When you least expect it...

I flew a plane.

Not on PlayStation - a real one from WWII. With my head out in the open sky and my hands on the stick, the ground 1000 feet below and the real pilot's voice in my ears about how George Bush Sr had flown in that plane and how it was one of only four of its kind and two were in museums.

I restrained myself from trying any kind of crazy barrel roll in a lovely yellow fabric plane. Barely.

The bright sunshine beat down on us and there may have been a comparison between me and the friend who flew before me. She seemed timid and needed to be talked into it. But I'm not shy.

And when someone asks if I want to try the controls - I suppose you'd just better be prepared for me to take you up on it.

It's a little funny because I'm not sure that was even an item on my bucket list. But now I've done it, and it was awesome.

And of course there's a little voice whispering inside that I ought to figure out exactly how to work that into a story somewhere. Because that's always what's happening inside somewhere.

I'm similarly inspired by the friend who helped me into the plane. I love the no-nonsense approach to safety, and how everything is matter-of-fact when it comes down to execution. I love it because she's short and sweet and directly to the point, and that she cut through any long droning speeches that tend to get lost when the brain cuts out. At least my brain.

I know I'm not the only person for whom boredom spells trouble. I promise to ask questions if it didn't sink in the first time.

New Story

Available this week: How to Photocopy Your Ass

There's even a review today. I'm ecstatic!

If you're curious how I'm going to follow this up, well, I'd love to make this a series. Next title idea: How to be a Sex Kitten (working title and may not be final). I may have even sketched out a character and plot this morning.

I do hope I can find some cute cover art like this one. It's way too much fun.

A Lack of Progress

When was the last time someone said no to something you asked for?

It makes an interesting contrast for characters. I responded with something that I hadn't expected. Outrage is an emotion that could carry me to do a lot of things.

Most of the time I write it out. I allow some poor character to try to do all the great things that I'd like to do, like burning bridges and cursing storms. Ever find yourself to be too polite to say the things in your mind?

No is often a barrier to make a character reach harder. Failure is the only option to make them grow. Sometimes, though, I wish people didn't have so much to learn.

So if you're wondering - I felt like I was stuck in the 1950s this week. And I'm breaking out of that mold. I'm now twisting some poor character into that spot to break her out in all the ways I can think of that I couldn't actually do in person. Should be an interesting evening for me.

As for you - next time you hear the word no, what do you do? Is your first reaction the only response? Or is there more to it?

Turning Life Upside Down

Ever wonder what it takes to drive someone to those depths? What it is that will make someone reach past all the barriers of what's comfortable and normal for what might be better?

In general, it isn't an easy decision, or a quick one.

Is it from that moment when he hit you and you blacked out a moment, and you wondered if the next blow would be the last?

Is it another time, when you realized you just weren't able to be yourself (around her) at home?

When we talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we don't think about little day-to-day changes. We often talk about greater ideals, like whether we can carry firearms or the right to choose. But it is no less important to think about the daily grind: your job, your partner and family, and your friends.

Take another look. Most of these can be changed. Your horrible monster-in-law might have to be endured during holidays, but she might cause enough trouble that she's not worth it. That husband might have been something else, but a person is not defined by one choice. It's a combination of many little things that form a puzzle. That dead-end job that saps your energy and your time needs to be replaced.

Of course, I write this at a time when I consider going back to a career I once hated. Times change, and occasionally one must go to the dark side in order to find the light.

What's your temptation? Is the dark side worth pursuing in order to get past the current rut? Why do we only view the black and the white, the dark and the light, and never the infamous shades of gray that life truly is?

Deep thoughts for the new year. May your own road be well-lit.

Resolution

Has it become that time again? That horrid six-week push to become a new person with a new life?

I'm still not sure why we put ourselves through this every year. Even the staunch refusal to set goals says something about not seeing a need to improve.

Perhaps instead we ought to set regular intervals for improvement. Small steps to lead to a larger change. Do you ever wonder what would happen if a resolution started small in January and built up to something larger as the year went on?

Not much time left to consider it. If change is so hard, then increments to create momentum might be better than to attempt to turn everything upside down at once.

Then again, patience is a virtue hard to come by. Little changes are very difficult to check progress. And we all like to feel that we'll accomplish something.

Making Changes

Humans tend to be territorial creatures, and I find myself resisting change though I consider myself flexible and adaptable. I can't imagine what it's like for those who are neither.

shetastorm.com

New website is functioning.

Painted Face | Amazon | Kobo | Nook

The Gamers | Amazon | Kobo | Nook
Last month I published two titles. I'm working on the next two, and we'll see what goes from there.

Also managed to start an email list, so if you'd like updates, please sign up here.

The new year promises to be interesting.

New Bio

Well, the picture is new. I'm still working on the part that follows.

And there's more stuff coming. Don't be shy - check back for more details.

Read Me!

One of the greatest things for a writer is to be read. Writers put pen to paper to share the words. It might be in a digital sense these days. While there are a few out there who write things to burn them out of their heads, the majority of us have something to say, and we want those words out there.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is one of those things that is supposed to be helpful to a writer. In a perfect world we wouldn't need it, because everyone who wanted to read the book would support the author. However, we don't live in a perfect world. Pirating exists, and DRM was designed to limit that.

The problem is most of us don't appreciate our digital rights to be managed. One thing I hate about it is that I don't stick on just one platform. I have had iPads, pcs, and android phones mixed up together in the same room. While some of the reading software has applications to allow a reader to switch between all of these, it can be cumbersome.

DRM limits or forbids me from sharing my reading material with others, too. One thing I loved about paper is I can drag something out and hand it to my friend and let them read it. If he loved it enough, he would buy it, too. Or the next book that came out. That was our author support.

For digital content, authors often get a larger share, but only if the item is paid for. Yet sometimes I feel it would be nicer to allow that book to be shared freely and have a tag at the end state: "If you like this book, support the author here."

So if you saw a tag like that, what would you do?

Vaginal Knitting and Two Penises

(Links contain NSFW pictures)

Vaginal Knitting
No. I couldn't resist sharing. Would you wear something like this? Is it a scarf or a hat or a blanket? Does the performance speak to you on another level?

A man with two dicks
Quote: Diphallia, or one mammal having two penises, is a recognized medical condition that occurs in 1 in 5.5 million births.  That translates to about 600 or 700 guys on planet earth sporting a pair, of which about 100 have been reported in the medical literature.

An art form is something that is created, so vaginal knitting would apply - as would any other kind of knitting. But having a double phallus is something that only a few can be cursed with - because you might try to do the same with two that you do with one, but it doesn't seem like it would work out the same. 

Do you wonder if I feel a story coming on? Not yet. But these pictures exist in my head and I hate to be the only one. I'm working on a new story, and I can say neither of these two concepts will appear in it.

How do you read? How do you write?

Speed reading and speed writing are often looked down upon. People who don't do it seem to be pointing their fingers and saying things like "quality over quantity" and "your brain can't comprehend things at that speed."

I don't speed read. I want to, for specific applications like manuals and textbooks and finding my place within something I've written or am reading for a friend so I can remember the threads and continue.

I might be called a speed writer. I have learned that I need to get a project out fast if I'm ever going to finish it. Once I lose the momentum, I'm done. And sometimes one writing session a day isn't good enough. I want to immerse myself in the characters and only stop when I come to the end of the work.

The thing is, no one puts actual numbers on speed when they're looking down their noses at it. When you're reading, you read at a fairly constant rate, I'd guess, minus interruptions, distractions, and diagrams. When you're writing, the rate is variable depending on how the words are coming. One minute I might write above 50 wpm, and then I might pause half a minute searching for that word that fits the action in my mind.

Writing is the only profession where people put down others for the amount of work they turn out. I remember one lecture where the speaker talked about Toni Morrison versus Danielle Steel. If you only compare number of novels, Toni Morrison has 10 and Danielle Steel has about 90. [The lecture was about layering, and how Morrison said more in those pages, and how they were better quality...] Toni Morrison was born in 1931, and Danielle Steel in 1947, so Morrison even had a head start, right?

The problem with that comparison is that Morrison writes literary fiction. That audience is a specific market. Steel writes popular fiction. If you're looking for money to tell you which one is succeeding, Steel wins. If you're looking for circles of critics, they'll probably point to Morrison.

Readers will likely report Steel's books to be easier to read, because they're not layered so heavy as Morrison's. If you read a book fast, would you get all the nuances? More if you read a popular fiction book, I'm sure, than a literary tome. But wait- is this more of the dumbing down of America? How most of the population reads [adult] books that are on an 8th grade level? Do all of us even know what that means?

Slower doesn't always mean better. If you read too slowly, you get tripped up on the letters and syllables and never get the picture behind the meanings. If you stay at a subvocalization level, you always hear the words inside your head and never let your brain read faster.

If you write slowly, it doesn't mean you have layers or nuances or whatever else you want to call it. You might just write slow. And, like me, you might forget what page you're on, and what the next plot point would be, and how the book will end. You might get distracted by that next shiny idea like the dog who yelled, "SQUIRREL!"

Writing takes work. Writing takes tenacity. And writing takes a certain amount of speed to get it all on paper. A few rare writers self-edit each word before it comes out on the page. It's a style of writing that is mostly mental and still takes a great deal of time. Most of us write a rough draft that has an emphasis on the rough. Most of us rewrite that book a few times. Then we dig deeper into edits, and finally get to the line by line phase. The entire thing might take a year or more. But the second novel will be faster. And by the time we write as many as Morrison or Steel... we might know what we're doing enough to write faster. Don't let critics get by saying that "quality over quantity," because it just isn't true.

Publishing has changed, too. If you take five years to work on one novel, the public doesn't want to wait five years for the next one. Many popular fiction readers (no matter the genre) don't want to wait a year for the next one to come out. How many times have you finished a book and then looked for the next to find the proposed date of publication? If that were five years, what would you do?

Have you seen many literary fiction writers who write series like that? I think many of them take a subject and write what they need to in just one novel.

I have a friend who reads so fast she knows she skips details. She simply reads the book over when she's done. She's too impatient to wait to get it all until the end. The next time through she enjoys the book at a more leisurely pace.

Look at how you read. Look at how you write. Do you have an image in your mind? Can you share it with others? Sometimes I don't have words at first for what worked and what didn't in what I read, but I'm working on that. I'm also not going to apologize about whether I write fast, so long as when it's done I've gotten it right. Which means I better get back to the editing pile.

Conflict of Interest?

I have been reading several erotica stories from the Amazon bestseller list. It's always a good idea to check out the competition, right?

Erotica isn't an easy place to get reviews. Self-published authors also have trouble trying to get someone to write about their books. I've been writing down my thoughts on a file, trying to get a better idea of what is out there. It's almost like a review.

Except then a friend of mine explained why he thought it was a conflict of interest to post reviews of another author's books. Those words weigh in my mind as I try to figure out all the details.

I don't know how many other authors write reviews. I ought to head over to a writing forum like Goodreads to see who is out there reviewing. But writing isn't quite like a lot of industries out there. I don't expect a customer to buy books from one author only. I don't even expect customers to buy in only one genre. A lot of brands look for that kind of loyalty - buy only BMW or Dyson or Energizer. Use only Pandora or State Farm for your service needs.

When I look over the books I own, several authors have been my favorites. Each of them has a different strength (and weakness). All of those books have held my attention, though some do keep me up to read later than others. When does sharing my opinion about another author's books (in my genre) become a conflict of interest?

The other half of that would be that I can't simply put out five stars for something I read. It has to really move me to get that kind of glowing review. Many of them get three stars to mean I enjoyed it, but not enough to ever read again. If I don't finish a book because I get bored or annoyed - it's would probably earn one, but possibly two, stars.

Sometimes that kind of system really affects the author. They think their work is awesome and should always earn five stars. Yet there are a wide variety of people who read, and each of them looks for something different. It's impossible to earn five stars from everyone.

I think it feeds in from everyone wanting to be exceptional and also not wanting to make waves. Like the unfortunate children who all get the highest marks because no one wants to say they failed until they're older. You can't fail Kindergarten, so we'll pass you on to first grade, second grade, third grade... Then in sixth grade, or maybe seventh, we'll give you real grades. If you don't know you're failing until you're twelve, how can you possibly expect to learn to deal with it and change the pattern? If you're afraid to cause someone the slightest bit of discomfort, how can you be honest?

If I can't feel like I can be honest in a review, I would rather not do them. It isn't fair to me and it isn't fair to the other readers. It hurts the author, too, to make someone else think they might like a book when they would prefer to read something else.

What are you looking for in a review? Would you follow what an author says in that genre? I assume an author in the genre keeps reading a lot of things to know what's out there and what is allowed within the rules of that genre. Where would that conflict of interest lie between getting reviews of other works out there and promoting your own work?

Dream

I received an announcement of graduation. I say an announcement, because the girl only mailed it a day before the ceremony, and the ceremony was on a Sunday. There was a picture of her from dancing in a contorted position, and she said she skipped an actual graduation party because of the dance academy she's been attending, and she plans to spend most of her time there until fall, when she'll move to LA and (hopefully) join a dance company.

Oh, the dreams of young people. Do you ever have that feeling? You know the odds are against her, and I hope she makes it.

Some parents impress upon their youngsters the need for college and a fallback career. The problem with a fallback plan is that you can't put one forth without actually putting in doubt that the youngster can't achieve the dream. You want to dance? Get a business degree. You want to sing? Get a nursing education. You want to write? Get an architect's license. You want to paint? Go to medical school.

The problem then becomes doubt. Your parents don't believe in you. Your teachers and friends can only push you so far - and after that you have to carry yourself. It's a dream. It's an art. These things can't be taught because it's an expression.

Don't get me wrong. There are schools out there to teach you form, technique, stamina, discipline. You might be technically perfect but you can't teach someone to have something to express. There are a lot of things that schools can teach you - and there are things you can achieve only on your own terms.

Doubt is very difficult to overcome. I wish the girl luck in her dancing. And then I remember how scattered I seem to be. Am I truly focused on my own writing goal? I could regale you with stories of my own fallback career. I could tell you about the way I was told I wouldn't have anything to say until I was older - still older than I am now. Yet the words come. I have things to say, and it seems I can't stop saying them. Yet I'm still trying to overcome the doubt. I wonder if I'm sending out the right messages to be heard, to be understood, to be shared. I wonder if my message is worth sharing.

Doubt is the path to madness. I need to express something, and words are my chosen medium. I want my young friend to make it as a dancer partly because I want to see someone make it without that fallback career plan. I want someone to not be touched by the doubt. I can't say that's me - I have one of those pieces of paper to represent a fallback career. Did it help me? It has shaped who I am, but I can't always say that it made me better.

Eye of the Beholder

Do you remember when your mother was the most beautiful woman in the world?

I witnessed a small girl, maybe 4 or 5, who looked at her mother and said, "You're beautiful!" Her mother smiled. Gave the child a hug. Yet something in the mother's eyes made me wonder what she really thought.

The earnest words of a child can be so powerful. Parents are supposed to think their children are beautiful. That was something I always believed as a child. But is the opposite also true? That the children are supposed to believe the parents are beautiful?

I have no doubt the little girl believed her words. Did the mother? Is it something peculiar about the person to believe or not believe the words spoken?

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Women, especially, seem to fixate on their flaws. It's part of the problem with family. Can you look at someone who looks so much like you, a daughter, a mother, and see the beauty despite those pieces that you hate? It's a nose, eyes too close together, or even simple color.

There was a photo of my mother in a dress, hands on the column of a patio. Her smile showed her happiness, though I don't know when or where the picture was taken. I've heard her since lament her flaws, but I don't see them.

Is this the human part of the condition, where one is not allowed to see the beauty without vanity? That women cannot see it within themselves? Is it our culture, or is it something deeper?

More Art to Spark ... Something.

Art proves there's more to nudity than just porn. Too often that difference seems to be confused. Flesh doesn't have to be sexy. And there is more to flesh than simply the form we're accustomed to in everyday life.

Sometimes I check out the art to change my perception. It's one reason I love to do artistic things as a hobby. Twisting words is one thing, but the images sitting in front of you will change how you look and feel about everything.

Wax representations of flesh to create statements? (Suppose I ought to pass on the 'grotesque' warning.)

Paint nude bodies to match your canvas?

Use water to distort yourself for a selfie? (NSFW)

I admit that last one looks fun, but it might just be because I like to swim. It also says I've been spending too much time reading art news and not enough with my editing projects. Time to get in gear.

May spring come soon! This winter has been too long, too cold.

The Great Wall of Vagina

It's not safe for work. It can be really hard to tell, with a title like that. Somehow I'm the kind of person who texts a few friends to make certain the Great Wall of Vagina (and other awesome things like that) get around.

The comments really say a lot about this piece of art. Why don't women think they look normal? What is it that makes women so nervous about their intimate bits?

Another interesting part to note is under education. They highlight identical twin sisters, female-to-male and male-to-female transgender individuals, and labiaplasty.

Just look. Think about it. The controversy centers around the subject matter - whether this is art of porn - but see what else you can take away from that.

http://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/

Sex and Gender

Once, I was reading an advice bit from an erotica author (not professional). At the time, I had so much trouble figuring out the real issues I had with what she said.

She said she had written stories from different points of view: straight woman, gay woman, straight man, gay man. And that meant she had done it all.

Gender is a spectrum. So often people view it as a box to be checked. If not one, then the other. It's just like viewing everything in black and white- and there are therapists out there to help people deal with that difficulty.

The Kinsey Scale was one of the first to explore this idea, that there was not just a heterosexual and homosexual category, but that people might be better categorized by points on a line.

I laughed when one of my acquaintances talked about how he'd go bi for Antonio Banderas, but I love that he's comfortable enough with himself to say it. So many men don't seem to be. And yet most of the women I know have that one admission even if they're straight.

Which makes me think about our society. Why is that permissible for women and not for men? Why has it been more okay for women to have a list of other women that they find fascinating, but men refuse to admit any feelings of the sort for other men?

(Except, of course, that women are amazing, awesome creatures.)

Oh, and now I have a topic for more research: What does it say about a person (call him Guy) when he's attracted to a specific attribute? What does it mean when Guy decides it's okay to break gender norms (meaning what he normally finds attractive) for one other - like Antonio Banderas? And what does that choice say about Guy?

There are a lot more things in my head about that. Sex doesn't just happen in twos. Sex doesn't just happen between a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Sex isn't always monogamous or exclusive. And gender doesn't have to be the only factor. Some people are not comfortable identifying with either - it goes so much deeper than just what genitals are attached to a body. Which makes that a topic for another post... soon.

Beginning September

Ever have those thoughts of doing something and not understanding what holds you back from completing it? September begins and it is a good time to start new goals, tackle projects on hold, and generally getting back into the routine.

For your reading pleasure: http://www.mid-day.com/news/2013/jan/200113-hatke-news-scotland-library-free-pole-dancing-lessons.htm
You have to love a library that will encourage readers in almost any way possible - so long as the books aren't damaged as tennis table bats.

Thinly Veiled Autobiography

A book brings expectations. When I open a book, it's about a story. When I write, it's the same thing. Each character has a personality and a challenge to overcome.

I know one of the clichéd pieces of writing advice is "write what you know," but that doesn't mean every story needs to be taken directly from the writer's life. There are pieces of truth and pieces of other things woven together to make great fiction. The pieces one person picks out as the truth become the piece that someone else believes can't be true.

From time to time I run into writers who seem to write thinly veiled autobiography. Fiction isn't as complicated as truth. We can't believe what really happened, but we have to believe in fiction. An author needs to tie up the loose ends at the end of the story. Books don't generally run through endless characters for one use - they'll trim them down to use one best friend for several purposes and one antagonist in many cases.

Why do I say seem? I heard a writer not long ago substitute his own name for his protagonist's. Another one talked about his protagonist as "a mix of himself and his best friend" but the protagonist's name was one letter from his own. I've also heard "but it really happened that way."

I wonder if that leads many readers to think that some part of this truth that writers need to express in story must be what really happened. They look at my stories and they look at me and they might wonder. All I can do is try not to let it get to me, and if they ask - tell them it isn't true. At least not what they're asking.

Fiction is fooling the audience into believing something is real that isn't. If I do that, I'm a successful writer. Can I fool you? I hope so.

Pen Names

Have you looked much within the erotica genre? It is littered with pen names and supposed pen names. While that isn't bad, it might say something about our culture.

What I wonder, with the unmasking of pen names on such a frequent basis, is why we choose them. J. K. Rowling thought she was safe with a pen name - and she was for a few months. One leak into the right journalist's ear, and suddenly there is a hunt for proof through experts to check on the phrasing used in each of the books she's written lately - the last Harry Potter book, Casual Vacancy, and Cuckoo's Calling.

Seems like a lot of effort. Right, it's J. K. Rowling, one of the most well-known and wealthy authors in the world. So she's worth it, when maybe a small nobody who publishes a few erotica stories.

But if you make it big, like E. L. James, someone else will want to see right through you.

Does that make some authors strive for the midlist? Does it make some authors pause before trying to send work out? Does it make someone happy to rip off the mask? Happier than the authors who had their bliss removed?

Life as a writer isn't easy. We pursue the stories we have to tell. It is not something happy people do. Happy people go play with their kids and their spouses and go to parties and have fun. Writers stick themselves alone in dark corners and scribble into notebooks. [Those who have entered the digital age might be typing into a computer, phone, or other device.]

Life as a writer with a pen name doesn't get better. Can you imagine trying to tell the people closest to you that you write, you have a pen name, and you don't want everyone to know? Why wouldn't you want everyone to know? It might not be a good move in your career. It might not be something you're willing to share because it's too personal. It might be a reason that most people cannot understand or aren't willing to sit through an explanation.

Some writers have many names. They use them for branding and to direct readers to one set of novels or another. Sometimes they list their different versions of a name - whether they were found out from a secret or if the pen name wasn't a secret at all - on their bio pages. Some writers use pen names to get away from connotations with other real people, other real writers. Imagine if your name were King or Rowling or Roberts - and you wrote in a different genre from the famous writer? Some people will find enough of a reason there to change into a different version of their names.

Some, but not all. Next time you pick up a book and read through the author's page, are you going to wonder if that was the name the writer was born with? And, really, does it matter?

A Struggle Within

I've never had a lot of family, and my friends have filled those voids for me. Which is good, because it seems like the family members I can manage to coexist with are far away or passed away.

I know I've been quiet on the blog lately, and it is all a struggle within my mind. There are good days and bad days and days when I wish I wasn't me and days that I wouldn't be anyone else for anything.

My home has always been within fiction. The stories I want to share are always bubbling free. The problem is that the story I want to tell these days isn't fiction. That said, I abhor memoirs. And yet as I turn the pieces together, nothing else will fit. Some stories do not translate to fiction. I also refuse to go the route of saying, "Here, read this pile of fifteen stories to understand." And it would take an unknown number of stories, because fiction simply doesn't translate the same way nonfiction does. Coherence of story matters. (At least, to me.)

The other struggle with writing a memoir is that I don't remember everything. I see flashes here and flashes there and only creative nonfiction would fill in the gaps necessary to make it understandable.

Is it worth telling a story that gets more complicated the more you remember? It's bad enough a friend of mine looked at me this week and simply stated, "You're complicated." I'm pretty sure that isn't a compliment, but thanks, dude. Doesn't matter if I try to be an open book, if I try to be someone simple. It doesn't work for me.

Honesty may be the best policy, but less can also be more. Simple questions should have simple answers. I know it always frustrated my father when he would ask me questions that seemed like it would have a yes or no answer, and I'd come back with something like green. All I can say is, it made sense at the time. To me, and me alone.

This month, today, both are significant to me. I struggle with mental illness, and the first signs of it (at least, confirmed from someone outside myself) were about seventeen years ago this month. Diagnosis followed slowly, about seven years ago. It's forever, and yet it's yesterday. I know I've been irrational with a side of paranoia lately, and I'm hoping to move past that for a time. How much is always unclear.

Maybe the memoir idea will fade and I'll be able to concentrate on editing that story I've been meaning to finish.

I saw a quote today by Terri Main. "You are a writer. The 'normal' ship sailed without you long ago."