The Emotional Tool Box

In my last post, I talked about reaching into my emotional toolbox to help me get over my moments of STFU. Let's see what's inside.

The key that unlocks the chest says, "Your feelings are perfectly valid and legitimate. There is a logic and purpose to them." Doing this lets me open up, relax, and not try to macho through the hard stuff.

Inside, I check my diagnostic, HALT DISC. This is a mnemonic to ask myself, "Am I... "

Hungry?
Angry?
Lonely?
Tired?

Cold?
Sick?
In pain?
Dehydrated?

This information lets me know what I have to do for myself right now. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time working at all, let alone efficiently, when these factors are in play.

I'll share more from my toolbox, but those two are my hammer and flat-head screwdriver of coping.

What do you have in your emotional toolchest?


(This amazing tool chest belongs to Michael Capozzio of Classic Corvette Restorations in Chardon, Ohio)
 

This is my voice, my weapon of choice.

 

 

Anyone who has ever been told to be told to shut up (everyone) has moments when they are convinced.....

 

Wait. Strike that. Let's not get cutesy with the passive voice here. Let's just say things. 

 

A nasty voice lives in my head and it loves to tell me that I have nothing of worth to say. My throat literally tightens up. My words slog through mud to leave my mouth. 

 

Grace Jones says in the linked video, "This is my voice, my weapon of choice." 

 

Being silenced removes your first, best weapon against those who do not want you to challenge the status quo. The status quo doesn't have to be big things, either, like political reform or climate change. The status quo I am fighting today? Sending emails out to independent bookstores to see if they would like to carry my books. 

 

Seriously. Today I am convinced that I am better served not drawing attention to myself, that no bookstore would want to shelve me in their stock. I'm going to reach into my emotional toolbox and find every thing I can that will help me. I will resist that cruel voice that wants me to play small. 

 

Tell me a time when you resisted your cruel voice.

Writing Real Sex: Part One.

 

Writing Real Sex: How to Write Real Sex for Fiction Novels

Let's be real - I love writing sex. I want to write the kind of love scenes that make people want to connect, kiss, play, and share their appreciation of each other. I want all my love scenes in my stories to show just how good pleasure can be, no matter how many people are involved or their genders. 

To quote the Great Sages, Lynyrd Skynyrd, "I know a little about love, and honey, I can guess the rest."

Over the next few weeks, look forward to posts here, on my Instagram, and in my mailing list. I'll be doing Q&A's about writing intimacy, posting writing samples, doing a little reading out loud. 

Just how do we unlearn what we have been told is sexy and put what truly turns on our characters? Keep tuned!

Words to live by.

 

Behind the Character: Aunt Celeste from Keeping It Up

 

Celeste Barros was inspired by two amazing women: Auntie Mame and Mae West. Who better than a sexually liberated, intelligent, independent, fashionable, and powerful woman to teach not just Holly Barros, but me how to be fabulous and fearless?

Celeste is everything I ever wanted to become when I was a young woman and she is everything I wanted in someone who could show me the way to be fabulous and fearless!

Women need mentor figures to show us how to become what we want. Role models light the path to our dreams, dammit, I wanted Holly to have the best one ever. Someone who knew love and heartbreak as well as how to make herself heard AND someone who had the platform to make the world a better place.

My question for Celeste was, what were *her* struggles and wounds? In Keeping It Up, we learn how the early death of her beloved husband scarred Celeste. She had been able to create a wonderful life for herself afterward, full of love and intellectual pursuits. Like many women, though, Celeste had trouble receiving. She had become so skilled at giving and giving that she had forgotten to be vulnerable.

Which is why I was thrilled to discover who she really needed: Grayson Browne.

---

Celeste is (much) older than Grayson. Do you like reading May/December stories? Let me know so I can write more of them!

 

 

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Behind the Character: Holly Barros from Keeping It Up

Sometimes, people ask me, "Where do you get your characters from?" Naturally, my first instinct is to say, "Why, from under the sofa cushions, of course!" Which makes me look like a jerk and nobody comes away happy. Rather than give in to my over-the-top Dad Joke impulses, I wanted to write a newsletter series about where characters come from.

The first character I want to talk about it Holly, from Vamping It Up and Keeping It Up. I really identify with Holly, because in my youth, I also made a man the center of my life, wearing what he liked and doing what he thought was fun (hint - it wasn't fun for me). I wanted to write a story about a woman discovering who she really was without him. Women's power is one of my favorite themes in my writing, and I come back to it frequently. I was desperate to write a story about a woman learning to love herself.

It took me a while to get to know Holly. I knew she was going to be of Latin descent (part Portuguese, part Central American). I wrote and wrote, trying to find a way to show that her parents loved her, but also wanted her to take the safe path in life. We deserve to choose our own adventures instead of having them chosen for us.

We also deserve to believe in ourselves and to use our voices about what matters to us. Holly needed to find her voice. And she sure was shy about telling me who she wanted to be. I got very excited when I realized that her secret desire was to go into politics. Women are woefully underrepresented in politics and that shy Holly wanted to break out of her cocoon and step onto the world stage made me so happy!

I also wanted her to have the world's greatest mentor to teach her confidence. Enter Holly Barros and Aunt Celeste.
 (To be continued....)

I made Pinterest boards for Vamping It Up and Keeping It Up!
Live Like Celeste
Vamping It Up
Keeping It Up

 

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Have you read Vamping It Up or Keeping It Up? Can you tell me what you liked about the books? What do you want to see more of in light-hearted erotica? Authors loooooooooooooove feedback. :)

Thank you!

Writing Sex: Know Thyself

 

For the final installment on writing sex, I'm going to ask some questions about your tastes. I think it is important to know what your boundaries are about sex in fiction, so let's get started.

1. What do you hate about writing sex?
2. What do you hate about reading sex?
3. What do you love about writing sex?
4. What do you love about reading sex?

What do these preferences tell you about how you are going to craft love scenes?

Let me know if you'd like your answers to go up on my blog.

Enjoy!












 

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Writing a Love Scene: Safer Sex - yes or no?

 

The AIDS crisis forced writers to talk about safer sex practices and it turned into a debate. Some authors state that their readers know that this is fiction. They think barrier methods ruin the flow. Some insist that not acknowledging the potential consequences of sex lowers the stakes, turns the characters two-dimensional, and throws the reader out of the story. Your choices depend a lot on your world-building. Are you in outer space with all bad germs eliminated? Do diseases not bother the undead?

I say that you need to have your safer sex choices remain consistent. If your heterosexual characters don't use condoms or gloves, neither should your gay or bi characters.

Exercise One:  How do you feel about safer sex in fiction?

Exercise Two: What are your favorite ways of writing safer sex?

Let me know! I'll post your answers on my blog.











 

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Writing a Love Scene.

 

I started writing love scenes before I even knew what happened past a kiss. Instead of trying to figure out how to grope a boy's butt, I would write what (I thought) was flirtatious conversation. Naturally, it was really dreadful.

The world needs your truth. I want everyone of feel powerful and confident about writing sensuality, no matter the heat level. Joyous, consensual sex is under-represented in fiction. That goes double for representation of people of color, sexual minorities, or people with disabilities.

I go into deeper detail on how to write arousal and intimacy in The Arousal to Zipper Workbook. This series of newsletters share some the exercises found in that book.

Sex is about your characters saying, "Yes," if not "HELL, YES!". The world needs more fiction saying "HELL YES!" to their sexual experiences. This is a chance to think about the ways we can say yes. Does the scene call for a slow, measured pace, such as encouraging the less-verbal, less-assertive character to say what they want out loud?

How do your characters (especially in your work in progress) say, "Yes"?

Write me back and let me know! I'll post your answers up on my blog. :)

 

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Multiverse Con is online this year!

 

On October 16, 17, and 18th, the amazing Multiverse Con On Line will be happening. Multiverse Con started last year in Atlanta, Georgia, and I was thrilled to be one of their presenters. Due to Covid-19, the con is taking place in the far-flung lands of Kwarentynia. Again, I am honored to be joining the Con. I'll be moderating the Girls Rule 2.0 panel (last year, this was *the* panel) and contributing to the How to Write a Memorable Villain.

Here is the con schedule.

I'll also be running mentoring sessions. If you need help writing sex, dealing with rejection, or avoiding burnout, check this out here.

 Please join the party. We can't con together, but we can still enjoy ourselves remotely. Come on in, the water's fine. :)

Holding out for a heroine.

If you are the crazy sort like I am, storytelling is about symbolically integrating the full spectrum of one's personalities into a whole where even the more unpleasant aspects of one's self is understood. I use "Heroine" interchangeably with the term antagonist - the one who starts the action.

The heroine/main character/antagonist has a number of jobs in a story.

First, she is who the audience will identify with. She is the gateway into the story, the one whose motivations and feelings we can understand.

Her second task is to show growth and learning. The heroine is the one who learns the most in the course of the story.

Third, she drives the action, learning how to be in control of her destiny. She takes the most risk of anyone in the story.

She is willing to sacrifice in order to learn or protect. Sacrifice ties in with a death or a death experience. These are often misunderstood as facing a literal death (which is highly effective but can be overplayed). She might let go of cherished beliefs, unbreakable habits, and or a past that holds her back.

From here, you are only limited by your imagination on who this heroine is. She can be a loner, more social, an innocent, orphan, wanderer, waif, or whatever. Once you know her functions in the story, you can write with more passion and confidence.

Archetypes: The Heroine

I've  been talking about the brilliant Queen Within exhibit at MoPop in Seattle. (here)

The third Archetype we visited was The Heroine. She's a warrior and soldier. She's strongly moral and embraces challenges, especially the thrill of the chase. She's a hard worker, especially in her relationships, but can get addicted to emotional drama.

Her greatest fears are weakness, softness, and cowardice. Her tenacity, strength, and mental resolve are symbolized by the chess queen (the most powerful piece on the board), pearls, gloves, rare stones, the spear, the Mantua, and also body parts such as ears, eyes, and hands.

How to be more diverse in your writing.

We live in a big world full of lots of different kinds of people - over seven and a half billion as of May 2018. Writing a novel (or short story, or anything, really), requires the author to focus on a much smaller population.

It's super easy for writers in the United States to default to having an all white cast. So how do we overcome this habit?

By taking a look at the world's statistics! I consider using these numbers as a good set of training wheels to help you until you write diverse characters in a more natural, intuitive fashion.

I always start with my geography - where does my story take place? For example, if you set your work in the United States, the racial population estimates for 2018 are:

• 60.7% Caucasian alone
• 13% Black alone
• 18% Hispanic alone
• 5.8% Asian Alone
• 2.7% Biracial
• 1.5% Indigenous, including Hawaiian, Native American, and Pacific Islander

 When you are writing a story, take a glance at these numbers and go, "Oh, yeah. Let's not forget the rest of the population!" It's okay if it feels a little weird at first. I know that I'm not very good at things in the beginning. It'll become more relaxed quite quickly.

Is your book going to take place in an international setting? Take a look at the world population.

Chart shamelessly stolen from Science Chat Forum

If you don't write people from Asia (Chinese and subcontinental Indian, especially) wandering your setting, you are really missing a huge portion of the population. For example, when I traveled to Istanbul, I stuck out because I was tall. I was constantly afraid I would run into a petite Asian woman by accident. When I wrote about my characters being in Istanbul, I made sure to comment on how very diverse the city is. If I had pretended that there were no world travelers in the huge city, I would have been doing my readers a disservice.

Relax, observe, and write. You got this!

Writing Prompt #3:Tiny Stories.

The tiny copper colored wires sang an ancient song to her. The object  held metal flanges set into a metal circle. Tiny wires descended from the flanges through the glass of its container to end in a horseshoe of 7 thing prongs.

She pressed the prongs into the fleshy part of her arm and admired the neat impressions they made. The glass was unlike the smoky, opaque glass she'd known her entire life. The glass was clear and smooth, pleasing to the touch. At the very top, the glass came to a point, like some kind of exotic hat.

The long-extinct humans had been great experimenters and inventors. She recognized this object from her ancient history; it had been used to control electric currents. Here in New LA, they had tamed the tides to create power since the surface dwellers' electricity didn't work in the water. But despite her people's eight limbs and sensitive suckers, they had trouble with the transmission of kinetic energy.

She wrapped the pleasant glass tube in one limb and propelled out of her salvage building. The future depended on the music of a forgotten spark.


My inspiration:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/world-octopus-and-squid-populations-are-booming

I, for one, welcome our Cephalopod overlords. 

Writing Prompt #2: Tiny Stories

Again, the challenge was to write, just write. Not think, not edit, not change anything.

As a result, I present:

Quest Accepted

It is the twenty-first century. The days of seven league boots, of secret wizards doling out quests from hidden booths in the market, of dreams that come true are long, long gone. 

Modern people could only shuffle through racks and shelves of vintage stores to get a glimpse of the most mundane of treasures. 

The well-worn denim jacket fit perfectly. Rare for a thrift store find, but what drew her to it was the trio of badges that promised things she only dared dream.

One was a smiley face with a negative sign to indicate a wink and a positive sign for a nose. One was a topless woman, reminiscent of a Nagel painting, with the words Soft Metals across the center, and the last, the most intriguing button said, “Talk Kinky to Me!” 

She clutched the lapels in her hands and posed in front of the mirror. The reflection showed a bad-ass, someone daring, someone who flirted and knew her own desires. Someone who took risks.

About as far as she could get from her normal introverted self. 

The jacket was five dollars.She chewed on her lower lip. Five dollars for a broken-in jean jacket was not a risk. She could take off the buttons if she wanted to.

Blushing, she bought the jacket and hurried out the store. Quest accepted.

Tiny stories

Last year was a rough one here at the Charming-Mercury household. As I result, I lost my love of writing and shut down. 

Quite frankly, it sucked.

My dear friend Coral Mallow rode to the rescue! For Christmas, she gave me a box full of writing prompts. Here is the first prompt. Her challenge to me was to write fast, not edit, and let the story come.

And here we are!

Secret Rose

 

He was the baddest, burliest, biker boy you ever did see. Leathers, patches, tattoos, scars, beard, long hair…the whole shebang. There was one thing, though, that no one was brave enough to ask about – the matter of the tiny bouquet of roses pinned into his hair.

But if they had asked, he would have told them the truth. Of the baby sister he’d once had. How he had built a full Victorian  doll-house for her; three floors of little  rugs, teacups, and lace curtains.  

She was a surprise baby, born when he was fully sixteen years old. The late pregnancy took a toll on everyone, though. Their miracle had Down’s Syndrome. 

No one cared. Little Rosie was their sunshine, their joy, the reason the household smiled every day. Her uncoordinated hands could play with the delicate handmade furniture for hours, never once scratching or dropping his hard work.

The therapist always encouraged his time with Rose, but truth was, he would have played with her anyway. She was his escape from the misery of High School where he only excelled in the automotive arts.

She died the day he graduated from from his motorcycle repair course. He took the tiny bouquet of roses from the entry hall of the doll-house, put them in his braid, and left town, never to return to the scene of his heartbreak.

Self-Care for the Writer:

Authors tend to treat their bodies as something that carries their head around. We are then surprised when our body revolts with nerve pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, headaches, dry eyes - really, do I need to go on with the number of things that can hurt?

I've written articles on ergonomics (here in particular). This collection of links goes beyond basic good ergo and into the realm of feeling pleasure in your body.

There are an incredible number of suggestions on the web. Here are some of the best.

1. From Raleigh Psychology, here is the most basic List of Pleasant Activities. These ideas are great place to start with doing really cool things.

2. Stanford has a really nice list of small things and ways to score them. This worksheet is more for a clinician's use, but I found the commentary really interesting! It sounds a bit academic, naturally. It is from Stanford, not a place known for their kicky and quirky writing.

3. It's super easy to think of Self-Care as being something to support our productivity. As Admiral Ackbar says, "It's a trap!" Self-Care is a worthy thing in itself.

My personal happiness did not seem like a grand priority. However, now I know that emotional well-being is fundamental to health and stability in general.

Check out this link from www.TheBodyIsNotAnApology.com And don't you love that blog title!?

4. If you are an activist, check out these Self Care Tips from Everyday Feminism!

Creating a Writing Life

Owner Maggie and her daughter, Jordan

The coffee shop/tea shop is a cliche for a reason. Writers go there not just for their caffeine fix, but for the warmth and the chance to be around other people working.

Like the also-popular library, a comfortable coffee shop is an essential place for your literary life. The synergy all those laptops and people reading is a shot in the arm for your own work.

So let's explore some wonderful places to write and refresh yourself. Especially The ClockWork Rose Tea Emporium. 

If this doesn't make you want to write a story of derring-do, nothing will.

C. Morgan Kennedy and I

My friend C. Morgan Kennedy, a steampunk fan, discovered this gorgeous place. The owners, Maggie and Harold, have lavished love, attention, and thoughtfulness all over their gorgeous space. All the little details in the tea shop inspire and encourage a writer (ok, *this* writer) to take care with all the small details that make a scene sing.

Look at those gears!

How can your writing not soar under pretty balloons?

Something about warm beverages and delicious, carefully made treats (seriously, try the scones) keeps people (ok, *this* person), alert and refreshed even during the most difficult writing tasks.

Seriously. Everything is delicious.

Harold, Maggie's Husband made nearly all their steampunk decor.

The awesome, tempting shop.

If you have to write, scout out a local coffee house or tea shop. Find a place with comfortable chairs, delicious baked goods, and excellent beverages. I promise, it will always lift you up and renew your enthusiasm for your projects.

Welcome back!

Me, confused and irritated.

Hello, again! I've taken the last few months for a complete re-working of my blog direction. Since I started this blog in 2009 (wow! SEVEN YEARS of blogging), I've been scattershot, talking about what catches my eye for the moment.

I found myself getting irritated with that approach. I wanted to be more focused, more dynamic. I looked through my life and saw some themes that I want to explore.

Beauty is everywhere.

I believe that self-care, self-love, and beauty are necessities. I want my blog to reflect strategies and thoughts on how to bring more of these into our lives.

Audre Lord, spelling it out for us.

I want everyone to be able to create the literary life they want. I think we should be able to have a live that is harmonious between our make-a-living day and our dreams, especially for women. Double especially for women of color.

This will be a space for the curious, the sex-positive, and the explorer.

Lucy, the mother of us all.

Let's play!