Art in Person

Image copyright, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Jewish Bride is one of the most popular and mysterious Rembrandt paintings. We've all seen it, over and over, on the web, in our art history books, in our regular history books, and in prints on one's wall. I used to work at a library in an art museum. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what this painting was about.

I finally saw it in person while we were in Amsterdam, and nothing you can do will prepare you for the full impact of this image.

First - it's huge. Not as huge as, say, his famous Night Watch (which is truly huge), but the people are nearly life-sized.

Second, the color. In a flat image on a page or screen, the colors look rich and deep, but in person, they nearly vibrate in their intensity and depth. You can see how Rembrandt applied the paint so thickly in some places (the gentleman's sleeve, for example) that it literally swirls into peaks on the canvas. It is a truly three-dimensional painting.

Her jewelry looks so luscious and gleaming that you want to try it on.

I've often wondered about the man's hand on her breast. Sometimes it looked creepy and possessive, sometimes it looked greatly tender.

In person, I got a feeling of immense solace and comfort, instead. Rembrandt captured an important moment in their lives - something big had just happened to these people.

It made me think how you really can't have a full opinion on something until you've experienced it. You can have what Guy Baldwin, MS calls a 'provisional opinion', and it can even be a very well informed one. But to quote, "You can't decide how you really feel about Paris until you've been there."

I didn't how I felt about Rembrandt until I saw his work.

Travel picture of the day.

Amsterdam has some of the world's most intriguing architecture. Most of what we saw dated from the 17th Century, during the Netherland's time as the world's major trading power.  Designed to act as both homes and warehouses for goods, the narrow but tall buildings sport hoisting beams to pulley heavy bundles into the attics.  Then the merchants could bring their wares downstairs to show to purchasers.

To maximize space, they used a lot of spiraling staircases.

Very narrow, very steep spiral staircases.

For example, the staircase in the Hotel Brouwer, where The Charming Man and I stayed (by the way, this hotel was *lovely* and we highly recommend it).

I do believe these staircases are why the Dutch are such ridiculously good looking people.

The gift of travel.

How does one go about telling others how life changing and awe-inspiring a trip to another continent is?

Do I give you a day to day tour diary, complete with entries such as, "Days One - Three: Amsterdam. Amsterdam is truly the Portland of Europe. Or perhaps Portland is the Amsterdam of the United States."?

And of course, go on from there with quirky, amazing pictures of this brilliant, moist, complicated city with its surprisingly logical yet beautiful architecture and the weight of Rembrant's and Van Gogh's legacies pressing against your skin?

(Total Liz Gilbert moment there, huh? *preens*)

Or do I share my deep emotional insights that the entirely different surroundings gave me? (the short answer - I'm not nearly as much of a screw up as I've always thought :)

In the end, the best I can do is find some wonderful pictures and talk a little about each one.

Indeed, Portland is the Amsterdam of the United States.

Where's Waldo?

Or more accurately, where's Linda?

Well, I'm finally back in the Pacific Northwest after experiencing two and a half weeks in Europe with my beloved Charming Man!

Throughout the next few days, I'll be posting pictures and descriptions of this fantastic trip. :)

Ah, fresh air.

Amazing what a very brisk walk combined with a goodly amount of sit-ups will do for a writer. I just got a wonderful idea for some necessary back story for Book Two. Yay!

My favorite titles.

I wanted to talk about my favorite books on writing. Every author has her go-to's for inspiration and help, and here are mine.

How can one live without Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing?

People love to denigrate our genre. This book gives an insightful and quirky look at how much and how little attitudes towards women's words have changed. It taught me just what kinds of horrible internalized sexism colored what I wrote, how I viewed other women, and worst of all, what I did to myself.



Making a Literary Life by Elizabeth See.
A far greater writer than I'll ever be says this:

If everyone who wants to be a writer would read this book there would be many more good writers, many more happy writers, and editors would be so overwhelmed by sweetness they would accept many more good books. So what are you waiting for? Read it! Ursula K. Le Guin

Write Away by Elizabeth George.
From Publisher's Weekly:

Here's a useful book for the novice writer battling the fears and insecurities that attend when she contemplates her first novel....George illustrates her points with passages from both her ownworks and those of numerous writers she admires (Martin Cruz Smith,Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Michael Dorris), this remains more of a how-I-do-it book than a how-to-do-it book. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Unlike PW, I'll say that this book is good even for experienced writers. I love her examples - they illustrate her points brilliantly.


I feel that the most important book on my shelf remains Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller. I'm not going to kid you - this is a painful and devastating book, whether you have been a victim of sexual assault or not. But it endlessly reminds me of what I feel is the great gift that romance gives every reader: That her pleasure is central to life, that her consent should never dismissed or belittled, and that each of us deserves to be heard.

A different kind of Give-away.

I'm donating two of my one-of-a-kind, hand-painted fans for the Rose City Romance Writers raffle basket donation to the Emerald City Romance Writers Conference.

The ECRWC is October 1-3 this year. It is one of the best writing conferences on the West Coast and every year, they hold a fund-raising raffle of gorgeous gift baskets.

I hope they like my fans. :)

Branching out a little.

I'm the Wednesday blogger over at the Cascade Literary Agency blog. This week is everyone's introductions.

Not my strength, but I did get to indulge my love of parenthetical statements.

Brain stuff.

Yeah, yeah, we all know I have issues around worrying and over-thinking. I've done lots of good brain work, and I've found ten cognitive fallacies that contribute to my tendencies.


(swiped shamelessly from Feeling Good by David Burns, MD)

1. All-or-nothing thinking aka dichotomous thinking:
A tendency to evaluate things in black & white, absolute categories. Either you get straight A's, or you're a failure. Either the room is spotless, or it is a sty.

2. Overgeneralization:
"You arbitrarily conclude that one thing that happened to you once will occur over and over again....The pain of rejection is generated almost entirely from overgeneralization. In its absence, a personal affront is temporarily disappointing, but cannot be seriously disturbing."

3. Mental Filter aka: selective abstraction:
"You pick out a negative detail from a situation, and dwell on it exclusively, thus perceiving that the whole situation is negative."

4. Disqualifying the positive
For example - how most of us respond to compliments.

5. Jumping to conclusions by
a. Mind Reading and
b. Fortune telling
What, you mean I *can't* read people's minds and foresee the future??? Dammit!

6. Magnification and Minimization aka catastrophic thinking
OH MY GOD!

7. Emotional Reasoning
You feel it, therefore, it must be a fact.

8. Should statements
Motivation via shoulds sucks.

9. Labeling and Mislabeling
"I'm a ____" fill in the blank.

10.Personalization
The Mother of Guilt - you assume responsibility for a negative even when there is no basis for doing so.

Branching out a little.

Jalda Ostrich Crescent evening bag in plum

A girl needs more than just shoes in her life. :)

Ah, Vacation.

Mostly. :)

The Charming Man is on vacation and I'm loving having him around so much. The best part - he completely understands and even appreciates when I leave him to do his own thing so I can work.

Lately, I've been working on getting my "World Reference" in order. I'm putting all my character pictures and the book plots into one three ring binder. Soon I'll have their GMC sheets (remember those?) and their descriptions all in one place. If I want to write a multi-book series, I refuse to let myself forget everyone's eye color or height. :)

I'll post pictures of it soon.

Occasional poetry.

A little something by me.

The Ten-Minute Warning


Lilac put the final touches on her
black eyeliner,
and pulled on her
black fishnet stockings.
She adjusted her
black corset and her
black tulle skirt and retied her
black Doc Marten's.
She walked out the door when her
black cell phone beeped twice.
She checked the text message.
She twirled on the sidewalk, smirked, and said,
"Everyone will be so jealous."

Rosemary Kerk was feeding her baby,
rejoicing in the splatters when her
cell phone beeped twice.
She checked the text message.
She stared at it,
openmouthed.
"No! I won't!"
and she threw the phone against the wall.
She picked the spoon back up and continued to feed her child.
She forgot some things are not negotiable.

Josephine was sitting at her desk when her
cell phone beeped twice.
She checked the text message.
She didn't even save her work; she just walked out of her cubicle.
She shed her scarf
in the aisle,
her shoes
by the windows.
She left a trail of clothes
on her way to the elevator until
she stood naked in the rain, her mouth open to drink.

Trish O'Darby was looking at a pair of
absolutely delicious
Jimmy Choo's through the sparkling store window when her
cell phone beeped twice.
She checked the text message.
In less than 2 minutes, she was wearing those shoes.
She minced into the next storefront that read,
"Wills! Five Minutes or Less, Guaranteed!"
She walked out with three minutes to go,
and began dialing.
"Hello, Helen? Trish. I'm sorry."
"Hello, Mom? Trish. I'm sorry."
"Hello, Lana? I'm sorry."
She was apologizing to her father when everything went dark.

Nix Ricard looked both ways before he stepped off the curb.
He was mentally reviewing the presentation he was giving this afternoon when his
cell phone beeped twice.
He checked his text message.
He stepped back onto the curb and dialed.
His wife's crisp voice crackled in his ear when she said, "Hello?"
And Nix told his wife the words she’d never heard enough.
"I love you.
I have loved you since the day you stepped on my foot in fifth grade.
You have been the greatest joy of my life," he said.
She laughed. "Nix, did you have a liquid lunch?”
He took a deep breath.
"I couldn't tell you this before, but darling, you have to believe me,
I thought it every single day.
You are the jewel in the crown of night.
Kiss the children for me.
Kiss them for me every day and every night.
Tell them their Daddy loved them.
Do you understand, my sweet? It's time.”
She understood. Nix could hear her sobs.
"I have to go now.”
He hung up on her tears,
then looked to the sky, and closed his eyes.

My very first give-away.

I hand-painted this fan for express purpose of giving it away to some awesome person. :)  It's the first in what I hope will be a long stretch in regular contests/giveaways/fun. It's signed and numbered (#1).

It's perfect for hot days, putting up on your wall, or giving it to someone you love. If you want to be my first fan (ahahahhahhhaaa!), be the first person to tell me what nickname I use for my handsome husband here on my blog. :)

OH MY GOD!!!

The actual quote from the end of the case against Proposition 8. MUCH REJOICING!!

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in
singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.
Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than
enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that oppositesex
couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California
has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and
because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its
constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,
the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

YES!

I just emailed the newly revised Dracula's Secret to my agent, Jewelann Cone.


And there was MUCH rejoicing!

Closing in on my goal.

I broke down what I had left to do on Dracula's Secret. I'm less than eleven hours of work away from 'finishing'.


YES!

Hold on to your hats, Kensington - this book is gonna rock. To celebrate, let's look at some pretties

.

Aha!

Remember how I said that the sources for Vlad Dracula really really suck?

Other people think so, too.

"Vlad Dracula was doubtlessly cruel, but not more so than other princes of his time," said Margot Rauch, the Austrian curator of the exhibition, entitled "Dracula - Voivode and Vampire".

The upside. :)

Writing makes me happier than any other job I've ever had. Being self employed has lots of challenges, but the end, it's the best.

Here is one of the upsides. :)

Some days, I can work from my hammock. :)

What I'm up to.

(about 5'10" ha ha ha haaa)

Writing writing writing writing sleep laundry eat kiss writing writing writing FREAK OUT writing writing eat kiss repeat.

At this moment, I am freaking out, but I'll get back to the revisions in bit.

As an antidote, how about something pretty?

Oh, yeah - just to explain.

I don't own the shoes I link to.

I just like looking at them. :)

Work and play

Revising seven days a week this month and it is making me very happy. :)

I'm also making sure I *try* to stay in touch with my friends. It's a good feeling.

Shoe break.

Oh, yum. Just....yum.
Stuart Weitzman Bow Sandals from Saks Fifth Avenue.

I'm full of good ideas.

When it takes you five times to spell the word "quiet", it's time to go to sleep.

Inspiration

This is why people write and dance and sing and create.

Where I'm at.

After cutting a total of 60 (A LOT) pages of Dracula's Secret, I started the serious layering on June 27th. So far, I've gone from 49,095 words (did I say I had cut a LOT?) to 55,135 words.  I think I've done good work on the first 1/3 of the book. I should on on my word count by the end of this month (my goal).

I think the book is much much stronger already.

(And I love parenthetical statements, just FYI)

Conversations with The Flaming Chef.

Jason Zenobia, the genius Flaming Chef, replied to my Twilight series:

Amazing themes and discourse here. I've always been fascinated by the symbolism of heterosexual romance. Love of "the other" when the other is physiologically different from you, opens up all sorts of neat ideas.

The idea that women aren't whole until they have men to guide them - I always thought of that as a function of pairing up. (Cultural ideas around marriage in particular.) It follows from what you're saying that this dynamic is as much a function of falling in love (or being obsessed) with someone?

(Places index finger on chin. Makes thoughtful little noise)

And to respond!

One of things I like about the quotes I posted last time is that they comment on the necessity of a woman to embrace her animus (as well as her Shadow aspects, to get all Jungian up in here).

Since women are traditionally discouraged from exploring and expressing their aggression and anger, I believe that one will chose a male partner that best embodies her repressed qualities. Being in love with a man can bring insight to those characteristics that she has hidden or been frightened of.

I feel that romance novels, one of the only genres aimed specifically at women and read mainly by women, give us a chance to examine interactions with the different kinds of male personalities and behaviors. Then, we can integrate those aspects into our psyche with a great deal less danger.

Repost: In Defense of Twilight even though I don't like it much - Last one!

(How funny is it that Lady Gaga's Bad Romance came on my Pandora channel just as I got started!)

Today, I'm going swipe ideas from one of my favorite books about romance - Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, edited by Jayne Ann Krentz.

Several themes emerge from the essays in this book. First is the one discussed a couple of days ago: Twilight and other romances are fantasies. To quote Krentz's introduction:

[T]he readers are no more confused about this fact, nor any more likely to use their reading as a substitute for action in the real world , than readers of [Robert] Ludlum, [Robert] Parker, [Dick] Frances, and [Anne] McCaffrey. (p. 5)

'Nuff said.

The second theme of the book is a shameless song of female empowerment. In a romance, the woman lives. How many times do women die in male action movies because she found a man attractive and acted on it? How many great female characters in literature are punished for daring to act on her own ideas?

Not only do the women live, all of them win. Again, Krentz:

With courage, intelligence, and gentleness, she brings the most dangerous creature on earth, the human male, to his knees. More than that, she forces him to acknowledge her power as a woman.

A cursory glance at the statistics of the causes of female death reveal the radical nature of these ideas.

Finally, for me, the most outrageous theme of romance (and Twilight) is the discussion of Male and Female. Long before Twilight came out, Laura Kinsale discussed the real truth of romance.

[For] a woman, a romance may be a working-through of her own interior conflicts and passions, her own 'maleness' if you will, that resists and resists giving in to what is desired about all, and yet feared about all, and then, after the decisive climax. arrives at a resolution, a choice that carries with it the relief and pleasure of internal harmony. (p. 39)

Long before Edward came along, Linda Barlow described the romantic hero. Sound familiar?

Dark and brooding, writhing inside with all the residual anguish of his shadowed past, world-weary and cynical, quick-tempered and prone to fits of guilt and depression. He is strong, virile, powerful, and lost. Adept at many things that carry with them the respect and admiration of the world (especially the world of other males), he is not fully competent in the arena in which women excel- the arena of his emotions, which are violently out of control.

Is this the sort of woman most women want? Of course not....[A]lmost from the beginning, I identified with the hero. I saw him as Self, not Other. And I dimly recognized him as one of the archetypal figures in my own inner landscape.

The romantic hero is not the feminine ideal of what a man should be. The romantic hero, in fact, is not a man at all. He is a split-off portion of the heroine's own psyche which will be reintegrated at the end of the book. (p. 49)

This is why Twilight is popular. We are endlessly attempting to claim and integrate our power. It's not about falling in love with the endless git that is Edward.

It is about understanding the parts of ourselves that are dark, angry, and dangerous.

Repost: In Defense of Twilight even though I don't like it much.

I think one of the things Twilight does do well is explore the beauty, intensity, and untamed nature of a girl's sexual awakening. I might roll my eyes at the overblown language when I read about Edward sparkling in the sun, but that's exactly how it feels. I'm about to be heterosexist for a while - forgive me.

When a girl looks at a guy's chest (ass, crotch, arms, hands, back - you get the idea) and gets her first nose full of hot testosterone, your entire being flips around. Trust me when I tell you that Bella's rhapsodizing about Edward's crystalline skin is pretty damn tame compared to the things girls think about when they discover just what that turns them on.

Fiction allows us to revisit the cathartic, life-changing moments of our existences. A woman's first flush of arousal is so amazing, so overwhelming, and so important that we read to reinforce all the lessons we learn from it. We get to find that wonderful, ripe, glorious feeling of sexuality, of power, of delight in our bodies, without the negative side effects of judgment, dissatisfaction, or shame.

I think reclaiming that moment of pure ownership of our senses is something all humans must do. The chills, the excitement, the way the hormones made you feel like champagne flowed through your veins instead of mere blood - the world needs more of that joyous feeling.

If you're a writer, go write some thing that makes you remember an awakening. If you express yourself in other ways, do that instead. If you are in love, tell that someone that you desire how maddening their scent is or the brush of their skin on yours makes you moan.

Reclaim that tension that Bella has discovered again for us.

Writers helping each other.

At a previous Romance Writers of America conference, Renee Ryan had presented a workshop on layering. For those not obsessed with writing, that's the process of taking your draft and adding all those things that make a book memorable. Nancy really like the recording, emailed Renee, and got her notes from the workshop. Then she shared them with me.

Here is Renee Ryan's layering process:

1. Finish your first draft. This can be a draft of a scene, a chapter, or even your whole book.
2. Layer in movement - character movement, the world around them.
3. Layer in the five senses
4. Layer in the setting - after all, the environment is a character in and of itself
5. Layer in the emotion
6. Layer in the dialog
7. Layer in the backstory
8. Layer in the sexual tension
9. (and I added this one) Layer in the theme

I've been trying this for the last few days, and I am thrilled! Breaking down the process this way has really helped my revisions, especially after all the cutting I've done. 

Back in the saddle. Again.

So while I'm engaging in my massive revisions, it's time to revisit my previously posted Twilight series.

****
Ok, back to In Defense of Twilight, even though I hate it: Part Three.

As you may or may not know, I have a degree in Library and Information Science. Save the Dewey Decimal jokes - I've heard them all. We're going into the jungle of literary criticism today.

Library school gives you amazing perspective on popular culture. The criticisms aimed at Twilight for being misleading, wrong-headed, and a bad example to our youth have been fired at writing as far ranging as Harry Potter to E. B. White to the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew to Tom Swift.

Yes, I'm serious.

Literary critics used to claim that reading these kinds of books as akin to feeding your child poison. After all, children are weak minded, you know. Now remember that women are told the same things about their reading choices.

To all the people who tell me that Twilight is going to tell women to fall for a gross, stalkery freak, I have one thing to say.

Women are not stupid.

Could it be possible that females are perfectly capable of discerning the difference between fantasy and reality??

When a young woman makes a poor choice in a mate, the example she's using comes from up close and personal observation of adults around her.

Not fictional characters.

If we honestly thought that women yearned for maltreatment, why don't we believe that every man reading a James Bond novel yearns to be shot, stabbed, tossed out of airplanes, dunked in arctic ice cold water, and have no emotional life to speak of?

Of course that is ridiculous - because we don't think men are stupid.

Why should we think our girls are stupid, impressionable, and helpless? Reading about Waif Bella does not turn a girl into a passive Waif. Reading about James Bond, the man with no sense of self-preservation, does not make a boy into a moron who thinks that getting shot is just business as usual.

Twilight (and romance) is popular because girls and women know it is fantasy. They get to experience what it is like to be passive Bella, or pretend they are dangerous Edward (more on that next time), or even learn how very wet the Pacific Northwest is.

What would the world look like if we believed that women were smart?

Current Shenanigans

This is what I've been working on lately.

I broke down each chapter into its component scenes, figured the date/time, whose POV is the scene in, a one line description of the scene, and the page number.

I think I'm making good progress - especially in cutting the parts that take away from the main story and making what I've got more exciting and focused.

Wish me luck!

Repost:: Examples of the Waif

The prototype of The Waif is, of course, Cinderella. Some say Sleeping Beauty was a Waif, but I always felt her passivity was born out of her family keeping her ignorant of her danger instead of teaching her how to save herself.

Other famous Waifs are:

Ilsa Laszlo in Casablanca
Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
Amanda in The Glass Menagerie

Bella fits right in.

Repost: In Defense of Twilight even though I don't like it much, Part Two.

Today is the discussion of the Return of the Waif. *insert drum flourish here*

For anyone who is not as insane for archetypes as I am, here is quick introduction to The Waif from The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines by Cowden, LaFever, and Viders.

The Waif projects a child-like innocence, a soul-stirring susceptibility. She is naive, enigmatic, yet reslient. Everyone she meets wants to save her, but she can surprise people with her incredible inner strength and fortitude. She touches the vulnerable place deep inside all of us with her soft touch and wistful glance.... Her delicate fragility makes her an easy target. She always seems between a rock and hard place. She adapts to any situation she falls into without complaint. The Waif does not fight back; instead, she endures untold hardships untils she is rescued. (pg 76)

Bella is the Waif. Her purity is not merely her virginity, but also a sense of being unspoiled by greed, temper, or the cruelties of the world. She is also trusting and (more or less) kind. I personally find she is far too good of an example of the failings of the waif: impressionable, passive, insecure, and isolated. (pg. 77) As a Waif, Bella lets other people control her destiny, rather than pursuing her own interests. She's not even sure what her interests are.

Fairly obviously, the Waif has fallen out of favor with modern writers. I personally find it dull to write someone who refuses to act. But there is a reason why she is making a resurgence in literature.

The Waif appeals to the exhausted side of our personalities. The Waif rarely fights back or initiates action. Instead, she allows life to surprise her and take her where it goes.

Even the most motivated of self-starters get tired. There is something refreshing about letting go and allowing something or someone else to run your existence. And wouldn't it be restful to expect the best once in a while, rather than always anticipating the worst?

I think readers like Bella because everyone needs someone to take care of them every so often. It feels good to imagine taking your hands off the plow and letting another person till the soil.

I must admit, though, that I like it when a Waif decides to risk the blisters and dirt of her own labor.

I wonder if Bella ever will.

Repost: In Defense of Twilight even though I don't like it much.

I feel the urge to repost some of my favorite articles here from my blog. Here we go with my series on Twilight by Stephanie Meyers.
******



I have a lot of legitimate criticisms of Twilight. I read the first book, and never even tried any of the sequels. I have a strong disdain for passive heroines, and Bella is about as passive as it gets.

However, this is not about my baggage. It's about what makes this series resonate with so many people.

Let's talk about one aspect of Bella's passivity - namely, that you don't have to do anything to be considered worthy of love. You just have to be you.

We all seek to earn love - we get good grades (or bad grades), keep a clean house, save money, wear the right clothes and the right perfume, know all the outrageous sex tips, try to read someone's mind....

You get the picture.

But Bella is the object of Edward's obsession merely by sitting around, sleeping, and smelling really really good- all on her own. No special powers, no twisting herself into something she's not for approval, no Cinderella-type makeover to make someone notice her.

How powerful and hopeful of a message is that?!

You. Don't. Have. To. Earn. Love.

It's a radical thought in a society that tells women how they need to act to 'get a man'.

Twilight isn't my cup of tea, but it beats The Rules any day of the week.

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.”

Photo by Michael Baxter, the world's greatest photographer.

Jennifer Crusie rocks my socks.

For those who aren't familiar with the romance genre, a little back story.

Here's part of what Wikipedia says about Ms. Crusie:

Crusie was graduated from Wapakoneta High School, and then earned a bachelor's degree in Art Education from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.^[1] She has two Master's degrees. For her first, from Wright State University in Professional Writing and Women's Literature,^[1] Crusie wrote a thesis on the role of women in mystery fiction.^[2] Her second master's degree is an MFA in Fiction from Ohio State University.^[1] She has also completed work towards a Ph.D. in feminist criticism and nineteenth century British and American literature at Ohio State University.

So we know we're dealing with a driven, intelligent woman who loves romance and who can discourse intelligently on the themes and motifs of romance fiction. On her website, Ms. Crusie discusses her writing process and analysis of genre fiction.


I have to recommend this one, if only cheer about someone mentioning V. Propp's and Claud Levi-Strauss' theories on literature and myth.

This Is Not Your Mother's Cinderella: The Romance Novel as Feminist Fairy Tale.

Shoes for a Friday afternoon.

Does anything say "Lovely Summer Fun" like polka-dots?

I LIKE:

Elisha Polka Dot by
J. Renee

And does anything say, "Come into my parlor" more than Zebra striped stilettos?

I LIKE:

Mylie Pump by
Gabriella Rocha

The importance of friends.

Once upon a time, I wrote this poem:

Hit and Run Lover
I always thought Self Esteem
and I would meet
in a meadow full of
wild flowers,
run
into each other’s arms
(with, of course, the “Ode to Joy” in the background)
and then walk hand in hand
together for all time,
exchanging blissful, soulful looks.

Alas!

Self Esteem is that
inconstant lover who
throws me against an alley wall,
snakes a hand down my pants and
ravishes me until I’m senseless
with delight.
Then runs away, giggling,
while I lean against the wall,
gasping and limp, damp and
wailing
Wait!
Can’t I have just a little more of that?

I sent it to non-writing girlfriend who gave me very wise advise:

Maybe you should go a different route with the “bad lover”.  Perhaps that LOW self esteem is something like this: he’s a big bastard that you occasionally fall for, you know it’s wrong but it’s habitual.  Then suddenly he’s out of your life and you like AHHHH!!  I feel like ME again.  Hello HIGH self esteem.

It was a revelation, not just writing wise, but personally. Could I imagine that feeling good was the default state, instead of constantly doubting myself?

So I tried another poem.

The Seduction of Self-Denigration

Like a lover who sneers behind your back, it sneaks into
your life
wearing the mantle of virtue –
productivity
modesty
simplicity
humility.

It promises people will
like
admire
pet
praise
love
you.

It’s got all the right words, and all the right moves. This is everything
you ever wanted.

This one is smooth. Fine. And oh, so sweet.

Beware.

It’s sick sweet like cotton candy, like heroin, like a bitter
addiction with honey on its tongue.

As with every bad lover, you
discover it
lied
about itself and you.

All the things it promised
(love and delight and all the joy you can devour)
haven’t shown up.
They never will.

You feel sordid and dirty and
dissatisfied with the
arrangement.

Kick it out.
Promise yourself never to let it back in.
Bad lovers always knock again.

Feminism for the day!

May I recommend The Feminist Hulk? Smashing the patriarchy with purple shorts and class!

For example:

HULK POLITELY REQUEST CHANGING TABLE IN MEN’S ROOM. HULK CHOOSE NOT TO EMPLOY SMASH IN THIS MOMENT. MULTIPLE TOOLS FOR CHANGE.

Whew.

I feel much more like me. Yay!

Today, I will attempt to write as poorly as I possibly can - I want to create the worst, on-the-nose, overblown, rambling crap ever placed on the page.

Mostly because that's what happened yesterday, so I might as well roll with it.  Life is short, after all. It is better to write very very badly than to not write at all. :)

Ick.

I have managed some sort of throat/upper chest infection, with a dry, hacking cough that really really sucks. I've got my cough syrup with codeine, and I'm going to bed.

Almost, but not quite there.

Here's a poem I've always liked and I think it's pretty good. It's just not...right yet.

Any thoughts?


My grief breaks me, I will not bend.

Really, what’s wrong with breaking?
Maybe the mighty oak was destined to break,
instead of bending like that stupid willow
(or reeds or whatever it was)
in the irritating fable we get
nagged with when sorrow strikes.

Breaking, the oak is transformed
to warm and cheer a dark night,
provide rest for the weary or
a place to meet and nourish the lonely and hungry.
The willow (or reeds or whatever) just wavers
unchanged, unusable, useless.


The oak and I will break and we both will be created anew.

Hope.

Emily Dickinson said
hope is a thing with feathers,
delicate, light, and small.

I think hope is giant beast with
fangs, claws, and fur.
It crashes into your life,
mauls and
remakes you in a form
unrecognizable, never before seen.
Then, with a final brutal, ravenous bite to your
mangled face,
sends you out stronger than you were.


c. Linda Mercury

Oh, yeah - just to explain.

Mostly, I'm posting my old poetry because I'm too busy revising Dracula's Secret to come up with anything new for this blog.

Emergency Surgery's first line came to me about three years ago when I had to end nearly thirty-year (fairly loose) friendship. I didn't realize how much of me this person had become until it was over. I felt empty and hollow, and it surprised me how much I missed our interactions.

Oh, Please, Aeneas was a response to the most irritating section of the Aeneid. Can you believe that some old white guy scholars call the scene where he sails away from Carthage to be Aeneas' most heroic moment? Disgusting. I think that part ruins an otherwise fantastic read. I think Virgil must have had some bad dormice in honey that day.

(The Romans had a strange view of yummy food)

So, more poetry to come!

More poetry

I was reading the Aeneid and I got to my least favorite part - Dido's death. So I wrote this as a retort to the unnecessary death of a brilliant female character.



Oh, Please, Aeneas

Dido, Queen of Carthage
Threw herself off a wall
For you?

Yeah, right, Son of Venus.
You and I know the truth.

You’re dick-sizing with Odysseus about the
women you both left behind.
He claims Calypso, the unflagging nymph, begged him to stay, but he tired of her, even after she promised him immortality.

I hear your juvenile response across the centuries.
Oh, yeah? Well, a QUEEN killed herself for love of ME and our lands became mortal enemies until my descendents destroyed her city and sowed it with salt.

Nauseating.
A queen is strong.
She keeps her wits.
Go ahead. Dump her, sail away like the
skulking coward you are.
She will rise, triumphant,
send her elephants trumpeting through your
backyard.
And not until Quintus Fabius will she be defeated,
only after
years of struggle and a waste of power.
You had nothing to do with that victory.

You are so not worthy of a queen’s pain.

You lied, Aeneas.
There was no funeral pyre. You know she
put on her jeweled sandals,
strode through the city she owned.
She wouldn’t let a panderer ruin her proud name.

Occasional poetry.

Here's an original poem I call Emergency Surgery.

I miss you like a tumor I didn’t know I had.

I never noticed the weight of you, suppressing delicate nerves,
until you were gone.

I took you out, a surgery to save my life,
now an enormous aching hole in my skin where once there was a familiar mass.
I miss the pain I had grown to know and even,
to love just a little.
I destroyed something that made me beautiful.

There’s room now for something healthy to grow there,
room for vitality to breathe and stretch.
Whatever is planted in that deep abyss will bloom, thanks to you being gone, no longer taking
nutrients and energy away from my beauty.

Until then, though,
I miss your poison, simply because
I was used to it.

Traveling!

I'm visiting my family this week! The plan is to jot as many notes as I can, write when I can, and smile a lot.

Feminism for the day!

A new blog, Contestations: Dialogues on Women's Empowerment, has a fabulous first issue about feminism and Islam. Rock on!!

Also dealing with feminism and Islam -a Saudi woman literally strikes back against the Hai'a, the virtue police. Time to remind Saudi Arabia that their limitations against women are unjust and against the basic Islamic tenets of mercy and justice.


Note: I have to mention that I'm not Muslim - just someone with a background in Middle Eastern history.

Doing some research.

In Dracula's Secret, one of my heroes works as a system administrator at CERN. Yes, that CERN, home of the Hadron Collider, five Nobel Prize winners, and the World Wide Web.

Why a system administrator? Well, first, my beloved Charming Man is, himself, a system administrator at a very large facility, too. I find the way his mind thinks about information management absolutely fascinating (helps that I used to be a librarian, too).

Why CERN?

Many years ago, The Charming Man listened to a sys admin at CERN speak at a conference. My honey brought home notes about how the information systems worked at such a unique facility.

And now, I hope to arrange the chance to tour CERN itself. I go to delve into the mysteries of arranging a tour!

Edited to add: I submitted my request form along with a little note about wanting to ask about information systems. I hope they are amenable.

Morbid thoughts.

Someday, I will write this dedication:

Thank you to all my ex's for all the excellent ideas.

And it would be in a story about all sorts of terrible mutilations and stabbings and particularly horrific deaths.

Wouldn't that scare the hell out of everyone??