Hafiz Break!

During the winter, keeping a sense of perspective is all important. As such, here is Hafiz, the beloved fourteenth century Persian poet!

This poem was translated and interpreted by Daniel Ladinsky.

***

How does it feel to be a heart?

Once a young woman asked me,
 "How does it feel to be a man?"
And I replied,

"My dear,
I am not so sure."

Then she said,
"Well, aren't you a man?"

And this time I replied,


"I view gender
as a beautiful animal
That people often take for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.

My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,

"How does it feel to be a heart?"

For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
And Everywhere."

First kisses

Here is a repost from June 10, 2010. Of the first kiss in my first novel.

I'm in the mood for a first kiss.

From Dracula's Secret - Valerie and Lance's first kiss:

Lance ambled forward, his gaze locked on her lips. He clasped her hand, caressing his thumb over the thin skin of her wrist. Her eyes stayed on him as he wrapped his other hand around her neck and, pulling her to him, touched his lips to hers. Her mouth surprised him. Such a starkly beautiful woman shouldn’t be so soft and plush.

For a few wild seconds, she stared into his eyes, seeming to assess his sincerity.

Then, slowly, deliberately, she closed her eyelids. Her hands wrapped around his back and held on as she opened her mouth and let him in.

He kissed her again and again, learning her mouth. Vampires didn’t taste of old blood or decay. Valerie, at least, tasted resinous and earthy, like rosemary. Like sex outdoors on a blanket under young redwood trees.

Their lips separated just far enough for him to look into her heavy-lidded hazel eyes. The hungry look on her face made his cock swell even harder until he ached to be inside of her.

She scratched at his nipples with her short nails. He hissed as he pressed into her touch. He clasped her chin with one hand. Clasping the other around her waist, he pushed her against a wall. Lance smiled as her eyes widened. He had his own gifts of supernatural-level strength.

Grabbing her ass, he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pushed against her hot crotch against his thumping erection. Their teeth clicked in a fierce kiss.

His hands kneaded the firm flesh of her bottom. Even through her pants he felt her muscles flex and quiver. She growled and slid her hands under his leather coat. His next powerful thrust had her raking her nails down his back. Lance offered no quarter. Neither did she. They fought for dominance with kisses.

She couldn’t overpower him. He met her, strength for strength, stroke for stroke, then matched her, and finally controlled her.

They broke apart. As they stared into each other’s eyes, he panted into her mouth. She took the unnecessary air into her lungs.

Vampires didn’t breathe, except to speak or scent. Oxygen, like alcohol in humans, made them euphoric, light-headed, and uninhibited. The undead hated being out of control. Her pupils dilated until the barest ring of hazel held. What would she do?

Valerie dug her hands into his hair. “More.”

Blast from the Past: 50 Shades of Grey.

A post from August 5, 2012:

Here we go again; the denegration of women's reading

To be clear; I have not read 50 Shades of Grey yet. I have been too busy getting Dracula Unleashed (Book Three of the Blood Wings series) into some kind of order. But naturally, I have an opinion about the nasty, denigrating comments about books that women like to read.

I have touched on these themes before in my Defense of Twilight posts, (here, here, here, here, here), but they bear repeating.

In no particular order, I want to point out the following things.

1. Women are not stupid.  
 Some critics think that the people who read 50 Shades are going to jump right in and start doing unsafe sexual practices, such as untutored BDSM. There are millions and millions of people tying each other up and spanking like crazy without having been to a single workshop at a leather conference and somehow they survive. Guess what. We do know how to do research.

2. Women are able to separate fantasy from reality.  
 Teenagers who watched the Batman series in the late 1960s did not try climbing up buildings crouched over with a single rope.

3. Women are not illiterate.
50 Shades is considered to be horribly written, with cliches and redundant phrasing. Here's a little rebuttal from Joanna Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing, pg. 129:

Women always write in the vernacular....

In the vernacular, it is...hard to be "classic", to be smooth, to be perfect. The Sacred Canon of Literature quite often pretends that some works can be not only atemporal and universal (that is, outside of history, a religious claim) but without flaw and without perceptible limitations. It's hard, in the vernacular, to pretend this, to paper over the cracks. It's also hard to read the vernacular as Holy Writ...

Minority art, vernacular art, is marginal art.

4. Women's sexual fantasies and arousal are important.
Portnoy's Complaint is considered Great Literature. Susie Bright gets assassination attempts. Say no more.



5. Ultimately, it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS what a woman reads.
Adult men can read comic books, war novels, spy novels - anything they want, really. Because it is none of our business what they read. Same for women.


Will I read 50 Shades of Grey? After I meet my deadline, for sure. I'm sure parts of it will annoy me and others will get my motor runnin'.

Just like any other novel.

Hafiz break!

I'm a big fan of Hafiz (or Hafez), a Persian poet who lived 1325-1389 CE.

Sometimes, when I am completely stressed out, I open a book of his poems and read. I always come away refreshed and enlightened.

Here is one for you today, translated and re-imagined by Daniel Ladinsky, called I Know the Way You Can Get.

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to cahng
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world

Tomb of Hafiz in Shiraz.

And throws sharp stones and spears into
That innocent
And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been out drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.


That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep Remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so playful
and Wanting.
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me,
For I am a Sweet Old Vagabond
With an Infinite Leaking Barral
Of Light and Laughter and Truth
That the Beloved has tied to my back.

Dear one,
Indeed, please bring your heart near me.
For all I care about is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!

Rewriting the past.

I recently read this question and it started a flood of thoughts.

So I thought I'd share the pain!

If you could sit down with your 15-year old self, what would you say?

I think I'd say, "You are going to live, live, LIVE like you want. You rock!"

And you?

Tag, I'm it.

C. Morgan Kennedy insisted I talk about writing. The nerve!

Here are the questions she wanted answered:

 What are you working on? 
 How does your work differ from others of its genre? 
 Why do you write what you write? 
 How does your writing process work? 

1. I am working on an erotic coming of age novella, tentatively titled "Auntie Vamp." I'm finished with the first draft, half way through the second draft, and I should have the third draft done by March 17th. Auntie Vamp herself is based on Mae West and she shepherds her great-niece Holly into discovering her true strength. 

 2. My work differs because I write woman-centric pleasure, with no coercion and no "bargains" of sex in exchange for something.  My heroine doesn't cook or clean and she wants a life in paranormal politics.

3. I write explicit, complicated stories because I despise books that fear women's sexual and personal power. A woman should be able to name her desires, both sexual and intellectual.

4. I flail a lot.  I hand write my brainstorming, plotting, and tricky scenes. I do have a loose outline at the beginning of the process, but it always goes off the rails by the middle of the first draft.

Thanks, C. Morgan!