Curious: Auguste Rodin Exhibit

Curiosity is a huge part of caring for your emotional well-being. Cultivating an interest in the world keeps depression and anxiety at bay and gives you tools for dealing with stress.

Obviously, I need to walk my walk as well as talk my talk! So I went to the Auguste Rodin exhibit at the Portland Art Museum.

Detail of one of the Burghers of Calais

 Looking at the visual arts doesn't usually translate well into words, especially for an artist as physical as Rodin. Much of his work revolves around motion, turbulence, and character. 

The exhibit demonstrated his fascination with hands, balance,  pressure, and the human body. I'll step back and let the images speak for themselves!

Hand of God

Fallen Caryatid Carrying an Urn

Aphrodite

Angels

The Auntie Vamp series has a new release!

Celeste and her naughty historian

I have released the sequel to Vamping It Up: Everyone, please welcome back Celeste and Holly in Keeping It Up!

Back in Vamping It Up, Holly Barros gained confidence, lovers, and her life's work. Her aunt, Celeste Barros, taught the young woman the ways to self-power.

Five years later, Holly is on the edge of being confirmed as the North American representative of the Supernatural Council.
She's has grown in confidence and influence since her ex-fiancé dumped her five years ago. She is ready to take over her great-aunt’s position on the International Paranormal Council. She’s got influence, she’s got the ideas, and her lover/bodyguard, former Marine Lincoln Jones, has the moves to keep her safe.

Is Lincoln capable of keeping up the good work guarding Holly’s body?

Glamorous vampire Celeste Barros has never been afraid of risks, but she has played it safe in love for centuries. Now she is ready to retire from high-stakes international politics. Perhaps a new, more leisurely lifestyle could bring a new, fresh perspective on love. Young historian Grayson Brown is interested in more than a frolic with the much older woman.

Could Grayson be capable of Keeping It Up for Celeste?

Free Range Books.

Hi there! 

I’m not Emma Watson, but I’m hiding books just like she does! Ms. Watson has been sneaking books onto public transportation for a while now and I wanted to join in.

I’m Linda Mercury, and this is one of my very favorite books. Please take good care of it. When you are done, leave it again for someone else to find.

If you have thoughts, come join me at See Jane Publish  (seejanepublish.wordpress.com) or my blog (www.lindamercury.com).  Let’s get all Portland out there and have free range books.

Spread the words,

Linda

Last month, with the above note, I snuck two copies of both The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and Women’s History for Beginner’s by Bonnie J. Morris into various locations around the Portland Greater Metropolitan Area.

I’m a fervent feminist. Lately, though, I had fallen into despair over current events. I had lost hope. When Jessie from See Jane Publish first approached me with the idea to salute Emma Watson’s brilliant campaign to increase literacy, I leaped at the opportunity. But what books would I choose?

History is a subject near and dear to my heart. As a young woman studying history in college, I fought against professors that stated, “There are no good women historians,” and “A class on the history of Sub-Saharan Africa is like a class on the history of Lichtenstein.”

So, yeah. That was a thing. Obviously, Women’s History for Beginners was the perfect book for this project. What an incredible book to fight these still-present attitudes!

I chose Beauvoir’s breakthrough book since it began the Second Wave of feminism. Published in France in 1949, it forced the world to think of women’s equality in ways beyond getting the vote. Beauvoir’s assertion that one’s sex/gender is created and influenced by society broke open the essentialist thoughts that women are inherently chaotic, animalist, and lesser than men.



I hope the people who read these books write in the margins, laugh, cry, and discuss their thoughts with other people. This was my first time doing free-range books, but it won’t be my last.

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.

Sex-positive: What is it and why is it good for you?

Search Results

Like many terms within feminism, sex positivity means different things to different people. As a broad ideology and world view, sex positivity is simply the idea that all sex, as long as it is healthy and explicitly consensual, is a positive thing.

 http://www.wgac.colostate.edu/sex-positivity

It's pretty obvious that I believe in the sex-positive movement. I write novels with consensual sex. My female characters own their desires and ask for what they want. My male characters not bullies who threaten or coerce their partners. And everyone in between those two poles has a chance to experience pleasure.

So I put my text where my beliefs are and wrote The Little Sexy Workbook. 

 Cleverly (I think) adorned with full color photos of statues from Italy and filled with fun, relaxed games to promote conversation, The Little Sexy Workbook is here to bring sex-positive energy to your life.

Curiosity: Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals

Exploring is very important for writers, dreamers, lovers, and well, everyone, really. I like discovering cool things about my local area. So I visited the Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals.

The museum building was originally constructed by Richard and Helen Rice as their family home in 1952. Richard Rice, a logger by profession, incorporated many rare Oregon woods, such as myrtle wood and quilted maple, in the fabrication of their house. The Rices built a gallery in their basement to display their amazing personal mineral collection. In 1997, the entire building was converted to a public museum, and an additional gallery building was constructed in 2005.

I love learning how the world works. Learning just a little bit of this geology was enough to get my imagination firing.

Enough talk! Let's look at their amazing, mind-opening stuff.

I don't even remember what this is, but wow!

The Charming Mother in Law with an enormous opal.

Imagine the forces it took to create such beauty.

The perfect place for a wizard to meditate.

These agates make these "landscapes" all on their own!

I could see a sort of fantastical entity hiding in here.

Ancient Tiger skull. Yowza!

I love Lapis Lazuli.

What story do you see in this piece?

The Rice's amazing house.

This makes me think of the wings on my angels in the Blood Wings series.

I think Lance's wings float like the chalcedony...

Can't you just see the feathers?