a kiss as tender as their very first, as long and passionate as any they had ever shared.

"Check the stocking," he husked when the need for air had grown too great. "I'll wait." He turned her and pushed her gently toward the mantel. She reached for her stocking, but, "No. Look in mine," he said, and, looking at the shape she was sure she recognized, she did.

He stole her laughter, and her breath, with another heated kiss, and pulled her down to lie before the tree.

"Unwrap me?" she whispered.

He took his time, using his teeth to undo the belt of her robe. Her unromantic flannel pajamas might have been precious silk, from the care he took, might have been tissue by the way she felt, his hands strong and hot through the material.

As he bared each inch of skin, he covered it in kisses.

"Charlie..."

"Aren't you going to model my gift?"

She had a bit of trouble finding it at first, the floor covered in discarded clothing as it was. But then her hand closed around a cool resilient column, and she smiled. Not looking away from Charlie, who had found his Santa hat and placed it—she giggled. "Damn, love, you're not that big!"

Charlie looked down, frowned, and scrunched the fur-trimmed hat up a bit, until it was obvious that he, did, in fact, reach the end. "I checked. Twice." He flexed his hips, and the bobble on the end of the hat bounced and jiggled. "You wouldn't believe how much trouble I had trying to find one that fit in all dimensions. Not something you can tell the elves you're looking for, you know."

She could almost imagine the conversation, and laughed until she spluttered, nearly choking before she gave up on trying to speak. He struck one pose after another, each funnier than the last, and though he made no sound, laughter shook his abdomen.

Her humor ran its course at last, and she sat up, reaching for him as he bent to her, the last few giggles still echoing as her lips claimed his.

Have a Safe World Day!

2007-12-01T14:28:00.000-06:00

I call December 1st World Condom Day, though it’s actually World AIDS Day today.

The connection isn’t exactly obscure, is it? Besides, the real World Condom Day doesn’t get nearly enough press—in fact, I’m not entirely sure when World Condom Day officially is! Some areas celebrate in late September, others in early November (Nov 3rd and 4th this year, though presumably not both), and then there are the folks who don’t differentiate between AIDS Day and the Day of the Condom at all...

Take your pick, one or all.

Though this year there doesn’t seem to be all that much observing going on. Locally, I saw a lot more Green protect the environment! news than Red Ribbon protect your health coverage today. And more about the holiday shopping outlook than either, everything from “protecting your credit during the Christmas season” to reminders that shoppers should hide packages and lock their car doors to the inevitable Safe Toys for Tots.

It seems safety is still the slogan, but sex is a secret once again. So here’s a recommendation that should satisfy:

Shop online (save the environment: don’t drive all around town to browse) using approved merchant sites (protect your credit) for novelty Christmas condoms! Slip a few sheaths into your lover’s holiday stocking. And celebrate the season safely.

Okay, seriously. Condom humor, anyone?

Q: What do you do with a green condom?
A: Leave it on the vine until it’s ripe.

Q: When should you wear a condom?
A: On every conceivable occasion.

(sorry, folks—couldn’t resist)

Q: Why does the cowboy buy condoms by the half dozen?
A: For his six-shooter, naturally.

For those of you who like your condom humor on the visual side, check out Shutterbugg

You all know I’m a fan of Miss Cellania (if you didn’t before, you do now ). She did her usual bang-up job on condoms a while back...including some posts so funny, you might want to put a condom on your keyboard before you begin to read!

As always,
wishing you peace and (safe) x-rated joy,

pxj

Friday (News) Flash: It’s World Condom Day

2007-11-30T22:05:00.000-06:00

Okay, so technically that’s tomorrow, and it’s Friday, so this post is supposed to be all about the Flash. I’ll get there, really. But I just have to say this: December 1 is World Condom Day.

Actually, it’s World AIDS Day—but, really, what better day to celebrate the rubber? Go make interesting water balloons! See if you really can fit one over a watermelon. Protect your local obelisk.

Buy a sampler pack or a condom you haven’t tried before and do some consumer testing! (The French company King of the Condom is offering a lifetime discount for customers who make condom purchases on 1 Dec. I’m sure other condom companies are observing the day, too.) Give condoms to people who may not be buying them for themselves. Decorate a Safe Solstice Tree.

Buy an e-book that includes safe sex. (Ahem. Reach Out and Touch Someone, happily, includes safe hot sex. )

Share your positive condom memories. And if you don’t have any, go make some, then come back and share!

My Flash today is, appropriately, a condom scene. It won’t appear in precisely this form in the Valentine’s Day piece (AMP, para romance, details later, I’m racing the clock for NaNo!), but I had fun writing this bit, so someone should get a chance to read it, right? As usual, after the jump. And this one gets an adult content warning, I think.

Sam strained to reach the bedside table, unwilling to leave Val’s embrace even for so short a time. Damn, but the man knew what to do with his hands! His mouth, too. But she wanted more of him than that, which meant—

“Hmm?” His lips buzzed around her nipple with the sound, scattering her thoughts; she could not have answered if he’d held his gun to her head. But after a moment, he figured it out on his own, snapping his fingers to semaphore oh-I-forgot like some post-modern mime.

She mimed a pout in her turn and propped herself up on her elbows to watch his retreat. The soft sounds of rummaging reached her ears, and she called out, “Bring it in.”

He stuck his head through the doorway, hands so deep in his pant pockets he looked like he was trying to wear them for a shirt. “Say that again?”

“I want to put the condom on you. If that’s all right.”

His face went all circles: eyes, mouth, even nostrils wide. His cock bumped his belly, the soft slapping sound loud in the stillness. Was he even breathing? Damn, but the man could focus! After a long moment’s staring, he nodded and ducked out of view again, returning with his hands full of bright foil rectangles that he scattered over her body like rose petals. A dozen of them, at least.

“Ambitious much?”

Val shrugged. “Prepared. Once a Boy Scout and all that...what are you smiling at?”

“Just imagining you in one of those cute Scout uniforms.” She giggled as he looked down at his own naked form. “Don’t worry, Boy Scout, I like you this way, too. In fact,” reaching out, she wrapped her hand around his shaft and tugged, gently, until he stepped forward, “why don’t we see if I can earn a badge?”

“Yes, please.” He arranged himself at her direction, head on the pillow, hands beneath his head, legs wide enough for her to kneel between.

She simply looked awhile, anticipating.

Cool packaging soothed Sam’s fingertips as she ran the squares through her hands, sorting, shuffling, finally choosing one. It had red lettering she couldn’t be bothered to read and a deep tear-here notch at one corner. The condom, when she freed it, gleamed pearl-white in its coil.

It reminded her of her dream. “I love the smell of latex in the morning,” she muttered.

“Really?” Val purred. “That’s good to know.”

Sam bit her tongue. Surely she hadn’t always spoken every single thought out loud?!

“I like it.”

Which meant that last thought had been audible, too. Oh, well. “Maybe if I don’t think?”

“Darlin’, you just do...whatever you want to do.”

Sam wasn’t going to ask him how far that offer went. She wasn’t going to think about it, even. Not now, at least. No, now she was going to do what she’d been wishing to do since she’d seen him. She leaned forward to taste him, just a quick lick. Just like her dream, that sound, the taste, the feel. And the way he jumped when she blew her breath across his glistening skin... He arched up toward her caress, offering himself, and she took full advantage of his position to place the condom properly. Stretching the latex circle, she eased the circle into place.

The reservoir tip pointed upward, a cap; the condom’s ring rested just below the flare of Val’s cock, cloud-white top on a red-gold shaft. She licked a long, slow line down from the latex to the man, then wrapped her hand around him at the base.

His breath hissed out in a shaky sigh, and she could feel his pulse hammering. “Mine,” she said again. He didn’t argue this time. Slowly—so slowly—she moved her hand up the length of his cock to the latex, then down again, rolling the condom down about an inch with the downward stroke. And again, and again, until he was fully sheathed.

No excess material to rest in a thick roll, no uncovered skin. A perfect fit! And, oh, how he gleamed. What had been white was now a translucent glow, like some Hollywood special effect.

“And I’ll bet it is.”

“What it is—” he moved almost too quickly to be seen, flipped her onto the bed so fast her head spun, “is my turn.”

Friday Flash: Graham's Coffin

2007-11-23T23:24:00.000-06:00

Day after Thanksgiving, I figured I had to have a holiday-themed piece. So I checked, and...I do, but then again, I don’t. Here’s a thousand or so words from a piece I daren’t submit—it’s borderline horror, and I have strange luck when it comes to horror fic. While it sells, it never, never, NEVER appears in digital or print. Editors leave before contracts can be signed, venues fold, sites go dark...

It’s enough to make a sea lily superstitious!

Still, submitting isn’t the whole of writing, and I thought the 10,000 calorie dinner deserved to have some horror written about it. You’re probably full, so here’s just a taste of “Graham’s Coffin”

pxj

Pierre’s mind wandered, though his hands were busy freeing pomegranate jewels from their botanical wrapping. He thought as he worked of his love: of her slow soft smile, the curves she hid so often beneath fabric like a shroud, tender flesh in hues only Nature herself could paint. Ruby gleamed beneath his gaze, revealed only after his long effort. One perfect jewel he slipped between his teeth, firm careful bite releasing a sharp burst of pleasure so different from the everyday.

Fitting, for this was not just any day.

He’d plotted this so carefully. A myriad of foods lay waiting, soft blushing apricots approved and readied; walnuts all shelled, nutmeats holding their promises deep within their wrinkles; gold-skinned shallots, their shape oddly evocative of his love’s breasts, ready to be denuded by quick flicks of his blade.

Washing crimson from his hands, he checked the time.

A cup of tea, then; give the body time to lose its chill. He made tea properly; loose leaves, scalded-out pot, the works. Memories of her: “Wait! You just boiled that water, and you’re throwing it out?” But she’d changed her tune when she tasted the brew. Her first time, that. And theirs.

Pierre’s hands were steady as he sipped his tea, but he felt that they should shake. No man should be so happy and still calm. Shaking should be the least of it! Better, though, that his hands not quiver; his knives were sharp, and there was much yet to do.

The goose had been blanched and buttered two days before, resting since. He’d thought of her as he’d bathed the bird and trimmed it, slipped his hands beneath its skin. Would he ever be so close to her as this? And now it was time, time to see if he could free its promise—if it would become all it could be, in his hands.

He rinsed the cup, turned to the bird. To his tools and ingredients, his accomplices in this.

Ribs firm and distinct to his fingers? Yes: the celery was fresh and crisp. He chopped it, machine-gun sound an echo of his speeding heart. Brilliant green apples wept easily as he cut out their hearts with a twist, then made artistic shapes of what was left. Blood oranges lived up to their sanguine name when he quartered them, sweet-tart scented blood staining the air. The shallots yielded last, their flimsy wrappers falling away to reveal creamy flesh.

He bathed them all in Madiera, tossed them gently, let them slip through his fingers once—twice, again—all languorous, lingering. Tenderly, then, he spooned the filling into its destined home; no pie-coffin this, but a richer bed by far. A bouquet of lemon verbena and thyme and flat-leafed parsley became a brush with which he painted shallot-butter over the body.

(Brief flash of him using such a bouquet to stroke the skin in the fold of her elbow, the crook of her knee, the nape of her neck. “Am I to be cooked, then?” she’d asked him. “No, just eaten,” he’d replied.)

The goose lay cushioned on a bed of herbs, a sacrifice waiting for the fire. Gently, he slid the pan home, glorying in the untender embrace of the oven’s heat. So his love’s body could sometimes be, hot as a furnace beneath the satin skin. Hot enough to cook on, and he’d gladly lie atop her until he was well done.

A nice line—he’d need to share it. Over their meal.

Recalled to the moment, he surveyed the wreck his kitchen had become. There were sides yet to prepare, but he needed room to work. He swept the counter clear of vegetable detritus, thinking all the while of the last time she’d been seated there. “Why aren’t you a chef? You’re good enough to be.”

“I don’t like to cook for strangers. My passion is in my dishes, you see.”

She’d looked him up and down and laughed, low, satisfied. “I do indeed. A man of taste.” It was the first time she’d opened herself to him. Tart and sweet and salty, a perfect taste. He’d nibbled as much as he’d licked, as had she. On the foods he offered, and on him. Late that night, on the two at once.

He scrubbed his hands clean of every speck of dirt, then gently washed tiny potatoes with their baby-pink skins—and, laughing, indulged himself in whimsy, and cut them into stars and crosses, imagining her giggles as he worked. Would she shed her layers for him, let him see her as she was?

Would she, could she, see him beneath his? Back to the cleaning. Counters. Vegetables. Himself. (Don’t forget behind the ears! She liked to nuzzle there. And other places, too...)

Tender baby spinach, washed and patted dry. He wondered if it was, perhaps, too much. But his love was a woman with no fear of calories, and he wanted to give her the full experience. And she had, once, said something about iron. So a few handfuls of spinach went toward the salad, a few more to sauté.

He made biscuits, to while away the time while the goose cooked, dividing his dough in two and setting one half aside. The other he mixed with fine-chopped herbs, the same ones he’d used in the goose, lemon verbena and thyme and flat-leafed parsley. Some of the remaining shallot butter, too, he stirred in. The goose was far enough along to have begun to shed its fat; he drew some off and rendered it, using that to grease his biscuit tin, and smiling at her prophesied reaction.

They do say that the smell of fresh-baked bread is an aphrodisiac. And never more so than to her!

Minutes before she was due to arrive, he put the finishing touches on his dishes, draining those things set to crisp, mixing his gravy, dressing the salad with which they’d begin. Opening a bottle of wine. His breath was shallow, nerves, excitement. His ears pricked for the sound of the door.

She came in, all smiles, eyes bright and eager. Moved into his arms with flattering haste. “You smell delicious,” she whispered, and kissed him.

Her mouth tasted of wheat and wine. At first.

...

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T15:05:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving. Also known as “Turkey Day,” though my own celebrations tend not to feature that particular food. I prefer the more formal name, not just because I’m not much for that native fowl, but because I do have things to be thankful for, and it’s sometimes nice to be reminded of that.

I’m thankful for e-books, that let me indulge my fiction addiction without giving myself hernias. I’m thankful for the publishers that offer me so much variety; for the authors who spin such delightful worlds; for the readers who appreciate my own odd fantasies.

I’m thankful to Gutenberg, Edison, Tesla, and a host of other inventors known and unknown for making this world and this time such a technologically awesome place to be. I’m thankful for friends and family (yes, even the ones I’m avoiding long enough to write this).

I’m thankful to Nature for creating diverse wonders like pecans, cranberries, and Ethiopian Sidamo coffee. And, I guess, even turkey. I’m extremely grateful for the sunshine currently beaming down upon me. For my e-Garret, whence I shall soon return, and for NaNo, that provides me with an excuse to escape the surfeit of congeniality.

Most of all, I’m thankful for a life filled with choices and chances and freedoms. And fantasies that can sometimes become reality. And can sometimes become books that others can read.

Happy Thanksgiving!

pxj

Friday Flash: House of Cries

2007-11-16T15:52:00.000-06:00

Friday Flash Fiction time. Not sure this needs any explanation, but in case you were wondering, The House of Pies (Houston, TX) used to be a notorious late-night pick-up joint for men seeking men. Still might be, for all I know; I haven't been there in years. And, yes, the pies were pretty good.

Story after the jump.

"House of Cries"

I am not gay. Let's just get that straight. Have a girlfriend and everything. Sure, the House of Pies caters to a swishy late-night crowd, but I go there for the food. Fact I'm there in the middle of the night with all the cruisers is just 'cause that's when I get cravings for sweets.

I'm not gay. Just hungry. And happy as a lark now, mouth full of berries. But then there's this commotion from over in one of the booths. A bunch of gays, all prettified and whatnot. Regulars; I see them here a lot. There's this one guy, dark hair and incredible blue eyes, really attractive--I mean, I guess women would like his looks, and fags. He's kind of on display, everyone else leaned in around him as he talks. Can't hear every word from here, but I catch enough. Blue Eyes is talking about what he did last night. Seems he got spanked.

Man, I knew they were sick!

But he can talk. "The bear pulled me over his leg and went to town. Slapped so fast the echoes crashed together, but I felt each and every one. I shouted and cursed and even cried a little, but he didn't react at all, just bam-bam-bam until he was done. Didn't matter how I struggled or kicked, he was a rock. When he finished..." His voice goes soft and I lean over my plate trying to hear. "--when he was done, he rolled me off his leg. And the second my hot ass hit the cold floor, I spurted. All over everything."

"What was it like? What did it feel like?" I don't know if that's one voice or more. Hell, it almost might have been me, because I really do want to ask. Not that I'm excited by the idea, but... No need to go down that road; I'm just listening to a story.

Blue Eyes is thinking, his eyes and his mouth all soft, post-orgasmic. "It was incredible. You know how it is when you're taking a really firm top, and he's slamming into you, and you feel all those muscles pressing down on your own, molding you..." His sigh calls echoes from his crew. "It was like that, sort of, only more. His body held me in place, all hot and solid like a lover, and when he spanked me...my whole body shook. Hell, you know there aren't any words! Describe cumming to a virgin."

Laughter and chatter meld into noise, clattering utensils and calls for the waiter obscuring what else might be said. But I've heard enough to wonder. Spanking. That's even weirder than two guys.

I order another piece of pie. Try not to think about what I've heard, wonder what that cute (to women, I mean) guy got out of it, being spanked. And questions spool in my head: were they naked? Was his cock rubbing between his stomach and the big man's thigh? It must have been Blue Eyes' first time, the way he talked. So how did he find this spanker? Was it for fun, had money changed hands, how do people go about setting up such a thing?

"Are you going back?"

"Three days," Blue Eyes sighs. "It's their rules."

"What?" "I don't get it." "Why?" "Spill!" I almost choke on my coffee myself, so I understand why his crew's gotten so loud. "Pax," he says, "let me get a refill and then I. Will. Tell. All." He could be an actor with that face, that voice. Girls would go mad over him.

Not just girls.

My plate's empty, but I'm not going anywhere. When the waiter comes by, I accept a refill I don't want, just so I can sit here. Wait. Listen.

"It's a very...disciplined...set-up," he says, and there's something in his voice in that one word that makes my skin crawl. "Lots of ritual. Once you step through that door, you're committed. And once you've left, you don't get in again until they say. The door-keeper told me the rules, and one of them is that you don't so much as knock until the appointed time. And if you forfeit your invitation, you're out. No second chances."

"Invitation?" the chorus comes.

That intimate low laugh again. "Invitation," he confirms, "and, oh!, very mysterious it was. A card with an address and the offer. I almost didn't go--it's a dangerous world, you know--but there are details to be had if you know who to ask. And how."

"On your knees?"

"With your mouth full!"

My head's spinning. Think I ate too much, my stomach's in knots. And my bladder's shouting to be emptied. Time to get out of here; my girlfriend's probably wondering where I am. Or worse, she knows I'm here at "The House of Guys." I don't have the strength for another round of that argument. She knows I'm not gay!

They're leaving, Blue Eyes and his fans. I hear a high, squeaky voice: "What are we going to do tonight?" He answers, "Same thing we do every night." Everyone chuckles, even the waiter standing there. Together, they recite what's obviously some sort of slogan: "Try to take the world."

Flaming much? Disgusting!

But at least the story's done, so now I can go. I flag the waiter, mime signing an invisible check. He winks at me. Just what this night needed to be perfect--not. The bathroom's in back, but I can't brave it, not tonight; there's usually some perv waiting to proposition any man who goes for a piss. Sometimes I think that's funny, but not right now.

The waiter slides the check into place and sashays away. God, why do I come here at night? If only my girlfriend could bake. My head's killing me, shooting pains behind my eyes. I can hardly see. The pie's about to make a reappearance. Fumbling some cash out of my wallet, I push back my chair.

"Your receipt," the waiter coos, pressing it into my hand. It feels thick. Another "Call Me" card, no doubt. I can't deal with it now, can't do anything but run. Outside, it's cooler, dark, and the migraine fades. I duck back into the alley to pee. That and a burp makes me feel better. Enough that I realize I've still got that stupid paper in my hand.

Why do I look at it? Why the Hell don't I just drop it to the ground? Because...because I'm curious. It's a card, all right, but it doesn't say "Call Me." It says "Come to the House of Cries." And there's a time written on it.

An hour from now.

I really should go home. My girlfriend's waiting for me...

Campaign to Save the Book...Thong?

2007-11-13T18:20:00.000-06:00

Alternet recently included an article titled "Will Digital Books Replace Paper and Ink?"

While it was nice to see, the article itself wasn't nearly so interesting to me as the comments. Alternet readers are a diverse bunch, and commenters...well. It requires a fairly sensitive sarcasm meter and a love of the absurd--or a strong streak of intellectual masochism--to sort through the chaff of a particularly lively discussion.

Being rather passionately interested in knowing what people think of e-books, I (gasp!) braved the comment section. The expected intelligent remarks about e-reader cost and DRM cropped up, and the undeniable sensory factor, i.e., people like the way hardcopy books feel. (And smell. Giles, anyone?) As did the anticipated "when civilization collapses..." observation. Less expected, to me, were "but what will I do with all my bookmarks?" and a welcome rare query about library lending in a world of e-. (You know I had something to say about that!)

On the pro-electronic side, someone pointed out an advantage I blush to admit had never occurred to me: that a borrowed/circulating copy e-book, unlike its hardcopy equivalent, is always new. Free from underlines and coffee stains, without torn or dogeared pages, etc.

And one poster offered, following from a remark about library catalogues being largely digitized already:

The entire Library of Congress is estimated at 10 terabytes, which is $3000 worth of terabyte hard drives at Costco today.

Which makes me lust after much more storage than is currently practical in my life, because, oh! I want a whole digital library! How many terabytes would it take to download all of Fictionwise?

But I will admit the bookmark-lover had a point. I've begun to replace worn-out paperbacks with electronic copies (P.G. Hodgell most recently). And I intend to continue doing this. It might some day be possible for me to see the top of my desk, my dresser, the hall table! There's no way all my hardcopies could be replaced, but I imagine, in some dim distant future, culling the collection until it actually fits in my multitude of bookshelves.

And any spare bookmarks, book thongs, book "earrings," and the like? Maybe I'll pin them to my wall. Or donate them to a museum. Or hang them on a Solstice Tree. Hmm. Most innovative alternative uses for no-longer-needed page-markers?

I smell a contest...

pxj

Shall the Undead Rise?

2007-11-09T14:41:00.000-06:00

Lady Aibell is closing its doors, so the psi-vamp chef Marc and his full-figured nibble are soon to be homeless once again. It's Friday, time for a Friday Flash; in honor of the upcoming demise of "A Gourmet Meal," I figured I'd revisit my favorite angsty cooking psi-guy, his lover, and the villain who demanded a full-length work so he could torment the pair. (Which text is also now homeless, though it wasn't contracted anyway, as that would have required that I polish the thing. ) Flash after the jump--just a more or less random section, while I dust off the rest and try to decide if it'd be more fun to work on that or NaNo. Or both at once.

Happy Friday!

***

{Sasha, a food writer for the daily paper, is at a party, on assignment.}

Tracking a waiter with a tray of divine-smelling hot mushrooms, Sasha made it to the far end of the hall, but when he disappeared into the kitchen, she had to admit defeat. At least temporarily. No other food was on offer in this part of the party, but something odd seemed to be happening. People tip-toed close to a knot of potted shrubbery, ducked through, then came away from there a few minutes later looking…enraptured. What on earth?

Excuse me while I check this out.

Sasha laughed at herself a little. Food writer, remember? When did you get the investigative reporter bug? But it was a puzzle, and she wanted to know. She wound her way very carefully around the edge of the crowd--a woman of her size quickly learned not to try to barge her way through a collection of people holding spillable things--and when she reached that plant-festooned knot, she went forward and found An angel.

A young man who might have stepped whole from a Renaissance painting: golden hair, pale wheat skin, eyes the color once reserved for Mary's cowl. The overhead lights, so bright elsewhere, seemed gentler here, caressing him. Haloing.

But hard on the heels of Sasha's first awed impression came another: Devil. They do say Lucifer was the handsomest. She blinked, looked at the blond, blinked again, and had to resist the urge to rub her eyes or curse aloud. Where the rest of the crowd looked the same from glimpse to glimpse, all polished and primped and display-model perfect, the blond changed. One moment, he was movie-star handsome, a golden boy in truth with his hair and his skin and his perfectly white teeth, eyes bluer than a summer sky and lips so deeply pink they might have been grown on a rose-bush in Heaven.

And the next, he was-- Oh, Hell and damnation. The man she'd seen at that food-show taping. The one who'd given her chills.

He smiled at her with those pink, pink lips; she looked away. From the corner of her eye, she could see him still, blond but wholly different, paler than the...mask? But no, that implied a cover and she could see through it. Veil? Cowl? Something unnatural, anyway. Horrible.

So, how, then? What? A spell? I don't believe in magic! Whatever the answer, she could see his other face so long as she didn't look straight at him, an oblique view offering the paler, uncharming face with eyes like frozen swamps, murky blue and capable of hiding anything. Swallowing her. God, I need to get out of here.

She backed away, not willing to show that man her back. Predictably, she knocked into someone. Unexpectedly, that someone didn't fall, but caught her easily. She knew the feel of those hands, even here, where he had no reason to be.

Marc.

For a moment, she was so relieved that her mind seemed to have stopped--he was there, her lovely, oddly dangerous lover, and he would protect her from the blond with the changing face. But that lasted only a moment before fury chased it away. "We talked about this. You following me." She turned her head to be able to see him and the blond both, one from each eye, shivering at the odd symmetry. But anger melted through fear, melded with it to become a cold ire like nothing she had ever known. Half surprised her breath didn't fog with the chill of her words, she went on. Softly, ever-so-seriously. "You promised you'd stop doing it!"

"I did."

"Then you lied." She wanted to shrug free of his grip, but that would mean admitting she felt his touch, the stroking caress that thrilled her even now. "Or broke your word."

"I. Did. Not."

She would have bruises, she knew, from the force of his sudden grasp, though he looked calm enough, his gaze direct, unflinching.

"Was this a test, then?" His accent thickened with every word. "My apologies for not understanding; I had not thought you that sort. If you would have me go, you need only speak the word. But," he loosed his hands, smoothed her sleeves as though trying to erase the wrinkled evidence of his touch, "there is one thing I would say to you, if you would hear it."

She could not speak, all her anger sidetracked somehow, drained away by his constant tiny caresses, by the waxing and wane of his voice. Even fear seemed muted, soothed. What did he want to say, want her to hear?

"I am not whichever man did such to you."

Ouch. "Sorry. Let's start over. Marc, hello, what a surprise. Not that it isn't always lovely to see you, but," she ground out the last words: "why are you here?"

"Not a test, then. You did not send the invitation. Merde. I am sorry, cher amie, I had thought the message from you. Someone called the restaurant." His gaze swept the room, seeking whomever had arranged this--and Sasha had an odd impression of more than eyes looking.

Her own gaze followed his when it locked; she was unsurprised to find he was staring at the potted greenery, but shocked to realize the blond was gone. Had he vanished in a puff of smoke?

If I did believe in magic... She wrapped her arm around Marc's waist, leaned into him, grateful for more than his warmth. If I did, but I don't, nor fairy tales, either. No fairy godperson sent him here. He did not appear to rescue me from the evil wizard, I am not some damsel locked in a tower, and falling into his arms is so not in the plan.

I'd crush him. There was no humor in the thought--there never was--but this time, it wasn't as certain as usual. She remembered the ease with which he'd caught her moments earlier. And that odd feel she'd had, once or twice, that he was hiding his strength. The way he'd pulled her onto his body, that night... Yeah, he's built well, but he's still just a man. And I'm two women, as far as size goes. Two and a half, maybe.

"You're perfect," he murmured.

She looked up to find him smiling down at her.

I don't believe in magic. Or mind-reading.

Holiday Food Torment

2007-11-06T17:46:00.000-06:00

Looks like it's that time of year again--when ostensibly sensible people do perfectly senseless things to harmless harvest-fruits and sundries, and other people pay for the results. Wreaths made of hangers and cut-up empty laundry bottles shall soon battle for shelf-space with "decorative" hollow logs framing jelly-bean Nativities, tissue-box cozies that turn Kleenex boxes into Santa Clauses, and even less defensible things.

Okay, so I admit to having created the odd Popsicle-stick reindeer when too young to know better, but is there any justification in this world for trapping perfectly innocent corn and beans in this not-a-candle thing? It's not the kitschiness I object to so much as the worse-than-uselessness, the corruption of what once was a perfectly reasonable way to store food. In the old days, when food was often stored decoratively, in pretty jars or whatever, it was still edible. Unlike this.

I have a chile ristra in my kitchen--it's pretty, and useful. Jars of loose tea invite the eye as well as the caffeine-addiction. And I have, once or twice, even given attractively packaged pantry-staples as gifts, when I've been confident such would be well received. It's tradition. Blue popcorn on the cob is always a popular holiday-party hostess gift. It's eye-catching, different. And it's food.

Not something you can say about this. This is...anti-food or something. (The not-a-candle/not-a-lamp doesn't even burn corn oil!) A fiberglass wick and some sort of porous stone, plus heat-activated fragrance oil. The glass jar is purely a base, filled with something to look pretty. What a thing to do to perfectly innocent, venerable staples. Makes my foodie heart hurt.

Of course, this is also the season when sweetened bricks are mailed to unsuspecting, undeserving recipients, and the once-noble name of fruitcake is universally maligned. May I be the first to say Bah, Humbug, everyone!?

Or, maybe not. It's also pumpkin season. And fresh cranberries and new-pressed cider are on hand, too...

Just, if you have any corn dried on the cob, could you please not destroy it? Pretty please, for me? Popcorn's a whole lot of fun cooked a cob a time! Really. And, honestly...what did those poor little steam-demons trapped in the kernels ever do to you anyway? Put them out of their misery--and reap the yummy, puffy, results. Don't keep them embalmed like this.

Christmas is supposed to be a happy time for food. Well, depending on how the gingerbread men feel about decapitation, I guess.

pxj

Happy Hallowe'en from the Mad e-Garretteer

2007-10-31T15:49:00.001-06:00

Hey, you try living the life of an electronic hermit, see how sane you are! And tomorrow is NaNo's official start, so any sanity I may have had will soon be vanishing...

Picture a crazy sea lily, pulling up her roots and wandering in sea-tossed circles. That's me! Well, if you add a costume. I love Hallowe'en. And to celebrate, beyond candy and tortured squashes and strange outfits, I've posted another free story to my Google group.

Hmm. Excerpts are traditional. Okay, after the jump. Moderately work-safe, but just in case. I do write erotic fiction, you know.

from "Come As You Aren't Party"--available only from the e-Garret

(Terry wanted a new guy, and she's into vamps. This Hallowe'en, she might just get what she asked for...)

The last clasp came loose; she shimmied, and satin slid noisily down her body to pool at her feet.

“Kings have died for such a sight as this.” His voice was deeper than ever, melted chocolate and burgundy. “Happily, I am sure.”

She shivered, only half hearing his words, feeling the air stir with his speech. Moonlight lent a completely superfluous air of mystery to the scene, his clothing dark and silvered, his movements by turns hid in shadow and outlined as he stalked toward her. Stalked. Yes, like…a hunting cat. Or, no, a wolf. Something. A predator.

“Delicious,” he murmured. At what? She shook her head, uncertain, and he laughed, low, soft, intimate sound. “Can you imagine what I see?”

She looked down. Eager-tipped breasts, check; gym-toned physique, still there; thong so as not to risk a panty line; thigh-highs, yes; heels hidden by the dress on the floor like some downmarket Venus’s seafoam. Not a model’s body, maybe, but a good one, healthy and fit, and she was glad he approved. So, yes, she could, she thought, imagine what he saw: what she saw in the mirror when she bothered to look. She shrugged.

“Please--” he groaned, stepped back a pace “--don’t do that. Not yet.”

She had no idea what he meant.

“I want to look at you,” he told her, breathing the words as he came near, “want simply to look awhile. You are a dish that must be savored.”

Oh, vamping again. “Savor quickly, will you? I’m cold.”

“You are anything but.” He circled her, slowly, looking; she tried not to shiver, to moan. To faint. There was something so incredibly kinky about this, her more nude than naked, him fully dressed. Not touching. Once, twice. She lost count. His pace was deliberate, as he walked around and around, his gaze steady, his murmurs...alluring. She wanted to lean toward him, like a plant to the sun, soaking in the music of his voice. The words didn’t matter, only the tone: Awe and wonder and yearning.

Yearning? Excuse me! Right here for the taking, you know. Some dim part of her remembered the rules of the game, rules she had set, but she wasn’t about to hold him to them if he wanted to touch!

He moved like a snake striking--lightning fast. One single, darting lick to her breast, and gone. Not far, just back to his circling; she hadn’t even seen him bend. She gasped, her hands clenching as she tried not to jump. Too fast for the pleasure she’d felt. Was feeling, still. Again? Yes, a second. Damn. Did I blink?

“Magnificent. The moonlight loves your skin, my beauty, almost as much as I.” He stood before her, smiling that closed-lipped smile, his eyes shining silver. “Thank you,” he whispered, and knelt.

Leather creaked, and silk whispered. But for that and the sound of her own breathing, she might have thought it a dream, a handsome stranger kneeling to her. Even with her in heels and standing, his head was even with her chest, and he took full advantage of the fact. No more snake-quick lickings; now he was slow and thorough, learning each curve full well. By the time he sucked her nipple into his mouth, she was gripping his shoulders to stay upright.

And when he held her breasts in those wonderful long-fingered hands of his, pressing them together so he could suckle both at once, she fell against him anyway. He sucked and teased and nibbled, rolled her flesh between his lips, flicked his tongue-tip across them until she’d have screamed if she’d had the breath. All she could do was whimper and hold on.

His hair brushed the back of her hand, like satin, another cool texture like his shirt, his skin. His pale, glowing-in-the-moonlight skin. His vampire-pale, vampire-cool skin. His sexy-as-hell skin, and that’s all that matters now—oh! His suckling had changed rhythm, faster now, hard, promise of things to come. “Please.”

What Makes a Classic?

2007-10-26T19:46:00.000-06:00

A week to go before the semi-organized insanity known as NaNo I haven't yet reactivated my account, but it's on the agenda--yes, once again, the hermit shall be NaNo-ing.

Comes the question, then: writing what?

NaNo’s rules are few, but rules there are:

**the goal is to write 50K of a single novel begun no sooner than one second into the day of Nov 1.**

So I can't pick up one of my unfinished works, I have to start something new. Usually, I go for something completely unpublishable, just for the fun of it; last year, I wrote a male-sub transformational piece. No magic, no fantasy, no romance--that is, none of my standards--just a chance to explore an experience and a character that had happened to occur to me.

I had a blast. Which is the point to NaNo. If I could find a publisher interested, you can bet I'd carve out some time to polish that manuscript!--but even without that, the story was fun to write. And that's what NaNo is about.

This year, I've fallen far behind on my personal goals; illness has sidelined me too damned many times, and all the bits of life that get backed up when one is sick have stolen much of my writing time and energy. So I'd really like to get at least one more submittable-quality manuscript finished this year. Two would be good. (Do I hear three?)

But it's not necessarily going to happen during November. NaNo is for fun! Some years, I've gone into it with no idea for a story; other years, I've had characters and settings; once, even a sketchy sort of outline. This year, as I often do, I have a question to explore:

What makes a classic--and how long does that label remain?

Why is "The Cold Equations" so enduring, when "Eve and the Twenty-Three Adams" is already less a warning than an historical curiosity?* What makes Nedra Tyre's "Recipe for a Happy Marriage" and Donald Westlake’s "Nackles" so very popular and so frequently, deservedly, reprinted, while Susan Casper's "Under Her Skin" remains more or less a cult favorite?

Of the stories that have endured into our time, which shall be carried into the future? And why?

Picture if you will a far-future library, with a section of "Classic Literature circa 1950-2050" What books or stories might you see? What about "Classic (Genre)" instead of the dates? Pride and Prejudice is still popular now; shall it always continue to be? Poe, I've no doubt, makes it onto the first colony starships headed Outbound, as does Shakespeare, I think. Who else goes along for that ride?

Alice, probably. What about Harry? What makes a classic, and how long before that label expires?

Next month, that question shall obtain a narrower focus, at least to me. To wit: at some minutes past midnight, when my NaNo character takes her first pixel-dust-laden breath, what titles shall she see?

I can't wait to find out!

Happy NaNo-ing!

--

pxj

*If you don't know all about Eve, you must not spend enough time with me! I rant about that story regularly.

Seen from various panes

2007-10-19T13:01:00.000-06:00

Time for another round-up; this time it's news. What do make-up, guinea pigs, historical figures, and modern social advertising have in common? Not a thing. But here they are anyway.

1) Revlon's ancestral origins revealed?
Archaeologists are at it again, or still, tirelessly trying to decipher history from trash. Though there aren't any brand-names attached, it seems from the evidence that

humans 164,000 years ago put on primitive makeup

In-context definition of "primitive"?

[Researchers]

found 57 pieces of ground-up rock that would have been reddish- or pinkish-brown. That would be used for self-decoration and sending social signals to other people, much the way makeup is used now

Not so sure how "primitive" that is, me with the natural kohl and similar products, but okay. (Want to be the study author and contributors are all men? )

2) Forgotten Flu Fact Found

There's recent news in the medical community: proof that flu really does spread more efficiently in winter. (I just love it when the eggheads prove things your grandmother already knew. ) It took this long in part because none of the common modern lab animals much contract the flu. But some bored researcher turned up a report from the aftermath of the 1918 epidemic and read that the guinea pigs Army doctors had been using then were susceptible. Some modern somebody placed an order for many, many guinea pigs--and now, thanks to our furry friends, we have actual verified numbers about the relationships between temperature, humidity, and airborne flu transmission rates.

3) Crippen hanged on false evidence, say scientists.

So, okay, history's not my usual beat, but it was an oddly sexy case. If you like your sexuality on the dark side of dark. Now, they say the body wasn't Mrs. Crippen's after all! Man, next you're going to tell me Lizzie Borden didn't go to town with an ax!

Oh, wait...

4) You could go deaf if you keep doing that! Do you care?

The FDA's requiring a new warning on Viagra and its ilk: risk of sudden hearing loss. Of course, Viagra already had a similar warning (though it wasn't legally required), and it hasn't hurt sales any!

5) Whoa, there, little dogie!

"Little pinkie" slows down Aussie drivers

Nothing to say about this; it amused me, that's all.

6) Love that pearly glow!

I started with make-up's history, so let's end with the future of cosmetics. Or one possible future, anyway: custom-grown diatoms.

peace and x-rated joy,

pxj

Talking about WIPs

2007-10-16T11:24:00.000-06:00

On several of the loops where authors chat with one another and hope readers are listening, and on every loop I've found where the readers actually talk*, there's a phenomenon I'd never seen before venturing into e-:

Sharing excerpts, publicly!, of unfinished work. Not only the traditional "unedited" excerpts used as pre-release promo, but bits and pieces of things that haven't been fully written yet, let alone polished, subbed, and signed.

How soon is too soon to share WIPs** with the world?

I may not be the standard model of writer, but I'm the kind I know best; to me, a work in progress is just that. It's in progress, in flux, almost guaranteed to change! It's not ready to be shared. That doesn't mean I can't polish a few paragraphs into readability if I have some reason to, it's just...that excerpted section may not make the final cut. If there is a final cut. There may not be.

I write much, much more than I ever submit. Even assuming that everything I sub finds an eventual home (hasn't happened yet, but let's assume), that's maybe one piece in three of the ones I finish? And I don't finish everything I start. Sharing WIP-bits might seem a little pointless given those stats, but it's not really all that different from the uncontracted-work situation; could take the disclaimer, even. Enjoy at your own risk. This work may not ever be available. In the event this book reaches the world, the following excerpt may or may not appear in any way, shape, or form.

Do readers notice if this happens--if a WIP-excerpt never becomes anything more? Does it bother them? Do they ever feel let down, led on, betrayed? Does it seem like a tease? Cut to the chase: Would it keep them from buying the author's published work?

How do publishers feel about it? I assume that once I've signed a contract, I'm limited to the published-excerpt terms; before that, it's my own look-out. Great, yippee. But... How would a publisher react to a submission including an excerpt s/he'd seen on one or more loops? More or less favorably? What about a submission obviously related to that excerpt but not containing it?

And what happens later? I tend to write novella-length fiction, which means a fairly low word-limit for excerpts; it's tempting to use this apparent loop-hole to post something more comparable to other authors' offerings. But how would that affect reader-reaction later on, assuming that WIP became a contracted work due for release? Would loop-folks feel as if they'd already read the thing, having seen so much of it?

What's the protocol for WIP-excerpt sharing? Is there some primer for the practice, as there is for released works? What makes an author decide that yes, it's time to share--and which shared excerpts are best received? What would readers really like to see?

Is fiction like sausage, best enjoyed if you don't see the process, or more like "display cooking," where watching it happen is part of the fun?

Your humble sea-lily needs to know these things! She's got a character tied in a pretzel who's longing to show himself off a bit...

As always,

peace and x-rated joy

pxj

*And if you know any of those that accept erotic fiction, let me know! Please?

**Okay, so properly that's WsIP, but I don't know how to "say" that in my head, and I'm one of those readers who hears text. Besides, it looks funny!

What's In a Name?

2007-10-13T14:26:00.000-06:00

Would Chase be as sexy if he were called Run? A Midsummer Night's Dream is sexy as hell--what about June-eve Reverie?

Names might be more important in fiction even than reality; they have to convey so much to the (potential) reader...

An interesting title, they say, is among the factors that influence purchasing/reading decisions. Doesn't that make it marketing, rather than writing? --she says, hoping to off-load the task to someone else.--But, no; as with children, it's the creator's responsibility.

I hate naming stories, usually go through half a dozen versions of a title before I pick one. My recent AMP release began life as "A Phone Romance"--yeah, groan away!--before I settled on Reach Out and Touch Someone.

Not fond of naming characters, either. (Or pets, and any kid of mine would be "you" for the first half of his or her life, I'm sure.) Names are too important to be taken lightly. And in fiction, I feel pressured to find a name that will say something to the reader, as well as to me. I often try three or four names before I find one that fits.

Except for Reach's hero; his name, I had from the instant before I started to write.

His last name, that is. When an editor once referred to him by his first name, I honestly thought she had me confused with another of her writers! Bill? Bill who? Oh, you mean Muir!

For the final version, I cut the first name entirely in favor of an initial, just to make sure no one else could do this. (Though I still don't understand how she did, when the first name appeared exactly twice in the submitted draft!) The heroine latches onto the last name in an instant, because it means something. To her, and to me. And maybe to the reader, depending.

Muir. Pronounced just like it looks--which means that if you're a Scot, it's a syllable and a half something in the neighborhood of "myewer," and if you're a Californian, it's Meer. After John Muir, who's a local (and national) hero, often called the father of the national park service, and for whom Muir Woods is named.

Why is that my fictional hero's name? Because the man's a redwood walking. No, this isn't a paranormal, I just mean that he's huge and stable and large enough to climb and...and I should shut up now before I start squirming in my very public coffeehouse seat. Besides, he's Jackie's toy, not mine.

Muir the redwood.

But that's not all. I have a fondness for obscure jokes--as folks on my not-a-newsletter list the e-Garret can tell you--and there's another reason why this yoga practitioner hero has the name he has: it's because Muir studies yoga.

There's a relatively new trend in yoga teachings called "tantra," "New Tantrics," or "yoga for lovers," where the point is to use yoga techniques for sexual connection and pleasure, interpersonal connection as opposed to purely universal. Happily for me, it so happens that one of the pioneering couples of tantra share his name.

Muir. The redwood who walks like a man, bends like a pretzel, and makes love with his whole being.

Self-P(r)imping Season!

2007-10-04T21:00:00.000-06:00

Yes, folks, even hermits sometimes feel the need to preen. Physically and virtually. What with new releases and a change of season, this seemed like the time for such things. So the blog's had its make-over, and I'm typing in a mud masque. The keyboard may never be the same.

Outside my attic window, the trees are changing their wardrobe, too--a host of lovely dramatic fiery shades--and my feline companion (not the one pictured above)is doing her coat-of-shifting-colors thing. And me? Well, beyond the temporary rather Vulcan face-coloring, I've pulled on the promo-ing suit.

Shame it isn't a better fit! Still, it's bright and shiny, and it goes quite well with pearls. I've entered a cover art contest this month, and I'm having an author day on the 13th. New releases are my favorite form of promo; accordingly, I queried a publisher just today. And I've done more posting these past few weeks, excerpts and announcements and general chat, than in a hundred normal life-in-the-e-garret days.

It feels like I should be decked out in full bling. How do other authors cope? I try to picture them happily self-promo-whoring (grills flashing and fingers flying and everything), but it's a painful idea to me. Easier to imagine writ(h)ing satin-sheeted first-draft work and bon-bon fueled fantasies...

Though, okay, I admit it: that's not what you'd see if you looked at me. Not this week, at least. I've emerged from my attic to take advantage of the fall weather, you see, going trolling for inspiration at the bonfires, enjoying the harvest fairs and season's-end frolicking. Just as soon as I do one more bit of promo, or two, or three--and when this masque is finished torturing me.

But I'll be back by the 13th! No doubt with the latest fall fashions in condoms to talk about.

What? Don't we deserve some safe bling?

In the Market For a Paper Cut?

2007-09-30T14:31:00.001-06:00

October 1, 2007--I'm in print! Or one of my stories is, at least. My very first romantic caning story, "A New Understanding," is in the Palmprint anthology Sixteen of the Best.

There's a whole long and involved story behind how this particular piece of fiction ended up within these pages; the antho's a compilation of prize winners from Palmprint's annual summer fiction contest, but observant readers of the afterward may notice that my story does not appear in the list of contest winners. Okay, maybe it's not all that involved a story: I didn't win. The editor liked the piece a lot, though, sent me a note explaining that if she'd had another spot, I'd have taken it--and when they decided on a print compilation, she invented that one more opening. Plus one for herself, for a total of seventeen stories, despite the title.

Bonuses to grow on, perhaps, as with birthday spankings? Or canings, maybe.

Weirdest Product Ever

2007-09-27T16:35:00.000-06:00

At least in the scents/perfumes category, this new German offering makes the top ten!

I’m not quite sure how to describe it. It’s a, um, ah... Okay. It’s an “erotic aid” for men. An “organic” scent. Yes, that aroma, bottled for your convenience. I’m not linking direct to the site—I try to keep this blog relatively free of skin, and their gateway art isn’t something I particularly care to see. Ever again. So instead, here’s someone else’s take on this interesting niche-market product:

There are no more words.

pxj

The Monday Malaise is Spreading!

2007-09-23T23:45:00.000-06:00

It’s either very late Sunday night or early Monday morning as I write this, depending on how you feel about such things. Me, I don’t care what you call it—all I know is that my head hurts! I got hijacked by a story for a day and a half, so haven’t been online since, oh, call it Friday afternoon sometime. Came back to 100+ new loop messages. Now, when you realize that I’m on digest for everything but official-from-the-publisher loops, and that digests from Yahell tend to be packaged 25-to-1...

In a day and a half. That’s a fair bit of mail to sift through.

Worse than the sheer volume was the repetition. It’s Monday’s mail that I usually have to bribe myself into opening; since so many of the loops I belong to allow promos only on Monday, all the promo-ing authors blitz-mail each and every group. Apparently some of the more prolific posters on several loops decided this weekend was a great time for not-quite-outright promos, multiply posting anything that escaped the one-day-a-week-only ban. Special offers. News. Reminders of available releases. Etc., etc.

I like special offers, really and truly I do. But I like them a lot less the fourth and fifth time I’ve seen them in the same day! By the twelfth—and that’s an actual count, not hyperbole—I’ve added yet another author to my "No, never, not even for free" list. Quite probably through no fault of her own, as at least some of those messages referencing that book came from a promoter’s mail address.
I know I’m not the only reader to be annoyed by the over-saturation. I’m not the only author trying to find some middle ground between silence (my default) and cross-posting noise. I wouldn’t even be surprised if that author whose name now makes me grit my teeth struggles with this issue.

I know I now have yet another reason not to appreciate Mondays. But weekends? Oh, no. That will never do. So, next weekend, I shall attempt to post something that isn’t promotional in any way. Chatter or humor or good wishes or something! If only to wash the taste of all the week’s self-promotion away.

Too late to spare me the Monday headache, but at least I’ve gotten a head start on it. Things could be much worse.

If only I didn’t feel so obscurely guilty—not for feeling put-upon, or dismissing that author (you’ll notice I’m not using the name!) but because I’d planned to do a little not-quite-promo-ing myself. Not much, maybe just send out a few reminder-type notices of my own, with a brief announcement about Monday night’s RoL chat. (Oh! Aspen Mountain Press authors, including me! Realms of Love, starts at 9:00 Eastern, either one or two hours long depending on which schedule you check. And giveaways!)

But now I can’t bring myself to add to the noise.

Silently, then, until tonight at the chat,

as always

pxj

E-BOOK PROMOTIONS--EEK!

2007-09-19T00:22:00.000-06:00

Reach Out and Touch Someone is available. Yea, yippee!

Time to promote that fact, for which I must venture forth from my nice safe garret—Sob.

It’s a well-ridden dilemma, this particular horned beast on which I’m currently impaled. (Not in the good way.) Frequently mounted or not, that thing’s nowhere close to tamed. E-book sales have hurdles enough that promotion’s even more necessary than with, say, small-press print. I know this; if I want anyone to know the story’s available, I have to tell them so.

So, fine, I’ve come down from my e-garret to promote. As briefly and painlessly as I possibly can, after which I shall retreat to cat and keyboard and caffeinated fantasies. For now, at least, I’m out in the virtual world, ready to speak my piece.

...Now what?

AS SEEN EVERYWHERE ELSE

I don’t belong to nearly as many chat loops as some people—hermits not being known for chatting, you understand—but even reading only my relatively few lists, the repetition of posts fairly quickly makes me grind my teeth. And I’ve seen enough complaints by more vocal posters to know that I’m not alone. It’s gotten to the point that these days if I see anything labeled “X-Posted” I skip past it, certain I’ve seen it before. And at that, I’m grateful for the poster’s courtesy! Seeing the same excerpt in several places on the same day doesn’t ring that “magic number” advertisers talk about for acquiring mindshare, at least not in my mind—it only annoys me.

So, what’s an author to do?

REPETITION = BAD but MINDSHARE = GOOD

Like many readers, I’m very author-centered—tell me an author I like has a new release and, resources permitting, I’ll buy it. All it requires is that (A) I recognize the name, and (B) you tell me where/when/how to purchase the thing. For authors I haven’t read yet, or those relatively few not yet automatically sorted into yes or no, occasional postings of different excerpts help. But in those cases where I haven’t made up my mind, repetition only serves to dissuade me.

Where’s the line between announcement and annoyance? Sure and certain, I don’t know—even the market researchers who spend their working days on the problem can’t seem to pinpoint it—but I know when it’s been crossed. And I hate the thought of inspiring that same feeling in readers that too-profligate promoters spark in me. But now I’m promoting my newest release, which means that I have to put on the marketing cap, itchy though it may be.

MONDAY MALAISE

I’ve been checking the rules for the various loops to which I belong (on which I lurk), and many of them allow promotions only on one day a week. The same day, too, for an astonishing number of them: Monday. Which is, of course, why the same posts show up in so many different places at the same time: it’s the only time they’re allowed!

Does this seem short-sighted to anyone else? Monday, the most hated day of the week. The start of the drudge-trudge workaday weariness. And you want to clog up the loops with promotions on that of all days?

Still, it’s not my job to criticize; I can barely run a blog, much less a chat loop. And in fairness, not all group owners set their rules that way. It just happens that several of those to which I belong do. Which leaves me with, for this new release, three excerpts I can post to many more than three groups and only the one day on which I’m allowed to post them with all the attendant promotional text.

Hmm.

I suppose I could divvy them up, posting excerpt #1 to groups A and B, #2 to C and D, etc. then switch for the next week—but if I do them one or two lists at a time, it’ll take forever and not reach many people, and if I cross-post them, I’ll get ulcers from the guilt and the fear of annoying people who might otherwise decide to read the thing. There’s always option #3, doing nothing, but then the readers won’t know the story’s out there. And wouldn’t that be a shame?

BRAND-NAME AUTHORS

Non-eremitic folks have a solution I really can’t match: they show off their personalities rather than their books. Posting daily to say hi, sending good wishes, writing essays, sharing pictures, just generally being friendly and accessible. Planting their name in people’s minds. It looks absolutely exhausting to me, but it works for them.

Might it for me? Well, I’m pretending not to be a hermit just now, so I thought I’d give this a try; wrote myself a new bio and posted it upon joining another loop:

Species: human; sub-species author.
Gender: female.
Allergies: limelight.
Distinguishing marks: bad puns, twisted humor, tendency to lapse into erotica and/or science.
Habitat: electronic garret. Occasional sightings in the blogosphere. Rumored to have been spotted at publisher chats and loops, too infrequently for verification.

Lung-chin's Guide to Impossible Beings says :

Tracked by the mysterious letter-string "pxj" (postulated to be either the creature's initials or an acronym suffering low self-esteem), this perpetrator of strange humor and disseminator of stranger information may be a hoax, though there would seem little point in that. More likely, "pxj" is, like the sea lily, inclined to retreat at any cost. Reproduction appears to follow no particular schedule, but new creations, i.e. books, arrive frequently enough to dispel any thoughts of this being's extinction.

Tacked on a .sig line with a buy-link and (one hopes) interesting tag for Reach above the usual blessing, and, feeling quite pleased with myself, began planning further posts in a similar line.

Until the reply came back:

“Are you published?”

So, okay; I’m not enough of a brand name yet to do name-only appearances. Sigh. Other options?

$$$ WELL SPENT?

Writers with better finances than mine hire promoters, but the companies with approaches I find acceptable are all out of my price range, and I refuse to pay someone to annoy me by cross-posting to every group in cyberland. The few a la carte services I both like and can afford don’t seem to be the ones that influence readers, at least according to the sketchy research currently available. Some people swear by bookmarks and magnets and pens, others recommend candy or keychains, still others offer only books; some people get fantastic results with, say, purchasing banner space on site X, while others see not a blip in sales... I’d consider a pay-for-results deal, but at present, when it comes to e-book advertising, there’s no guarantee.

This time, I’m putting my money into prizes. Which means that I’ll have to run some contests, through the e-Garret and during scheduled chats or author days. Will this translate into higher sales? And if it does, was it the allure of gift certificates that sent people off to Fictionwise or...did they really like me?

AND THE ANSWER IS...

What, you expect me to know? Darlin’s, I haven’t a clue! But I do have a plan. Sort of.

I like Romance Excerpts Only, think it’s a great idea. But not every potential reader belongs. Mondays and whenever else promos are allowed, I will be trying the sorted-posts approach, all the while trying not to overdo. There’s always the blogosphere with all its links, and web-rings, and the rest of the “passive promotion” options, but new releases are time-sensitive, so I’ll try some more active things as well: Contests and author days and live chats and maybe even a virtual or RL signing.

(Lions and tigers and bears! No, wait—those don’t bother me.)

All of this sounds like entirely too much work, but then, action isn’t really a hermit’s stock in trade. I miss the days of transoms, you know? A scribe could just toss a manuscript over one and go on about her anonymous day. Of course, she probably didn’t make enough money to buy new paper and ink. Or pixels and bandwidth, I suppose. And more even than the money, I’d really like Reach to be read! Which means that, somehow, I have to get the word out that the story’s out there.

Accent on the somehow. Cue the Buffy soundtrack, folks, and join in on the chorus:

Where do we go from here?

I don’t know about you, but I’m headed back to my garret. Just for a few minutes. Really. Maybe an hour or two. But I’ll come back! Have to—there’s no coffee in the place right now. Besides, I have to go schedule an author day.

peace and x-rated joy,

pxj

The Deas Wouldn’t Touch This With A Ten-Foot Pole

2007-09-13T22:49:00.000-06:00

I have a new release this week, can’t think about anything else, I admit it. Well, unless you count a rather remarkably muscled bit of “inspiration” just across the coffeeshop right now... Sorry, where was I? Oh, yes, the new book, released just this week at Aspen Mountain Press. Reach is a strange sort of story to pitch—naturally, considering who wrote the thing—and the publisher seized on one small detail for much of the marketing: the business my heroine and her partner run.

Jackie and Carrie-Anne are “business facilitators,” which seems to mean that they’ll do whatever clients need in order to get their businesses up and running or to keep them that way. They call the business Deas ex Machina, and the outgoing message on the voice mail (when the system works!) informs clients that “the goddesses” are, no doubt, out answering someone else’s prayers.

If you’ve ever had to wade through the paperwork to incorporate, change a name, or clear the title to an estate, you’ll understand why my imagination generated that particular niche. I wouldn’t be too surprised, though, to learn that similar services exist. In a world where alibi services are now available in several countries...

Though my business goddesses are fictional, I felt the need, seeing this, to wince on their behalf. Jackie and Carrie-Anne would be appalled should a client ask them for something like this. Professionally intrigued (how on Earth would you advertise that service?), salivating over the fees, amused—but appalled, really!

I should know, I made them up.

...Ow! Jackie, control that walking tree of yours!

pxj

Reach for What You Want!

2007-09-09T23:42:00.000-06:00

Madeleine l’Engle said

“I frequently write about myself because that’s how I discover who I am…”

I can honestly say that I am not the heroine of this particular book. But writing her story...yes, I suppose I did learn something about myself. I am not Jackie—among other things, she’s far more driven than I—but her story is one I really, really, really wanted to share with the world. Enough to overcome my usual reluctance to venture forth from my garret; enough to make me do whatever I had to, to see it published properly. Which is a story I shall not be sharing, thanks very much. Enough to say

I wanted it. So I reached. And at last—

Here it is. Within your virtual grasp.

You have no idea how it feels to be able to say that!

As always, peace and x-rated joy,

pxj

Plant Porn, Anyone?

2007-09-07T22:46:00.000-06:00

I kid you not, artist Jonathan Keats has created pornographic film for plants. That’s right, his intended audience is vegetable, not just between the ears but entirely. Houseplants, to be exact. I giggled my way through the first few paragraphs of this article, already planning the jokes I could craft into a post, but then I hit this line:

"It is very boring but that is part of the essence of pornography, that it is very repetitive," he said.

And all of a sudden, I’m not quite laughing anymore. Of course, this is the same artist behind the “God in a petri dish” bit some years ago, so perhaps that was his intent. Shame I missed his honeybee ballet!

pxj

“Enormous interest” in safer sex!

2007-08-16T17:38:00.000-06:00

My latest nominee for the Nobel, in lieu of any other sufficently prestigious Practical Genius award: Futura Medical Plc. Yes, once again, it’s Condom News—and this news made me sit up and take notice, as, I’m sure, it will do for a whole lot of men out there.

See, they’ve developed a condom with benefits tailored for the male psyche as well as his physiology. Yes, gentlemen, this condom helps men have “firmer and bigger erections, as well as a longer-lasting sexual experience.” And didn’t you all just sit up and take notice at that?!

Plans are for Durex to market the CSD500 condom—presumably under some much sexier name—beginning next year. In Europe, that is; as yet, no news concerning US market penetration. (If you’ll pardon the phrasing. Or even if you won’t.) And according to their market research, as well as common sense, this thing is going to be big! (Um, that pun wasn’t intended.)

Market research has shown so far that interest in the condom is enormous, Barder said.

"Up to 80 percent of existing condom users would be interested in trying the product and, more importantly, 49 percent of non-condom users would be interested in using it as it will help them maintain an erection," he said.

The above emphasis is mine, but I’m sure you all understand why. Finally, a condom that men who don’t like condoms will still want to use! It’s just...brilliant. Genius. My little sapiosexual heart’s beating overtime just at the thought. Oh, I want to meet the person who thought of this! Meet...for a start.

pxj

Thin body, fat head

2007-08-10T20:41:00.000-06:00

(Been under the weather lately, and feeling rather lumpish. But this got me stirred up!)

The card read “PLEASE DON’T FEED THE FAT PEOPLE”

????!!!!

There’s nothing so offensive as a vociferous convert. Or so completely indefatiguable, more’s the pity. So here’s this man, who was unhappily fat, who’s now thin-and-proselytizing—actually, by the stats, I’d say overly thin and overzealous—and who does he target? Happy “fat” people.

He chose to protest outside the 11^th Annual BBW Network Bash. With that card. Fits with the rest of his message—his organization’s emblem reminds me a lot of the “No Fat Chicks” buttons the guys wore back in high school. Regardless of how one happens to feel about size acceptance versus obesity (and why is that the question, anyway?), there’s something to be said for simple kindness and courtesy!

Apparently, all those words failed to “penetrate his skin.” Personally, I’d like to see if they could be helped along by a sharp object or two. Or sharp blows from a blunt object, even. Or being sat upon by one of my larger friends. Though my grandmother might have the right of it: she’d diagnose his problem as hunger or low blood sugar or grumpiness, and feed him a cookie or three.

Please don’t let the fat-head get your goat; you never know what a man might do with one of them.

pxj

On View Right Now

2007-07-20T19:56:00.000-06:00

Had sort of a mixed week, so here’s a mixed bag of a post—things I’ve seen that made me smile or think or go hmm. Call it a look inside what I use for a mind...which is as much of a warning as you’re going to get. Enjoy!

Everything Old is New Again

Advice from the CDC: Do It In Your Sleeve. (Sneeze, that is.) Of course, no one remembers that the reason men’s jackets have those useless buttons on the cuffs was to prevent this “uncivilized” behavior... Somehow, that thought led me to history and styles of men’s underwear—yes, well, do remember what I write! —where I discovered that here, too, progress is sometimes cyclical.

And, hey, how’s this for a segue? Underwear between the covers: in the old days when people actually read paper books , that paper was made from rags. Not exactly breaking news, nor terribly archaic (I print my vita on linen bond paper when I want to impress someone), but still good for a smile. Especially the comments—man, those science types can snark!

The Light! It Blinds

That had to hurt The phrase “blinding flash of the obvious” comes to mind here: Networks admit that taking the show (Jericho) off the air might have hurt ratings! I thought this made a logical follow-up to old-and-new as these long-arc shows have a fair bit in common with the old radio plays and early television, but that mid-season hiatus is something Grandda et confreres would never, ever have pulled. Nor dear ol’ Boz and his ilk (just to bring things home to print). Ever feel like we’re on a treadmill, or is it just me?

Vocabulary-Building, Anyone?

Best new word I've seen in ages:
sapiosexual. N. One who finds intelligence the most sexually attractive feature.

Now and then, one does need a word Websters et al haven’t gotten around to indexing. This suggestion came with what might as well have been a love poem directed at Your Humble Hermit—

"I want an incisive, inquisitive, insightful, irreverent mind. I want someone for whom philosophical discussion is foreplay. I want someone who sometimes makes me go ouch due to their wit and evil sense of humor. I want someone that I can reach out and touch randomly. I want someone I can cuddle with.

I decided all that means that I am sapiosexual."

by Mr M. Ister May 26, 2004

Now tell me that isn’t perfect?! And, oh, "Reach Out and Touch Someone." Speaking of segues...but that can wait. Hope your weekends—and your lives generally—are filled with peace and x-rated joy

pxj

***

A bonus link so that the DVD-watchers won’t miss it—

Wish fulfillment as advertising! Because everyone has that memory, of some parental unit dragging out some embarrassing family memory...

Don’t know about you, but that wouldn’t be good for me...

2007-07-09T18:41:00.000-06:00

And you thought “every flavor” beans were bad! How ’bout condoms flavored like rotten Limburger and burnt sugar? Read on...

I’ve been accused of having rather a greater interest in condoms than is quite normal. Might be true—normal’s never been my goal in life. But I swear, I was not seeking condom info today. It’s just that my RSS feeds offered an article on a San Diego building that simply begged to be the spur for a host of bad jokes.

And it reminded me of this photo , that I’d seen online but apparently neither saved nor bookmarked—hey, who knew I’d ever need the thing? Besides, I knew it’d be out there somewhere. So I sent my search-bots out into the aether.

My first search for that photo turned up an archived news-byte (photo not stored); I got to this part—

[Picture] - SAFE FLAVOUR: A businessman giggles after a model hands him a free durian-flavoured condom in Bangkok yesterday, World Aids day. Condom maker Suretex said it would distribute 100,000 of them to create more awareness about Aids prevension and of course, to boost business.

—and I squicked. Durian?

If you don’t know durian, consider yourself lucky. This theoretically edible “thorny fruit” has such a strong aroma that it’s banned from airports in some countries, and taxi drivers will refuse to accept passengers who are carrying or have recently come into contact with the things. I’m told that they’re an acquired taste, but you’ll have to take that on faith; it’s not a taste I’m ever going to acquire.

Not even in the interest of safer sex.

One of the less biased descriptions of the fruit says:

“The durian, although malodorous, has an aril (an extra seedcovering) that tastes like a combination of banana, caramel, and vanilla, with a slight onion tang.”

Yummy—not! And I thought the banana-flavored condoms were in poor taste!

Okay, fine, I’ll shut up, go write or something.

Peace and (safe) x-rated joy,

pxj

Bonus condom news:

Did you know there’s a company making “the world’s first touch-free male condom”? I know that sounds silly, but for some segments of the population, there’s actually some health benefit possible. 1) Harder to put it on wrong. 2) If your hands aren’t clean...

Screamingly Funny...Fruit?

2007-06-28T11:46:00.000-06:00

The tag line read “Who Knew Fruit Could Scream?” and I was caught.

Way back in a former life (that is, before I became a hermit) my job required that I follow advertising. Though it's no longer all that much of my life beyond the occasional inevitable bit of self-promotion, now and again I see an ad worth comment. Like

Sliced: the Movie.

It tickled my funny bone. More than that, it earned itself a place in my memory.

Ads are judged successful only if they influence customers to purchase, to look for, to remember the product/brand name, or at least to think better of the product than they would have before—so a lot of ads have to be called failures despite their undeniable energy and a certain creativity. (Yes, Spritzy, I mean you!)

This, on the other hand, I'd say has to be at least a qualified success. Not that I'd drink strawberry-orange-banana hard lemonade if the alternative was some other sort of physical torture , but I was interested enough to seek out the list of other varieties—hint: click the bottle—and I will be looking for this stuff, next time I'm anywhere it might be sold.

I'll be looking for more work from this agency, too, regardless of the product. Hmm. Wonder if they do book ads? I don't like book trailers, as a general rule—the good ones impose defined visuals on my reading experience, and the bad ones just annoy me—but, man, a book-trailer like this, I might.

Fade in: a multi-line telephone, message light malevolently blinking...

Voiceover: Will she Reach Out and Touch Someone before it's TOO LATE?

Um, yeah. Then again, maybe not.

As always, wishing you

peace and x-rated joy,

pxj

Loaning Across the Digital Divide?

2007-06-14T18:12:00.001-06:00

One of the loops I belong to is talking about libraries right now—specifically, libraries and electronic books. I feel qualified to comment (not that any lack would stop me when I’m in the mood to speak) since I spend a fair amount of time in libraries. In fact, I’m posting this from one! And here’s my considered opinion:

My local public library system is actively hostile to e-books.

Sound paranoid? Well, I might be, but in this case, I’m also correct.

The Austin library system does offer NetLibrary, but most of the Austin eContent catalog is the same list of titles that you can get directly from Project Gutenberg. The others are literary analyses and small-press literary works, largely poetry and non-fiction with the odd regional story scattered here and there.

Okay, I know, that doesn’t sound too bad; Project Gutenberg includes a great many readable texts, and some people like poetry about chaparrals and high winds on lonesome plains. But even if you find an e-book you’d like to read from that sadly lacking list, the default option is online-only. You can check a book out and download it, assuming the library has the appropriate license for downloading, only if you have an account. That’s free to card holders, but it’s a separate step—even if you have an account with the library’s electronic portal. (Why can’t I just use that?) Downloading the PDF may also require activating a separate instance of Adobe Reader, but after that, you can read the thing. Until your borrow-term expires, or you finish it. You must also check the text back in, which involves more steps than a physical return would, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to renew without checking it in and back out again, or at least, not one I’ve found.

Oh, and it’s Adobe Reader only, no other formats, with the initial download only to a computer, though you can then transfer to a PDA or whatever. Ack! All that, for things I can either get elsewhere and own for no charge and with less work, or don’t want in the first place?

I know, some of you are muttering about evil and stupidity. Maybe they just didn’t think things through? But I’m not finished yet. It’s not just that the e-book section looks like it was populated by someone trying to discourage readers from trying e-. It’s more than that.

I don’t know if any of you’ve ever heard of Mark Y. Herring. Certainly it’s not a household name! I wouldn’t have known it myself except for a poster I saw in the library. (The Northwest branch of the Austin Public Library system, the first and only time I was ever in that particular branch!) The poster was headed

10 REASONS WHY THE INTERNET IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A LIBRARY

And it’s apparently based on one or more articles he’s written. A quick search turned up this one. I was so annoyed by the poster-version that I actually wrote down the high-points from that numbered list; the article isn’t identically phrased, but covers the same points, so in either version, # 6 and #10 raised my blood pressure a few points—

6. Hey, Bud, What About E-books?!

Reading on any e-reader is a chore. The technology will doubtless improve but it's still more than a generation away.

10. The Internet is Ubiquitous but Books Are Portable.

Try curling up by the fire with a laptop, or stopping by the woods on a snowy evening with a handheld. The future may bring this, but for now the vast majority of readers-- even online readers--want books.

Yes, folks, this is the message my local library system disseminates. In their catalog, in their sponsored talks, on their bulletin boards and lectures, and on their walls, they’ve chosen their message: e-books aren’t books, to them.

Hostile, like I said. And this in Austin, which is trying to become the most wireless wired city in the US! Maybe I’ll ask them to order something I know is only available in e- But then, I’d have librarians actively hostile toward me. And you know what they say about librarians...

pxj

Finding Sanctuary

2007-06-07T16:54:00.000-06:00

Vanished again, I know. Sorry. No, I wasn’t hermitting—as some of you may know, I’m a freelance technical writer, and the latest gig involved many too many onsite hours. Lovely wifi they had there, but monitored. Yes, I know that still leaves the off-hours, but...I really wasn’t hermitting. Call it inspiration for future stories.

Tonight’s the first time in a while I’ve had some free time to just play online. So what did I do with it? Among other things, checked out Sanctuary.

What? I was curious! And it’s summer, season of popcorn flicks and bad faux-reality TV. Not to say I can’t live without television, or movies either, but...sometimes, I’d really a decent SF-nal something, y’know? And more than that, I’m always interested in new market models!

Not just in broadcast, of course; e-books, anyone?

So, Sanctuary. Direct-to-web short episodes. Monsters and gothic architecture and pretty people. Monsters! No ads. Did I mention monsters? I had to look. And after having seen the first two webisodes, I’d say Sanctuary seems like it has a chance. It’s visually stunning; they’re building on an established fan-base, what with all the ex-Stargate folks involved; SF fans are traditionally more open to innovative distribution models; and they’ve got the “social networking” thing going in overdrive. Want to know how effective that last is? Hey, I heard about it! And I’m a hermit.

Traditional broadcast television counts on word-of-mouth, too, but lately, networks don’t seem to feel they can afford to wait for that word to spread. Firefly is my favorite example: a show Fox didn’t keep around for an entire season, that had—that still has—a fan-base so strong it supports conventions and comic books and even a profitable movie. But the ultimate Space Western’s certainly not the only show nets cancel before they should: Jericho, canceled in May of this year, has just been resurrected for a short next season, as of yesterday, after a massive fan action. (I still want to know who thought up the nuts!) Seven more episodes, contingent upon yet more fan activity, with the dangled hope of more still. But if fans want the show to continue, says the network statement: "It [Jericho] needs to grow on the CBS Television Network, as well as on the many digital platforms where we make the show available."

Hmm. Viewer to CBS: I watched the show, I told people about the show, you canceled the show. I and my cohorts made a loud enough noise that you decided to bring it back, and now you want me to tell even more people, trusting that you won’t just pull the rug out from under us all again? You don’t know me very well, do you?

These days, a lot of shows find their best profits not in ad-supported broadcast, but in DVD sales, which don’t require a broadcast network’s fickle faith after the fans have found a show. Some items are now going straight to DVD, without even a stopover on the network circuit. New episodes of Babylon Five are due out soon! How long has that show been off the air? Straight-to-web isn’t all that unlikely, given the rise in broadband coverage and increasing customer willingness to pay for television programming. As with DVD sales, if you purchase the product, it’s yours, so you’re free of network schedules; no ads, so you’re free of those, too. And, hey, if you purchase a bundle, you know you’ll have all its contents! Much better than broadcast, these days.

Still... Am I—me, myself—willing to purchase episodes, to exchange actual cash for them? Well, why not? That’s all a DVD is, really. If you divide the cost of a DVD by the number of episodes... Hmm. Sanctuary’s an expensive proposition, by that scale, but not outside the bounds of possibility. I have to admit, I think part of the appeal, for me, is this idea of bypassing the networks. For the producer, it’s a way around a very limited distribution channel; for the customer, a real way to express a preference. Vote with your wallet! For me, it’s a way to thumb my nose at the folks who keep buying Tim Minear shows and then yanking them off the air again! With Sanctuary, I can buy the episodes just the way I’d buy e-books or songs. (And so can anyone else, naturally.) That’s a really, really nice idea.

And a gamble, counting on fans to shell out money instead of going the ad-supported route, but...I think it’s going to work. I hope it’s going to work. I might even defrost my very own credit card and shell out for a season. Or more. Not that I think it’s the best show ever or anything (that’d be something by Whedon), and I’m not sure the writers have really perfected that short-segment writing yet, going from forty-some-odd-minute episodes to fifteen, but it’s still pretty cool.

Don’t take my word for it, please! Low-res versions of the first four eps are (well, the first two are, and two more will be) available for viewing without charge; there’s a list at sanctuaryfans. Or go straight for the purchase option. Hey, four episodes cost about the same as an e-book...

pxj

Long Live the Word!

2007-05-23T20:06:00.000-06:00

The Association of American Publishers has just released some estimated book sale figures for 2006. I take comfort in these numbers--we're buying so many books, I find it hard to fear the global plague of illiteracy that my elders used to threaten. (Of course, what we're reading...)

And, fan of e- as I am, I was particularly thrilled to see this line:

E-books saw a 24.1% increase in 2006 at $54 million, with a compound growth rate of 65% since 2002.

Hey, folks and folksesses, we're almost halfway through 2007! Bought any books lately?

pxj

Does your soldier girlfriend have ice in her veins? No, just plastic.

2007-05-14T12:21:00.000-06:00

Okay, fine, or his. But the phrase tends to be applied more to women, doesn’t it? A cultural thing: men are cool, women are cold. Except, of course, when we’re not. And anyway, I’m digressing. Already!

There’s a scientific thriller published way back in ’98 called The Blood Artists, in which the lack of clean blood for transfusions plays a large part in motivating the protagonists. Chuck Hogan’s certainly not the only writer to have pointed out this ever-worsening shortage, nor to postulate that the creators of a workable alternative would be due worldwide admiration.

This isn’t being presented as that so-desired alternative, just a sort of a stop-gap, and not yet workable even as that, but it might be a step forward. For all I despise the propaganda aspect that sparked my heading—war zones?—still, I got a kick out of the idea of plastic blood. And the idea that a sample of the blood will be on display in a museum...

Well, let’s just say it’s a good thing I’d put down my latte before I read that line. The laptop does not appreciate liquid caffeine. Hmm. Wonder how it would feel about plastic blood? Though I don’t think I’ll make the experiment.

Plastic blood. Okay, maybe it’s a sign that my usual interest is tending closer toward obsession than usual, but I can’t help wondering: would it feel different in the veins? Be cooler? —temperature-wise, I mean. Would it flow differently, have any effect on normal function? One of my favorite fictional male romantic leads was largely plastic (Asimov fans will know just who I mean), but my favorite parts of real men most definitely are not. Latex exteriors, now and again...

pxj

(Meant to put this up a couple of days ago, but I got distracted by the need for promotions, about which I shall no doubt do some ranting soon.)

Is it cheating if it follows the local rules?

2007-05-07T18:02:00.000-06:00

No, I’m not talking about the “California Stop Sign”—a joke applied mostly to metro areas rather than whole states, referring to the white line around the sign as signifying that it’s conditional: this sign only applies when there’s a traffic cop around.

I’m talking about infidelity. And the most eye-catching title I’ve seen in weeks: Lust in Translation The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee

And it’s ostensibly non-fiction.

Reuters has a fluff piece about the book. The New York Times panned it, while admitting it was entertaining. (Registration-required link) Amazon reviewers were split.

What is this book? A geographical review of modern infidelity. Oh, come on. Tell me you’re not intrigued!

Me, I was interested for professional reasons (too), after a recent CFS listed “cheating” as a whole sub-genre. That venue publishes what might generously be called stroke fiction—she says while trying to decide which of her unsold pieces they might buy! . Certainly not the sort of place to pitch the romance with no sex until the third act, or the fetish fiction with half a book’s worth of build-up before there’s any physical contact at all. But, still, I should have a couple of shorts to suit their needs, right?

Um. In other categories. Because I’ve never considered cheating a good thing. Makes it hard to write, y’know? Actually, just seeing that item listed has made it hard to write the past few days. Picture me: Cheating as erotic? How would one write that? Give me examples! Oh. Ick. This...people get off on this? But they’re cheating!

Etc.

Now, I distinguish between open relationships and cheating. Hey, that’s between you and your significant other(s). But infidelity? To me, that’s the stuff done without the knowledge or consent of your partner(s), and it’s a bad thing. Which, says Lust’s author, is a very American attitude.

First time in a long time I’ve been a member of the local mainstream!

I feel sort of silly posting anything about a book I haven’t read, but perhaps I needed to vent a little about that CFS. It’s not often I wince away from any area of sexual exploration, and this might be the first time a simple list-item has gotten under my skin, but it did. Which might seem a little funny to folks who routinely complain that I don’t use a second pen name for my non-romantic pieces. “And why do you have to write that stuff anyways?” goes the plaint.

Because. Which is probably what some of those people Druckerman spoke to said, when asked why they stray. (The least loaded term I could think of!) Because something intrigued me. Because I was bored. Because it was there...

As I said, I haven’t read Lust in Translation yet. Can’t say I’m all that likely to, based on those reviews—I tend to prefer my social science to have a more rigid methodology than this seems to have—but now that I’m aware of the title, I’ll be on the lookout for it. So if I happen to stumble upon a copy...

Oh, dear. Is that a cheater’s mentality?

Protesting Pudding?

2007-04-29T16:01:00.000-06:00

Honestly, I don’t mean to be crass, I’m just...flabbergasted. (A word I can’t recall ever having typed before!) A couple of days ago, a man burst into a busy central London restaurant and chopped off his own penis with a knife in front of horrified diners

Um, uh. Why????

Obviously, this man has some serious mental issues. He’ll now have physical ones to go with them, though the severed article has been surgically reattached. And, presumably, he’ll now get the help I think we’d all agree he needs. So, that’s disposed of, if you’ll pardon the phrase. But, on hearing about this event, my thoughts went instantly to all those poor diners and waitstaff he’s traumatized—this took place in a popular restaurant just after a marathon, so the dining room was likely even more crowded than usual, and the guy actually climbed up on a table so everyone could see him before he did the deed.

I don’t know what went through his mind, or the minds of his unwilling audience, but I’d be willing to bet that not one entrée was eaten afterwards. (Think of it: Could you eat, after that?) Though I doubt that was his intent. There must, after all, be easier ways to protest meat-eating or what-have-you.

Unintentional or not, I expect it will have at least a slight effect on local dining habits; at least, I doubt many of those diners present will be heading to other restaurants any time soon. Just the thought of being exposed to something like that is enough to make me want to order in—or maybe fast awhile—and I’m all the way on the other side of the Pond! But of course, the reason this got press coverage is that it’s so unheard of; rarity makes for good read-through. The unlikelihood of this happening again should soothe digestions and ease minds.

Unfortunately for my own peace of mind, it so happens that I just this week checked the etymology of the word “pudding,” for reasons that now seem too trivial to explain; normally, as an American, all those horrid puns and jokes like the post heading wouldn’t have occurred to me.
Have to admire the reporters (at the Guardian, no less!) for not indulging. Though, if English EMTs are anything like their brothers here, I’d bet someone made a joke or seven along those lines. Humor’s a defense mechanism, they tell me, and I should think everyone exposed to that man’s insanity—no, that pun wasn’t intentional—would need some defending.

As horrors go, this was relatively minor; nothing like the geographically nearer bloodsheds we've been hearing about recently. Perhaps that’s why my mind stuck on this, as a sort of mental vaccine against the others. But there’s a horribly tasteless appeal to the sort of thing a friend calls “winning the Darwin Award and living to collect.”

And, oh, damn, there’s another pun! Tasteless, indeed.

The Ever-changing View

2007-04-18T14:40:00.000-06:00

Some writers talk about the Great Divide: Plotters v. Pantsers. There are those who figure out every turning point before they begin to write, and those who begin with an interesting character in an interesting situation and figure out the rest as they go. Likewise, some writers work in sequence from the story's start to its end, while others hop around, writing what they feel like writing at any given point in time.

I'm the worst sort of grasshopper--I hop from one story to another, lured by some interesting spark of a scene; think of a new and fascinating character, and set aside the H&H (&H, sometimes) I've been playing with to move on to my new love. Of course, a contract will keep me nicely focused--yes, that's a hint! --but without that...happily, hoppily, grasshopping I shall go.

Last week, I intended to do some research for a project I've been meaning to get around to. Just a small bit of fact-checking, a couple of resources. Really. Had my search terms all laid out, knew just what I was looking for and more or less where it should be found, set aside the time, sat down at the keyboard--and hopped. From recipes to biography, etymology to viniculture to sculpture, advertising, and beyond. Including some of the tackiest shoes I've ever seen. Yes, folks, there is a coin slot in the heel!

I may be an impoverished writer, but somehow...no. Still, someone must buy the things, in some one of their many versions (they come with dollar signs or kisses, too!). Imagine if you will the sort of person who could wear these, and the stories of their lives.

Imagine me, flipping through my mental Rolodex, checking to see if any of my current heroes are in need of such women--or such footwear.

Some people have views of the water, eternal and ever-changing. Me, I have the Internet, somewhat less soothing but capable of infinite diversion. Still haven't found what I was looking for, either, but I can't really complain. It's one of the benefits of being a writer: I can always claim it as research, because sooner or later, it will prove to have been. Well, maybe not the ultra-tacky shoes, and I can't think what use the too-clever Suicidal Bunny ad campaign might be except that it made me laugh, but I'll do something with the rest.

Probably. Unless something more interesting happens to bounce its way across my path.

Oh, wait! What if that bunny were animate? Cursed, perhaps, or strangely blessed (chocolate being the gift of the gods, and all). Aware. Hmm. I could probably do something with that...

Whole, giant hives of squick!

2007-04-13T15:29:00.000-06:00

Doing some publisher support today, in a small way—well, they took a chance on my work, the least I can do is drop by the odd loop day and say hi—and one of my old friends there referred to me as the Science Nerd. It’s not an insult; I’m proud to claim that title. Thing is, it made me realize that I haven’t written anything particularly nerdish in a bit. So I migrated over to the overloaded science section in my RSS feeder, and found...

Scientists claiming that termites are “social cockroaches.”

I nearly lost my lunch.

Not entirely sure I could explain that so-extreme reaction. Termites have never affected me that way before! I don’t exactly like termites, or insects generally, with the exception of those six-legged sea creatures cooked and swimming in drawn butter, but, at least from a distance, I can appreciate the design of some of them. I even appreciate some insects, the ones I know are beneficial, so long as they stay outside where they belong. But cockroaches?

No.

Not the little ones, not the giant sort we call waterbugs or Palmetto bugs out here, none of them. A cockroach is a pest is a pestilence, and must be destroyed—unless it’s a giant outdoor one and it really is out of doors, in which case it’s sometimes easier simply to run. And if you think I’m kidding, then I hope that someday you’re out when the damned things take flight, wearing shorts and a tank top or some similarly abbreviated outfit. They will knock into you!

Nasty things.

And let’s not even think about the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, okay? (Though at least they don’t fly.) There’s an old theory that fear of sharks is hard-wired into the human brain, from the days when we, too, were sea-creatures. Perhaps cockroaches share some ancestor, or perhaps they give off ultrasonic threat-signals; whatever the reason, a great many more people are disturbed by cockroaches than seems logical, and I’m among the more severe sufferers.

They make my skin crawl. And apparently, it’s enough to label something a cockroach—because termites never used to squick me out! Actually, I’ve always found them rather interesting. They build amazing structures, at least some of them eat literally twenty-four hours a day, archaeologists and environmental scientists find them useful... Do a search for termites and “biomolecular archaeology”; you’ll be amazed. And, just because I like the article title, check out “Termite Guts Can Save the Planet”

But now that they’re being classified as cockroaches, I can’t think of them without getting queasy. Ain’t the power of suggestion a wonderful thing?

What I find strangest about this is that I know the mantids are related to roaches, but I don’t have that same response to them; in fact, I kind of like the praying mantis. Why, then, should I be so freaked out about what’s really nothing more than a slight shifting in classification that puts termites in pretty much the same degree of relationship to the so-scary cockroach that the mantid has?

Maybe I’m neophobic? No, that can’t be it; I like (some) new things. Maybe I’m just disturbed by people messing with the classifications? No, it’s probably not that, either; this is hardly the first re-classification I’ve been around to see. Maybe it’s just that damnable phrase. “Social cockroaches.”

Yep. By the full-body shudder as I typed those words, that’s the issue. Imagine if cockroaches learned from their newly acknowledged cousins and ganged up on us!

Oh, ick. I really wish I hadn’t said that...

pxj

Did someone steal my XX when I wasn’t looking?

2007-04-09T18:26:00.000-06:00

The chromosome, I mean.

As you probably know if you found your way here, I am a writer of erotica. My work comes—pun not intended, but that’s the last time I’m saying that! ...where was I? Oh, right: My work comes in a couple of broad categories, separated on my web page into Romance and Fetish, with subsets (and some unavoidable overlap, getting worse all the time). Generally speaking, my characters a) find what they need and/or b) get what they deserve. Getting what they want isn’t nearly interesting enough for me to bother with all the work of writing and submitting and promoting. So, generally speaking, I don’t.

But, y’know, authors are supposed to pay attention to what readers want, and besides, I was curious, so when this article popped up in my RSS feeds, I clicked through. Hey, why not? My readers are mostly women, after all.

Not sure they’d be any more interested in this new release from Chronicle Books than I am, though. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t object to the odd bit of exposed rippling male flesh, even if that male should happen to be wielding an iron or a curtain steamer or what-have-you at the time, but...there are things I’d rather see. That male without the fabric-care implements, for instance.

And I write beta heroes as often as alphas. Many of my romantic leads are kind, caring, sensitive men who give fantastic foot rubs and don’t insist on taking turns, who produce breakfast without being asked, who may well buy flowers for no reason at all. I just don’t think cleaning the bathroom is terribly sexy no matter how hunky the guy is who’s doing it!

Apparently, that makes me an aberration. Okay, so I’m overstating the case, but according to the Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative, at least as paraphrased in the linked article, what turns women on are these home-making scenes. Men taking on what I’d call their share of the housework are unbearably sexy.

Um-hmm. If you say so. Always knew my tastes weren’t exactly middle-of-the-road, but I really didn’t think I was that far from center. So I don’t spent much time panting over what’s-his-name from Lost, that’s not reason enough to revoke my NOW membership, is it?

Hey! If housework’s so infernally sexy, should I worry that I’ve never felt the need to drag Mr. Coffee off to bed?

pxj

I Confess: I am an April Fool

2007-04-03T12:38:00.000-06:00

Yep, Google got me. There is no such thing as Google Paper.

Didn't even occur to me to wonder. But then, I've never paid much attention to that "holiday." Rubber crutches have always seemed more cruel than funny to me, and I tend to class most practical jokes as being more or less related--most especially this one, because I hit the floor hard yesterday!

Sigh.

I can appreciate things like NPR's fantastically funny Maple Woes, things so obviously hoaxes that one can only laugh, but this one...was too close to my heart, I guess.

Ah, well. I still appreciate Google, and I suppose there's no real harm done, but, oh, I'm glad that's over for another year.

pxj

All Hail Google...Paper

2007-04-01T11:15:00.000-06:00

So I’m on the desktop today. Um, desktop computer—get your minds out of the gutter, folks, this post isn’t about what my characters all find so fascinating. Thing is, I run Firefox on my laptop, with that nifty little Save Session add-on, and I’ve always got my Google home page open, complete with a preview of my inbox. All of which is by way of explaining that I don’t often see the Gmail sign-in page.

Today, though, I was using the desktop, and decided I wanted to check something in my e-mail. So I wandered over to mail.google.com...and saw an announcement for Gmail Paper.
Yes, folks, Google will now print out any message(s) you desire, and mail them to you. For free.

My response? Oh, thank you!

You see, I’m one of those people who really does live a paperless life. (No, that’s not a typo: I don’t do paper, so Google Paper makes me happy.) Okay, almost paperless; there are a few exceptions. I still read hardcopy books, even prefer them sometimes (lounging on the beach, for instance—my Dana by Alphasmart’s allergic to sand). I still choose to receive bills in paper, mostly because the pile of them serves as a reminder to pay the blasted things. But I don’t deal much with paper beyond that; I’m a telecommuter whenever I can be, I write using the Dana or a computer... Hell, I don’t even own a printer any more. When the last one died, I just sort of put off buying a replacement. For going on three years now. It’s not like I need to print all that much; the occasional contract or invoice, that’s about it. And not all of them, as some states allow digital signatures. I think the last time I really needed a printer was back in December!

So why am I excited about this Google Paper thing? A couple of reasons: Because every now and then, I want a paper copy of something. And when I do, it’s usually something pretty disposable. A book I’d like to edit at the beach, for instance (curse that sand allergy!), that I just can’t see printing out in all its two-hundred-plus-page glory. Sure, it’s easy enough to get the edits back onto the computer, but then what do you do with all those hardcopy pages? I’m a child of the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle era; the thought of all that waste stops me in my tracks.

I can’t see using Google Paper for that, either, honestly, however much I like the thought—postal mail uses fuel resources—but they are using recycled soy paper, an item my compost pile adores. What really makes me smile is the idea of ordering my next contract that way. Hey, the last one cost me $12.00 to print, with all its tome-length garrulity! I have no problem proclaiming myself a starving writer (garret does NOT equal luxury penthouse!), and I have no qualms about the idea of sending a contract with ads printed on the back of every page. If folks who want to hire me electronically to work on a computer don’t understand the idea of a digital sig, they can just deal with giant red ads on the unused parts of the paper.

Actually, I think it’ll be a great statement—and I can’t wait to hear the response! Okay, folks, someone hire me, quick! I want to do this. I do.

But there’s one major, giant, shout-hallelujiah reason that Google Paper gets me so excited, the reason that prompted this post: Readers without e-readers.

You see, I write largely for the electronic market. You can find a couple of my pieces in print, but mostly, they’re e-books. (Available at Amazon.com and Fictionwise! /hint) I know of at least a few people who’ve bought my books and read them sitting at their desktop computers, because they have no electronic reading devices. And, to my sorrow, I know some people who choose not to buy e-books at all—even mine! —because they associate them with that uncomfortable posture. Other people print PDFs, but that adds expense and inconvenience to what should be a wholly pleasurable experience.

Now there’s another option: buy your e-book, have it delivered to your Inbox, and get Google to print it—at no cost to you. You have the file, so you can read on-screen while you wait the two to four business days for your printed pages to arrive. And you’ll have a print copy to share and re-read and read in the bath, or on the beach, or to mark up for future reference...

Oh, yeah. Definitely something to tell the readers. Ooh, and the e-Garret subscribers! I’ve been uploading PDFs until now, but I think I’ll offer to e-mail them to folks, so they can take advantage of this free printing thing.

A new way for readers to enjoy my work. Oh, hosannah and alleliu! And other people's work, too, of course. Hmm. Surely there’s a book in my Inbox suitable for beachside reading? Think I’ll go check.

Happy reading, all, and...

print some x-rated joy!

pxj

Stop the presses! Scientist says "erotica has its place"

2007-03-30T15:45:00.000-06:00

File this under “No Duh!” Reporter interviews scientist from the Kinsey Institute, gets a story out of it that says there’s nothing inherently wrong with erotica.

Give the newspaper credit—because in Salt Lake, otherwise known as Mormon Central, printing anything even debatably pro- free sexual expression takes courage. But I couldn’t help reading this article with a more than slightly jaundiced eye. “Nothing wrong with erotica!” it proclaims, citing cave art and the Kama Sutra, among other things.

I’m a card-carrying erotic writer, myself. Obviously, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with erotica. “Every man thinks he’s righteous,” as the saying goes; if I didn’t approve, I wouldn’t create the stuff, nor consume it.

But, seriously. This merits column inches in a major metropolitan daily? And on a rather more serious note—there is a difference between erotica and pornography, which this reporter apparently does not grasp.

The article is headed “Kinsey scientist says erotica has its place,” and the first line references “erotic imagery.” But the word “erotica” appears only once in the brief story, as opposed to eight appearances of “porn” or “pornography,” with no clear delineation between the two—it actually ends with a defense of porn as “...a more innocent outlet than adultery.” No mention at all of erotica’s place in a healthy psyche or sex life!

Sigh. Erotica does, indeed, have its place. So does porn. I’d argue that they’re different places, but...baby steps, right?

Can You Sue Yourself for Plagiarism?

2007-03-25T13:17:00.000-06:00

Over the years, I've had more than one pen name. Too, as a sometime ghost writer I've occasionally had to pretend to be someone else entirely, to the point that I've been known to describe myself as "professionally schizophrenic." pxj to pxj: Who am I being today?

Earlier, I seem to have been Echo. And I am not amused. (Nor am I! ...or I!)

Rex Stout's most famous character Nero Wolfe, in Plot It Yourself, avered that a writer's punctuation was as identifiable as his choice of words or his paragraphing. I certainly won't argue that point (remind me some day, and I'll rant about tin-eared editors who so materially change an author's technical style as to make the resulting work unreadable by that author's fans), but it's not my punctuation that I'm worried about today. After all, semicolons aren't copyrightable. And commas are cheap.

It's names that got me started on this particular rant, but on reflection, plotlines and phrasings are the real concern: I'm repeating myself today, writing things I've already written. Not "revisiting familiar territory," not even "making twists on favorite themes,"but writing the same thing, nearly word for word! Not intentionally, of course.

Had some time to kill, so, being me, I reached for the keyboard. WIP of choice is a short paranormal with enough of the details set that I can focus on getting some words down, though not too settled for fascinating twists to come out of left fiend and right brain and make me giggle as I type. Lovely way to spend a misty grey morning, playing in one's imagination.

Except...my characters have no names yet. Not real names, names that will communicate something to the reader. Can't just leave blank spaces in the text, so I picked a couple of placeholders, names I use all the time but can't include in submitted stories again. And maybe that was part of the problem--I have used those names before, so they look familiar--but it quickly turned into more than that.

Elizabeth Lowell uses "doubled and redoubled" in pretty nearly all of her stories. I use "susurration" about once a text. That's fine; I know I do it, I make sure it's only once, and beyond that, I don't worry. But today, it wasn't just feeling as though I'd written some word or phrase before. I'm sure I have! English has a lot of words, and I use more of them than many people, but there are ten thousand or so that compose most of everyone's writing. Today, it was the sequence that felt done and re-done.

No, not one of those scenes. I expect those to feel fairly familiar in certain aspects (there's some basic anatomical constants, and certain required elements). This was a scene I could have set practically anywhere, but for all my semi-exotic locale, it was just so easy to write...

Because I'd done it before.

Every scene has a natural rhythm. Every writer has favorite details that will quite naturally find their way into many if not all of her books. I am perhaps overfond of caffeine, plus, I really like men's hands, so it's not a rare thing to find the men in my stories holding coffee cups. I was actually sort of proud of myself when I realized this one was drinking tea, at just past dawn when my heroine sees him. It was different!

It really wasn't. I'd intended this scene to have a very specific tone, and planned a specific mid-point to set up the characters' interpersonal conflict--but what my fingers in their keyboard-rattling produced felt a lot like that last contemporary romance sale. Down to my heroine's incredulous, italicized thought.

Oh, hell and basketweaving. No, that's not the character's reaction; it's mine.

First time in a long time I've actually deleted pages worth of text. (Usually, I move it to another file, just in case. Hey, text memory is cheap!) Started the scene again, my turning points in mind, and this time, I wrote the thing from the hero's point of view just to make sure I couldn't write the same thing yet again; the hero would notice different details, have different reactions to them. I don't think I like it as much--his confusion plays better from outside than in--but at least it doesn't now feel like repetition.

Strange experience, though, repeating myself this way. I really thought my imagination was better than that. Different stories, different characters with different goals and attributes, so the similiarities are purely my perceptions and preferences--that's what they have in common, after all. (I know, some readers are thinking: Well, duh! All your stories do. You made them up. But my characters often have opinions I don't share. I'm not a very controlling creator. It's part of the fun!)

Next thing you know, I'm going to turn into one of those hacks who changes names and hair-colors and releases the result as a completely new piece. And when I do, I really will take myself to court. Only the charge might be criminal defacement of my own work. Or murder, if I snap completely, and that schizophrenia becomes rather more than a joke. Hmm. If personality A kills personality B, completely though non-corporeally...

Ooh, imagine the trial!

As always, wishing you (and you, and you!)
peace and x-rated joy

pxj

Who said you could pave my Moon?

2007-03-21T13:48:00.000-06:00

A little background, for those of you who don’t semi-obsessively follow NASA’s doings: assuming the agency’s funding isn’t cut, the Space Shuttles are due to be retired in a few years (2010) with a lunar orbiter going up sometime next year (2008) and serviced during a couple of the last Shuttle missions. Their next planned lunar landing isn’t until 2020, but the Lunar Airborne Dust Toxicity Advisory Group is racing to find a way to keep those astronauts who do get up and out from inhaling.

Wait, that didn’t come out right. Lunar dust, it seems, is toxic to humans—they’ve known that at least since Apollo 17. And as technology improves, they keep finding more evidence of just how toxic it is, to the point that they’re considering some things I, for one, find rather excessive.

Like “paving” parts of my favorite satellite. Technically, the proposal is to use microwaves to melt particles into lunar glass and then using those paved areas as landing pads and foundations for structures. It’s an idea that actually sounds pretty neat, as in SF, but that I don’t think I appreciate in real life. Too, it wouldn’t prevent dust from being stirred up, as anyone whose ever driven through dry country can tell you. While the moon doesn’t have much in the way of wind to do that stirring, vehicles do a fine job of that, and even suited people can kick up more than a bit.

I’m no rocket scientist, but...it’s the finer particles that would tend to move most, isn’t it—those same ones they’re most concerned with? With reason, I hasten to say. Breathing tiny little mineral particles is never a good idea, as any number of black-lung sufferers would tell you if they were around to do so. Plus, many of those tiny particles have jagged edges which cling to lung tissue worse than mine-dust or asbestos ever could, and they’re so small a person might not actually be able to tell when they were present. And it’s not only the lungs that are vulnerable; some lunar dust particles have the rather appalling property of being able to displace iron in the bloodstream, with effects I don’t care to contemplate. Not to mention all the usual SF-nal concerns about substances to which humans have no natural defenses... So, yes, it’s a real concern. But paving the moon?

Some of the Group’s other plans, like the giant magnetic vacuum cleaner, seem more reasonable to me. (Okay, so it’s more like an industrial air filtration system. Once they get to the bits about tubes sucking up dust...) At least it would be inside the modules, instead of messing with a perfectly innocent celestial body that was just minding its own business!

I vote we send the whitecoats and their engineer compatriots back to the drawing board. Not, of course, that anyone asked me. They didn’t even invite me to their lunar dust workshop this spring, and I was just up the road. But they did have the kindness to put a bunch of their results up on their website (nasa.gov), during the reading of which, I came up with a new official job title for a character in my perennially unsubbed SF series: I think I’ll make someone a Regolith Disposal Engineer. So much classier than Space Janitor, no?

Of course, if they paved over the all the celestial bodies, there wouldn’t be any extra-terrestrial soil to be disposed of. And all those wonderful SF classic titles with Stardust and so on would have to be changed.

Nope, can't have that.

In this activist society of ours, surely there’s a group out there somewhere protesting the industrialization of our nearest extra-terrestrial resource? Not that I have any objection to NASA—or their equivalents in other governments, or the private space exploration societies—landing, exploring, running tests. I just think they should leave the land unspoiled for the next visitor.

Who knows? It might be me.

pxj

Help! The Blogosphere has sucked me in

2007-03-20T15:11:00.000-06:00

I never wanted a blog. Or maybe it’s that I wanted one too much. A place to air my frustrations, to share my thoughts, to be part of the world without having to leave my comfortable space? Sounds great! Only...who would keep me from saying the wrong things? Remind me that cyberspace is forever, that one cannot unsay the words one has sent out into the aether once one has hit Send?

No, no blog for me.

So, what’s changed?

Let’s see.

*I’ve sold a few books and disappointed several publishers—I don’t promote much, so people don’t always hear about my work. Including people who know and enjoy my writing, and would buy the books if they knew they were there to be bought.

*I’ve started ranting in themes, and am running out of places to put the resulting texts. There’s a small but delightful reader’s community called Realms of Love that takes the occasional short piece of mine, if it’s at least tenuously related to romance or eroticism. And a Yahoo group run by a fellow author where I post the odd science rambling. A few other places for stand-alone works, now and then. But there are limits, and I’m pushing them.

*Health issues have sidelined me recently, sometimes for as much as two months at a time. I can always manage one message, or two, but those don’t always get passed along, so people complain I’ve disappeared. Again. With a blog, I can post a message for anyone to find.

There it is: my reasons for putting up a blog. The title’s a reference to my lifestyle—I’m a self-described hermit and an old-fashioned sort of writer, despite the very modern lack of euphemism my writing may contain. This presents some problems. With e-books especially, publishers expect authors to promote slightly more than is humanly possible, but all I want is to sit in my garret and daydream, preferably with my fingers resting lightly on a keyboard until moved by some muse.

And, ideally, one or several living models of various heroes within reach, in case I should need to do some research.